Part of a continuing series about places to explore in the Garden State.
You don’t go to the Oldwick General Store for the food, you go for a drive in the country and for the atmosphere. It’s only about a 45 minute drive from Baristaville, but with the blazing white country church right across the street, you’ll feel like you’re in a small New England town.
The store, which functions more as a deli and grill than it does a general store, offers counter service. They’ll make you a sandwich, a burger, an omelette or a salad. You put in your order, choose one of the small cozy rooms to sit in (some of which will remind you of a much higher-priced country tavern) and then they call your name. Or you can look around in the front room, where lanterns and boots hang from the ceiling, where you pour yourself a cup of coffee, buy a paper, look in the bakery case or buy an Oldwick General Store t-shirt to take home.
People in the area treat the Oldwick General Store like we do Cafe Eclectic or Starbucks: a place to hang out and meet friends, or just chill for a couple hours reading the paper. But you can go there and sit all day with a laptop, working on the Great American Novel and no one will mind. And since this is the country, there are no worries about parking. There’s a generous lot right behind the store.Afterwards, wander up the street to the Julian Gage Home Collection, an antiques store lodged in a converted church.
For more history of the inn, check out this fourth grader’s paper on the most historic place in his town.
You can find it all here.
Lets talk…
. Let’s chat..
… Let’s do lunch
Oldwick?
It’s like sending someone from the main page to forums.
Why would anyone do it?
It’s funny, my aunt has worked at the General Store forever and my cousin just recently started working there as well. I’ve never had the desire to go and eat there until now.
Oldwick looks like a lovely, charming, extremely Caucasian place to retire when the kids leave home, and you are fed up with Montclair taxes and $5 mochalattefrappafrothachococcinos.
Time to pull out those green plaid slacks with the beltline under your nipples.
have been going there for years. great area. go in the fall for apple picking.
Oldwick sounds great. We love to take rides out into the wilds of New Jersey and go antiquing and exploring. This sounds like a great place and we haven’t happened to go there before.
The essay about the general store by the 4th grader is quite impressive for someone that age!
Old wick…isn’t that what the pantsuit obsessed guy has in his pants?
For automotive enthusiasts, there are lots of great country backroads to explore in that area. Just stay off Route 78 and 22. You’ll see lots of equestrian sites, farmland, large private estates surrounded by acres of undeveloped land, quiet small towns, and up in the sky sometimes gliders and hot air balloons. Employment note: Merck has its headquarters in nearby Whitehouse, and Goldman-Sachs just bought a property for IT staff out there, too.
I’m confused- Goldman Sachs is now in the real estate business?
GOLDMAN SACHS GETS BOARD’S OK
By Amy S. Bobrowski
The Courier-News Staff Writer
Thursday, March 01, 2007
BRIDGEWATER — The Planning Board Monday night approved a site plan waiver to allow Goldman Sachs to renovate and complete a minor expansion to a vacant office building.
The global investment banking, securities and investment management firm will turn the former Olivetti office and ware house building on Route 202 into a data center facility. The single-story 233,742-square-foot building sits on a 43 acre site that was previously approved in 2003 for an addition that would have brought the total complex size to 514,253 square feet. Goldman Sachs will replace the approved development and renovate the existing building into a 266,000-square-foot data storage facility with outside utility yards.
Dino Fusco, who manages the company’s real estate portfolio, said Bridgewater facility will hold backup computer equipment. The location presented itself as an opportune site for the data center for several reasons including its proximity to offices in Manhattan, its size and the makeup and safety of the surrounding area, Fusco said.
The building will be staffed 24 hours by about 35 employees over three shifts. Only about 10,000 square feet is allocated for employee use. The balance of space will be used to house technical equipment.
Fusco hopes to get the data center up and running by early 2009.
The previously approved application also called for an access way to the site from Milltown Road, which was a point of contention among area residents. The Goldman Sachs application eliminates that access. With the new application, impervious coverage would be reduced to 25 percent, as opposed to the 38 percent proposed in the previously approved office/warehouse application. Parking will also be reduced to about 80 from more than 1,000 spaces.
The center’s two utility yards will hold generators, fuel pumps, transformers and cooling equipment. The yards will be screened by 10-foot sound-absorbing walls.