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News 12 Staff

MainSt530a0419NJLE_2024-04-19-05-51-51

Well, it is Friday in time for main street, New Jersey this morning. Lauren do is in South River. Yeah, she's at a Brazilian cafe right now. Lauren. This family business has been around for five years. Five years. Simon Nick, we have in making a, what are you making for us? There's a hot dog over there. Yes. What is it? Half a pound of a hot dog that is a hund, a hot dog right there and look at this kitchen is so clean. Thank you. This is Rico Duche because that's your husband. Yes, it's my husband. There you go. He was a little shy of fame rich. We're gonna have you go through the front because your decor is so great. Thank you. It's like the cowboy theme. We have the door. Your son is working in the front too. What's it like? Working with your parents? Honestly? Not too. It's overall pretty good experience. I've been here for around like a year and a half now. So, you know, it makes the bonds a little bit closer. If that makes sense. It totally does. And I love this story. So how did it start? You just, you were going down the steps. I was just trying to use the bathroom, trying to do my business. And then my mom was like, oh, guess what? We have a position open and now I've been here for a year and a half. So Joyce, you've been so much fun hanging out with you and you've been around for five years, which means you went through COVID. How was COVID? Like for, for you? Um COVID, it was very hard for everyone. But when we bought this place, we don't have a choice to close this place. Then we decide to be open just for pick up. And the construction people were so happy because nobody around was open and we are the only business in town open. Then we're happy that we can help them and they help us too. Yeah. The construction people really helped you going and you're helping us go. We did the sandwiches last half hour. What is on this side? OK. We do. You have uh the poo poo is a cheese bread. OK. So Brazilian bites Brazilians. Yes. And we have also the empanadas, uh beef, chicken and cheese, empanadas. It's very popular in here and this is the very popular in South River. Cochin. Cochin is like a soft dough with a chicken inside and our is from Brazil and we do also serve as amazing. Well, thank you for having us this morning. Thank you. So you have customers here. We have the mayor, we have the chief of police. Everyone's hanging out with us this morning. We're in South River Lauren. Do you saw New Jersey?

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MainSt6a0419NJLE

For main street, New Jersey on this Friday. We are in South River. Yeah, Lauren has been visiting local businesses there. She's staying with the food. The Lauren. Are you at a cafe? But I just found out that it's still, still a happy birth so much. Oh, my God. What a birth. This is very, very good. It's a thank you so much. All right. So we have the mayor of the police that she thank you. Thank you so much. It's a the best gift I get I have. That's beautiful. So tell me about your place. Ok. We were opening in um 2011 during 2011. 13 years right now. Yes. And we're so happy. We trying to uh make it Portuguese and Brazilian stuff and you have a lot and thank you for taking the time. It's quiet now. I think everyone got scared. Everyone tried to clear out because no one wants to be on TV. But you're busy. You open up at 430 in the morning. Yeah, 430 in the morning to 57 days a week. That's incredible. So what do you have? Explain all the pastries that we have some of the popular ones especially for the bread. Started with the bread. The first one is a Portuguese from Brazil all the way. And the second is a very famous in Portugal. They call gramma bread and croissants and uh with uh milk, they called sweet croissants. They make with the milk and coconut with vanilla cream. I love coconut and you gotta have those right. Everyone loves this nata. And the next nata is from the cao they call chicken cheese bread. It's very famous in Brazil. So you order here and if you can't come in here, you have Grubhub and doordash and you pay over here and you have some of the the items too. There's a lot of Suo over here. They call Brigade. This is very famous in Brazil too. And then all of these yes cos rejoices, empanadas a lot of smiley faces here this morning. We love to see that, especially when it's super early this morning. God is happy, well, happy birthday and thanks for, thanks for taking a break out of your day to come. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I really appreciate. We're in South River Lauren, Du. He's still in New Jersey.

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MainSt630a0419NJLE

It is Friday in time for main Street, New Jersey this morning. Our Lauren de is in South River. So Lauren, what are you showing us now? Ok. So now we're going to show you an established business and one that's to come. I have the mayor here. Thanks for having us this morning. Thank you for coming on that. So you may, I just got newly elected four months and I've been part of the council for about four terms. Um It's time for a change as you see that we're moving forward in the main street as we're on. Yeah, unfortunately, we're on main street and uh it's kind of quiet right now, but uh our intentions, our vision, our ambition is to make main street a happening uh to uh town in time. Of course, uh like right behind us, we have new Fresh Market, uh uh sorry, a new city Fresh Market, which is a business that opened up five years ago and it's been going strong. They have a great butcher shop. Let's bring in, we'll bring in the owner. Now, I heard you're pretty well known this, your shop that you have. Why do you think that, uh, just the services and fresh meat and people get whatever they need for the everyday use and more convenient, nice parking in the back. So it helps. We love when parking is involved. And also customer service must be great. Exactly. So, we have a, a well known business here and then across the street, tell us what's going on here because there are some empty storefronts. There is a lot coming to our on main street. Uh, you're looking at the old, uh, uh, first National Bank, which is, was the BNC Bank. Uh, they closed down back in COVID. Um, throughout the years, we have been trying to figure out what they want to do with it. Now, they have a proposed 47 units coming which is still in the, in the works, but it looks like it's going to be cracking ground by the end of this year with commercial obviously at the bottom. And as you look down Main Street, we have a lot of abandoned buildings, but we are working with the homeowner or say the business owners, for example, Applebee, uh, they had a huge fire over the summer. She's gonna rebuild, which I'm happy to see that she's moving forward on it where it's gonna become hopefully a four story building with commercial as well. And I just got the quick wrap, but we have to get this in because this is gonna be, it's gonna be huge for South River uh Sabri which is a huge, huge Portuguese uh uh market that's coming to South River. Really? Yeah, I'm so happy to announce that it's gonna be coming. Hopefully by the end of the year, we're gonna be breaking ground where it's a whole corner is gonna be redeveloped. Uh The opening uh um to South River gateway, I should say uh South River main street is going to be a happening town. Oh, there it is. I'm looking forward to it and we're excited to be here for it and we're gonna continue to walk around main street guys. We're in South River Lauren de New New Jersey.

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MainSt7a0419NJLE_2024-04-19-07-36-27

And on this Friday it is main street, New Jersey this morning. We're in South River. Yeah, Lauren has been highlighting local businesses. Lauren, what are you showing us now? Oh, that looks delicious. Yeah, all of this food are hanging out with the Zoli guys. We got Joe Joe here, the police chief, the mayor. We, we're all ready to go this morning, Jojo, what's going on? What's going on? Um I'm just gonna tell you guys a little bit of history about the Zeppoli guys. Um You know, we started back in around the sixties, seventies. My dad's third generation, I'm fourth generation. Uh we started back on Mulberry Street like I said in the sixties and seventies. Um Right now we got a bunch of food on the table uh to show you guys. Um you know, I've been doing this since I'm 13 years old. It's a great business to have. Um me and my dad take a lot of pride in the food that we cook and we love to put a smile on people's faces at festivals, at events, even when they come into the store. We love putting people's uh smiles on people's faces. Um And you know, I just love what I do. Um This is gonna be my ideal life for the rest of my life. I love working in the store. I love working with people and I just love cooking food for people and you know, the excitement is just really there for me. Um That's great. We have a lot of smiley faces right in front of you 100%. Uh Over here, you know, we got some cakes. Um We also got some calzones. Uh We got an egg but your dad is saying this is purgatory eggs because I'm like what you could do eggs and Marinara, you know, you can do whatever you want to do with the Zeppoli guys. You know, so we got a tray of Zeppole, of course, because we are the Zeppo guys. That is our main. So what is it for someone that doesn't know, photographer? I know. So Zeppoli is, you know, it's deep fried dough. It's a yeast risen dough. Um The recipe for the dough is 100 years old. Um You know, there's only me and my dad who really know how to make it. And uh everybody asks, can we learn how to make it? No, you can't. We would have to kill you so real quick because we, we have to re you but just rattle up what we got that? We got uh stuffed Zeppos with cannoli cream or nutella. We have a regular cannolis. Yeah, we got a, um, egg and peppers and onions and potato sandwich and you still have more food coming out for food coming out. All right. Well, good because we got another, another segment that we got here because there's so much food. Right? You know the Zippo guys in South River Lauren Du, he's from New Jersey. Look at this. Someone's got to come down and eat all this.

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MainSt730a0419NJLE_2024-04-19-07-52-04

Friday time for main street, New Jersey this morning we are in South River. Yeah, our Lauren do has been checking out local businesses. She's making us a little jealous with some of the things that she's showing off when it comes to food. Lauren, what are you showing us now? So much? Bird here. Hey, Joe, what's going on? Joe Lauren de, it's Joe from the ZEP guys live here in New Jersey today in South River. I'm here with Mayor Pete Gindi and the chief of police is here today with us with Lauren De. We're having great fun with my son Jojo. We're gonna kick it over to him and show you some of the great food we have for lunch today. There you go, Jojo. Where's Jojo at? You guys? They're like trained professionals here. What's going on Jojo? You guys? We really did. We really did. Yes, we did. Um You know, we got, my dad's been doing this his whole life. We got pictures on the wall right here from where it all started on Mulberry Street. Times have changed since the last time of these pictures. You got three Zeppos for 25 cents. You can't even get that. You can't even get one Zeppo for 25 cents. Let me look at the, the price. I'm looking at everyone's hairstyle. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The, the hairstyles, the clothes totally different from nowadays. But what I got over here on the table for you guys today right now, we got some chicken tenders and fries. We got some bang bang shrimp. Everybody loves our sauce that bang bang sauce is made in house. We got two of our famous chicken cutlet sandwiches. You got a chicken colored hero with sweet peppers, mozzarella and lettuce. Then you also got another chicken colored sandwich with lettuce tomato mayo. We got our cheese steak sandwich right here. Our signature cheesesteak sandwich. You can get that on any one of our trucks. Everybody loves that. We also have a sausage hero. We call this the bottom bing sausage hero. It's hot and sweet sausage. All of our sandwiches and meals come with French fries. You can get cheese fries, you can get ketchup with it. Anything that you want ba bing jojo, where can people find you? Because I just wanna, I just wanna hear, hear you talk all day. You can find us in South River, New Jersey. The address is 37 Jackson Street in South River, New Jersey. We are open currently from Wednesday to Sunday from 1130 to 7 every day that we're open and you got an Instagram account too. We do have an Instagram. Go check us out at the Zeppoli guys on Instagram. You will see me all over the Instagram page. And again, we got Joe, Joe, Joe and Bar. Thanks for having us. We're the Zeppoli guys. It's in South River Lauren News. 12 New Jersey.

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MainSt8a0419NJLE_2024-04-19-09-12-05

And we head back to South River this morning for Main Street, New Jersey. Yeah, our Lauren de is checking out a seafood restaurant. Lauren, yes, I look at the crew that I have behind me. We're at the Portuguese fishermen. I have the police chief, the mayor, Mark. I mean, this is amazing what you have here. It's huge. Thank you. Welcome to the Portuguese fishermen guys. Yeah. What do you have here? So we've been here since 1976. We are a community staple, an institution one would say that come in um focus primarily on Portuguese food, right? We do the class six, the Sangria, the shrimp and garlic. But we also do our specials really well. Big old oso buco huge portions is what we're known for. Um And yeah, the place is, is the love of my life, right? And you know what? And it's sad. What happened is you're a Sandy rebuild and it looks amazing in here now. Yeah. Sandy was a blessing and a curse. Um We ended up having about 6 ft of water inside the building in total, but it was a blessing in that. We got to redo the entire place and as you can check out the digs, they're pretty nice. Yeah, it's really nice in here. Mayor Chief of Police. Thanks for coming around with us. I mean, we're really looking forward to once again. Thank you guys for coming. This has been a huge success, especially for News 12 to be here to see what our town has to show Portuguese fishermen has always been a landmark with all the other delis that you have seen in the past or in the last past hour. It's been a great, amazing. Well, it's been a lot of fun guys. Um We gotta get some forks for the chief of police for the matter because Mark you and I, we're cheers in. Here we go. Cheers, cheers to South River. Here we go. We're in South River this morning, Lauren Dune, East 12 of New Jersey.

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From traditional Portuguese dishes to a Brazilian café, South River has it all.

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