Business & Tech

Haddonfield's Little Tuna Not So Little Anymore

With the departure of Forever Young (formerly Jamaican Me Crazy), the seafood eatery and steakhouse is expanding next door and opening a fresh fish market and butcher shop.

The Little Tuna restaurant in Haddonfield is expanding into the storefront next door that used to be Forever Young Emporium and Jamaican Me Crazy.

The restaurant is located at 141 Kings Highway East and it will annex the store front at 139 Kings Highway East, according to Remi Fortunato, the retail recruiter for the Partnership for Haddonfield (PfH) business improvement district (BID).

"They're going to have a fresh fish and butchered meat market there and it will be the new entrance to the restaurant," Fortunato said.

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"It will have a theme like a butcher shop from the 1920s, with clerks with long, white aprons and white tiles on the walls. It will help fill a void in town for fresh fish since Haddonfield Shellfish closed last year," she said.

Haddonfield Shellfish, on Grove Street, is now a Goodwill donation dropoff center.

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Fortunato said the restaurant will also feature a 42-foot-long awning across the combined storefronts.

The renovations are expected to cost more than $80,000, Fortunato said. Last week, PfH approved a $3,450 grant to The Little Tuna owners to help pay for fit-out, as well as $2,800 for one month of rent. PfH also signed off on $1,500 for construction costs, which will be paid over two years.

Those funds are derived from a borough-levied BID tax.

Forever Young Emporium closed in January after an 11-year run as a novelty and gift shop. It was known for most of that time as Jamaican Me Crazy.

Its owners, Haddonfield residents Gary and Nina Reses, are relocating the business to the Glassboro campus of Rowan University. Gary Reses was a PfH member until his recent resignation. PfH also lost Deena Gersh to resignation; both were replaced on the body by Kathy Gold of In the Kitchen cooking school and Kathryn Simon of A Taste of Olive.


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