Retail Roundup: Woodbury Common's new tenants to include taco joint, bakery

Woodbury is about to get dirtier.

Popular Long Island eatery Dirty Taco and Tequila is one of four businesses planning to open new locations in the Woodbury Common shopping center at 8285 Jericho Tpke. by the first quarter of 2021.

The other newcomers will be Great Harvest Bread Co., eco-friendly nail salon pH7 and boutique fitness studio Burn Boot Camp, said Neal Kaplan, partner in Kabro Associates, the Woodbury-based real estate firm that owns the shopping center.

Built in 1974, Woodbury Common is an 85,000-square-foot shopping center that historically has offered high-end or boutique shops but has changed over the last three years to offer more service-based tenants, such as salons and restaurants, he said.

The shopping center is now 95% occupied or leased, despite challenges that many businesses have faced after months of state-mandated shutdowns because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaplan said.

“So far, so good. I’ve been able to keep most of my tenants. I’m helping some where they need it.  But we’ll have to see what happens in the future,” he said.

Here’s the rundown on the incoming tenants:

Burn Boot Camp: The fitness studio will be taking a 3,000-square-foot space in Woodbury Common that Capital One Bank vacated last year, Kaplan said. The studio is expected to open in January or February, he said.

Burn Boot Camp's operators are likely among the gym and fitness studio owners across the state hoping to hear some good news from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Monday.  Cuomo on Friday said he would issue protocols Monday for the reopening of gyms.

Gyms and fitness studios have been closed statewide since at least March 16, when Cuomo ordered them to shutter in order to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

Burn Boot Camp, a Huntersville, North Carolina-based company, did not respond to a request for comment.

Founded in 2012, the chain has more than 400 franchise locations in 38 states, according to its website. There are no Burn Boot Camps on Long Island, but the website says a studio is “coming soon” to 910 Franklin Ave. in Garden City.

Dirty Taco and Tequila: The business' third restaurant is scheduled to open Aug. 26 in Woodbury, co-owner Tom Cataldo Jr. said.  The Woodbury restaurant will move into a space vacated by Onsen Sushi in 2019, Kaplan said.

The 2,000-square-foot restaurant, which will have patio seating, should reduce some of the crowds at Dirty Taco’s other two locations — a 2-year-old spot in Wantagh and a 1-year-old location in Rockville Centre, he said. The new restaurant, which was planned before the pandemic, was supposed to open in July, but was delayed because of the health crisis, he said.

Business has been booming at Dirty Taco’s two restaurants — sales are at least 30% higher than they were a year earlier, Cataldo said. 

“These lines since the pandemic and since everything has been reopened have been a mile long at this point. It’s insane,” said Cataldo, 33, who said the restaurants added outdoor seating during the pandemic.

He attributes Dirty Taco’s popularity to its affordable prices, welcoming atmosphere and unique menu that fuses Asian and Mexican fare.

“We treat every single person like they’re part of our family,” said the East Setauket resident, whose mother, AnnMarie Cataldo, is his business partner, and father, Tom Cataldo Sr., is director of operations.

Great Harvest Bread Co.: The bakery and café will open in early 2021 in a 2,500-square-foot space in Woodbury Common, said Nimesh Patel, who will co-own the franchise with his wife, Natasha.

“We just love the food.  We love the bread,” he said.

Great Harvest in Woodbury Common will share a building with Dirty Taco and offer patio seating.  The café will take over a space vacated in 2017 by Andrea’s 25, an Italian restaurant.

Founded in 1976 as a bakery, Great Harvest is headquartered in Dillon, Montana, and has nearly 200 locations, all but one of which are franchises, said President Eric Keshin, an Oyster Bay native.

The Woodbury eatery will be the only Great Harvest in New York state when it opens, but the chain used to have several locations upstate.

The Patels, who are Roslyn Heights residents, have exclusive franchise rights for most of Nassau County, said Nimesh Patel, 38.

He and his wife will open two more restaurants if the Woodbury eatery is successful, he said.

Great Harvest plays up its fresh, preservative-free bread, sandwiches and other food in its marketing.

“We make our bread from scratch every day using carefully selected wheat grown in Montana's Golden Triangle,” the website says.

Franchisees must buy wheat from Montana farms and mill it into flour inside stores, and food that is more than 36 hours old is not allowed to be sold in stores, Keshin said.

pH7: The eco-friendly nail and sugar waxing salon will open this fall in a 1,500-square-foot space beside a blow-dry salon, Drybar, that opened in March 2019, Kaplan said. The nail and hair salons are splitting space that had been occupied by another salon, he said.

The company did not respond to a request for comment.

Retail Roundup is a column about major retail news on Long Island — store openings, closings, expansions, acquisitions, etc. — that is published online and in the Monday paper. To read more of these columns, click here. If you have news to share, please send an email to Newsday reporter Tory N. Parrish at tory.parrish@newsday.com.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.