Helena is the founder of The Urban Garden Companion, a multimedia urban garden design platform. Featuring eco-conscious, low-maintenance, space-savvy designs, with an emphasis on environmental support and solutions to overdevelopment in an urban landscape. As an advocate and spokesperson for “growing” natural—using only time tested, organic practices—her mission is to inspire others to get a little dirty and live a sustainable, greener life.

Helena Gouros

Founder of The Urban Garden Companion

[email protected]

www.theurbangardencompanion.com

Diesel and Duke – Jersey City (389 Monmouth Street) is an American restaurant that serves mouthwatering burgers, poutine, fries, and desserts (fried Oreos). We offer take out, delivery or swing by to eat in and enjoy our free WiFi. Vegetarian options available!

One of the Village neighborhood’s secret gems is Zahara Day Spa at 403 Monmouth St., which opened in January 2013. If owner and aesthetician Najat Hafdi gets her way, though, it won’t be much of a secret for long.

Hafdi grew up in Morocco watching and learning from her mother, the community’s go-to aesthetician, the woman everyone would run to with their burns and blemishes. She followed in her mom’s footsteps and has been a skin care specialist for over 20 years.

“I really, really do enjoy my job,” said Nafdi. “I enjoy making women beautiful, I love when the skin responds beautifully–I love what I do. I get a kick from it.”

At the holistic and organic spa, which uses fruit- and plant-based products, Hafdi offers a full range of services including facials, body treatments, massage and waxing.

“One thing you need to know about me and my approach as a spa owner and aesthetician is that you need your skin to look good. When you get an oil massage or when you wax yourself and feel clean–I don’t want that to be seen as ‘pampering.’ It’s not. It’s something we need and it’s part of our well-being,” she said.

“People also think of massages as ‘pampering,’ but no, it’s a relief. It helps circulation, it even helps people with cancer…it’s very important for the body.”

She says the spa’s emphasis on natural products and dedication to treating skin with kindness sets it apart.

“Don’t force the skin to do something,” she said. “You have to take it really easy, slowly and surely. If you try to force the skin to do something, you may ruin it with harsh treatments like microdermabrasion. It takes the easiest touch; less is more.”

Hafdi, who also lives in the Village, has high hopes for the up-and-coming neighborhood and wants to help both old and new residents be their best selves.

“This area has a lot of new things coming and is really different. I thought (when I opened) that it would be really cool and really nice to open a holistic, organic spa for people maybe interested in something different,” she said.

“I want to produce more good products for the community, I want our business to get known so we can make more jobs and…I love when everybody is looking good and feeling good. Everyone deserves to be happy about their skin and how they look.”

Zahara Day Spa is located at 403 Monmouth St. For more information, visit ZaharaDaySpa.com or call 201-533-9300.

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Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

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Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

Jersey City Kickboxing owner Paul Clark says that at his gym, students are more than students–they’re family.

Kids, teens and adults who take classes at the gym don’t just get healthy and fit or train to compete, they also get to bond with Clark, his staff and each other.

For instance, Assistant Trainer Anna Gizulewski tutors some of her younger students and helps them with their homework, and several of the gym members get together a couple times a month to boxing matches or Friday karaoke nights at nearby Lamp Post Bar and Grille.

“I want to get involved in my students’ lives and care about them,” said Clark. “It’s a relaxed environment here…we have a lot of parents and kids who train together. We also have many at-risk teens who come in after school and it gives us a chance to help them out.”

Clark’s family approach is partially inspired by how he got his own start in muay thai while growing up in Atlanta.

“My dad basically started me when I was four years old, so I’ve been doing it for 31 years now,” he said. “I had to do kickboxing every day, most times twice a day. I’ve competed both nationally and internationally, and trained over the past five years going back and forth to Thailand.”

Clark fell in love with the sport because it allowed him to push himself to new heights.

“I like that it keeps you young and healthy, and gives you a healthy respect for yourself and other people as well as self-confidence that you know you earned because no one did it for you,” he said. “It’s like learning the guitar–you have to put the work in yourself.”

As a coach at his own gym, Clark says he helps his approximately 100 students get those same benefits, as well as accomplish their personal goals.

“There are people who want to lose weight and just study the basics and do exercises to get in shape. I had one couple who lost 100 pounds a piece and over 60 people who lost over 30 pounds in three to six months.

“I also have some younger people in their mid-20s to early-30s who spar and train very hard, but are also working professionals, so they’re not interested in competing but do it to get in shape and get out aggression. And then we also have adults and teens who compete all over the New Jersey-New York area,” he said.

In all his classes, Clark tries to stay faithful to the martial art’s origins.

“One thing really different about my gym is that I really strive for (teaching) muay thai boxing like they do in Thailand, in regards to the environment and what you learn, we’re different from other martial arts. We don’t wear uniforms and bow to each other; we have a family atmosphere,” he said, adding that they also take biannual trips to Thailand train in a traditional camp in Bangkok and also explore Thai culture.

For Clark, the gym’s family dynamic is much like that of the Village and Downtown Jersey City in general.

“I like that I know my neighbors. I’m friends with my students and fellow business owners. I get coffee and breakfast every morning at Gia Gelato, fish from Jersey Avenue and all my equipment needs from the Downtown Hardware store.

“It helps to know who your neighbors are. We financially support each other, emotionally support each other, watch out for each other’s businesses and watch out for each other’s kids. It’s nice.”

Jersey City Kickboxing is located at 124 Brunswick St. For more information, call 201-539-1333 or visit NJKickbox.com.

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Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

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Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

Passing by the Dwyer home, 369 Third St., in the Village neighborhood, you might notice that it’s a little different from the other houses nearby. For one thing, part of its ground floor is home to the Lil’ Brick Schoolhouse childcare center run by matriarch Renee and also doubles as the Mary Benson Gallery, a venue for art exhibits, pop-up shops and other events.

Its best-kept secret, however, is in the back portion of its first floor, which is the workshop for Warlock Drums, a small business that’s gaining international attention.

Joe Dwyer, 57, a teacher at PS #7 on Laidlaw Avenue, builds custom drums for jazz musicians and rock ‘n’ rollers from around the world with help from his son Joseph. By using different woods, angled edges and various craftsman tricks, Dwyer creates powerful drums with unique tones. Custom finishes and hardware ensure that his customers get exactly the look they want, too.

“They’re all handmade,” says Dwyer. “Our whole design and concept is about having the tone of the classic jazz drummers with the power and attack of the classic rock drummers. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing classic jazz or death metal. Our drums will suit your genre and never lose their tone.”

Dwyer, who’s been drumming across genres since he was 9, has high standards for his products.

“I build them the same way I would want them to sound for myself. I don’t let a set of drums leave the shop unless I would play them myself,” he says. “This to me is my passion. I love percussion, I love playing drums and I love building them…It’s just a part of my soul.”

Dwyer has created sets for big names like JC-favorite Winard Harper, Bobby Messano, Michael Peck, international rockabilly/punk band the Koffin Kats and others.

Even more orders have been rolling in since August 2013, when Warlock Drums was featured in a full-page spread in Modern Drummer magazine, a feat that Dwyer says is “almost unheard of for a brand new company.”

To accommodate the demand, the Dwyers are launching an online store where musicians can also buy Sabian cymbals, Gibraltar hardware as well as Latin Percussion and Toca Percussion hand drums.

They are also now hosting drum clinics at their Third Street space; the series kicked off with “Pistol” Pete Kaufmann this past November.

Dwyer, who’s lived his whole life in the Village, says he and his wife Renee hope Warlock Drums and their other business ventures can be part of the neighborhood’s Renaissance.

“I love it because I grew up here. I saw it in its heyday and saw its decline, and now have seen its rebound,” says Dwyer. “As a third-generation merchant in Jersey City (we go back over 100 years), to see the resurgence of the Village area means a lot to me personally.”

Warlock Drums is based at 369 Third St. For more information, call (201) 779-5893 or visit WarlockDrums.com

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Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

[/blockquote]

Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

DeCarlos Morse wants to make you look good.

The tailor, who opened DeCarlos Bespoke on Monmouth Street about five years ago, says he works with his clients to make custom suits that fit their body and their style.

“We keep it old school, the way they made it back in the 50’s and 60’s,” said Morse. “Now you don’t get the same experience (at other places), but we’re doing it to keep the experience alive. I am hands-on and I work with my clients, get to know them, and work from there to design a suit.”

Morse, a longtime Downtown Jersey City resident, has been tailoring for 20 years and was interested in fashion even as a kid in Virginia, watching his father work on draperies. Always a fan of tailored clothing, Morse worked his way through the fashion industry and worked for Alfred Dunhill, which brought him to the Greater Metropolitan Area.

Today, DeCarlos Bespoke offers reconstruction and custom design services, and once in a while, a bit of alteration. Also, while they focus on men’s clothing, he also has his fair share of women clients.

Morse knows where his priorities lies.

“I’m here to custom-make suits,” he said. “I educate people a little bit, and while I start taking measurements, they decide what details they want.

“And once they understand what they’re getting, the know they have to wait a little longer because they’re getting something from scratch. We use a lot of English cloth, some Italian, because we want a fabric that will last a long time. And overall it’s the difference between having a suit for two-and-a-half to three years and having one for 15 to 20 years.”

Nothing gives him more satisfaction, he said, than giving his customers a perfect finished product.

“I love it and they love it,” he said. “You can be creative and get something particularly just for you, and take the time to do something nice for yourself. It’s really something to see because a lot of these guys I feel didn’t know who they were before the suit, but then they get it and they really admire themselves. You have to be there to actually see it.”

Being in the Village neighborhood, he says, sweetens the deal.

“I specifically put my business here five years ago because I had a good feeling about it and I knew it was an untapped area in Downtown,” he said. “We have great people here and I can see this neighborhood coming into its own.”

DeCarlos Bespoke is located at 411 Monmouth St. For more information, visit DeCarlosBespoke.com or call 201-216-0770.

[blockquote width=’90’]

Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

[/blockquote]

Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

Union Republic, 340 Third St., one of the newest additions to the Village neighborhood, is a little wonder that owners Noah Sexton and chef Greg Torrech, 33 and 35, say has multiple functions.

“Union Republic is a grocer, it’s a cafe, it’s a playground for food,” said Sexton. “We are able to incorporate the work of so many people who are passionate about their individual crafts under one roof. I don’t know of any other establishment where else can you can eat Sun Noodles and have La Colombe Torrefaction espresso.”

Their new business venture, which opened November 2013, came more than a year after the short-lived glory of their previous restaurant, Modern American Eatery in Bergen-Lafayette, which opened in April 2012 to great response only to close in September that year due to business disputes. This time, while the duo is maintaining their passion and commitment for service, they’re trying a few new things.

“Our first inspiration for Union Republic came after meeting David Barry and Michael Darata at what was at the time a unfinished space on the ground floor of 340 Third Street. They explained their vision for URL (Urban Ready Living) which was nearing completion directly above the space,” said Sexton, noting that Torrech actually lives in URL above the restaurant.

“We were a little intimidated, this was the big leagues and we knew we needed to hit it out of the ball-park,” continued Sexton. “From an aesthetic standpoint we wanted the restaurant to be modern yet inviting and the food needed to be relatable while pushing and testing some limits.”

The result is an American restaurant that incorporates various dishes, including a full line of specialty ramen dishes from “A Hen Full,” which has soft egg, chicken meatballs, dashi and shoyu broth, to “Nose to Tail,” which has pork heart, belly and tonkatsu broth. They even have a “Yes Ve-gan!” dish with rice noodles and market vegetables.

“We are at the end of the day an American restaurant but what defines that changes as we experience new and different things, we must never become stagnant,” said Sexton.

Working with neighborhood businesses and residents is also important to them, he adds.

Torrech says the best part about living in the Village is “the feeling of the great changes that are happening while the area maintains local independent businesses. With all of the development and changes taking place its great to still have an old-school baker just across the street!”

That bakery, Pecoraro’s, is just one of the local small businesses Union Republic helps support, said Sexton.

“Our business goal is to continue to provide a gathering place for each community we serve and to support local businesses wherever possible, whether it’s baguettes we get from Pecoraro’s across the street, our bagels from Wonder Bagel, our green wall (which) would not have happened without George from Bouquets and Baskets–and without Mezbah’s local lamb, there would be a rib shaped hole in our…ribs,” he said.

“What we like most about doing business in the Village is hands down the people and the daily interactions with guests and other business owners. There is a true sense of community here and people look out for one another,” said Sexton. “It’s a great place to be and we are so excited to be part of it.”

Union Republic is located at 340 Third St. For more information, visit UnionRepublic.com or call 201-279-5094.

[blockquote width=’90’]

Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

[/blockquote]

Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

Husband and wife Lou and Karen Galli — the owners of new shop Pig and Pepper, located at 277 Newark Ave. in the Village neighborhood — love living in Jersey City, and love to work and shop in it, too. Lou, 42, and Karen, 39, were tired of always having to trek out into New York City or elsewhere to find high-quality home goods, clothing, and other items. Hailing from entrepreneurial families and having previously owned their own businesses (Lou owned a DVD authoring company and Karen owns local consulting firm One Leadership Group), the couple knew what they had to do.

“We’ve always been explorers, so we found ourselves saying over and over again, ‘Jersey City needs a shop that sells….’ And that’s when we realized we were already planning our own little shop,” says Karen. “We’ve always been drawn to the idea that you create the life you want. We knew we wanted to not just live in Jersey City, but work here too.” Pig and Pepper — which took its name from the curious, whimsical tales of “Alice in Wonderland” — offers an array of goods including solar chargers for electronic devices, ceramic vases, pitchers, bowls, mugs, funky utensils, organic soaps, clothing, accessories, and toys.

Standout items include Threads 4 Thought organic clothing; Cubebot wooden toys that can be put into various poses or folded into a cube; and Sprout watches, a biodegradable and bio-based line of tickers that have become some of Lou’s favorites. “The Sprout watches have convinced him, once a decades-long ‘No-Watch-Wearing Man’ to start wearing watches,” says Karen. Karen’s most fond of their selection of used clothing.

“We have a new shipment every week, so there’s a fun, surprise element,” she says. “The price point is really affordable to encourage people to recycle clothing and to participate in sustainable living…We hope to melt the stigma about used clothes being cheap or the opposite, which is that the deals are used Madison Avenue brands.” The Gallis also want to use their store to build up the Village and Jersey City as a whole.

For example, Karen says they hope to accept clothing donations and sell a portion of those sales to a local children’s charity. Currently, they are partnered with PS5 and are donating 5% of all used clothing sales to the school. They are also accepting point of purchase donations of $1 increments that will also go to the school.

While the Gallis live in the Van Vorst Park neighborhood, they chose to open in the Village to give its residents a nice place to shop, Karen says. “Everyone who’s come into the store has been incredibly nice, welcoming and proud of our community,” she says. “I love that on my way to work, I’ll run into two or three people and have a friendly ‘Good morning!’ exchange. It’s an exciting time to be in the Village; we’re excited to see the neighborhood continue to develop!”

Pig and Pepper is located at 277 Newark Ave. For more information, call (201) 898-0252 or visit their website PigandPepperJC.com.

[blockquote width=’90’]

Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

[/blockquote]

Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com

For over a decade, Metropolis Music, 240 Newark Ave., has been helping locals from the Village neighborhood and beyond buy instruments, learn how to play them and fix ’em when they need repairs.

Owner Mark Dalzell, who used to live in the Village until he moved to South Orange in 2013, studied as a classical violist at the University of Delaware but has a varied taste in music.

“I’m passionate about anything different, whether it’s world music, medieval/renaissance music or whatever. I currently play in a band that switches every week from anything from funk to industrial to classical Indian music to chance and noise. It’s a lot of fun to keep experimenting,” he said.

He tries to make his store’s stock just as diverse.

“I try to stock a little of everything to cater to whatever people might need. I have a lot of experience playing, building and repairing nearly every kind of instrument there is and I use that to carefully stock instruments and accessories that are the best quality and value,” he said. “I don’t have a stock room here at the store so it forces me to keep a small, fast moving stock on hand. That allows me to quickly clear out items that aren’t popular and get in things that customers request.”

The biggest seller at Metropolis Music, however, are the lessons they offer, taught by several different teachers.

“We currently have 15 teachers and about 200 students a week coming in for lessons on a dozen different instruments,” said Dalzell, adding, “We also offer repairs for nearly any instrument you can think of, and I build custom electric guitars and other instruments as well.”

With all its products and services, Metropolis Music has become a go-to music shop in Jersey City, and while the sign on its glass door jokes, “Sorry, we’re open,” no one’s looking for an apology.

“I’d like to continue doing just what we’ve been doing for 11 years: offering a variety of good quality instruments, lessons and repairs,” said Dalzell, who attributes his success to community support.

“I like the neighborhood feel and the support we get from the local residents,” he said. “I made up a Google map once with a dot on every address that had either purchased an instrument or taken a lesson here in the past 10 years, and nearly every house within all of Downtown had a dot on it, and some houses have quite a few dots!”

Metropolis Music is located at 240 Newark Ave. For more information, visit MetropolisNJ.com or call 201-222-8441.

[blockquote width=’90’]

Village Business Spotlight: For over 100 years, small businesses have played a vital role in shaping the Village. The Village Neighborhood Association is committed to bringing awareness and support to those businesses that embrace the long-standing values and enduring community spirit of our neighborhood.

[/blockquote]

Photography by Mike McNamara
www.photobymac.com