Sports bar goes beer garden: Redd's brings new concept to Newark

The city's first beer garden is officially open.

NEWARK -- The beer garden phenomenon has made its way to Newark.

Redd's - the company behind the restaurant and bar outside MetLife Stadium - has opened the city's first biergarten, right outside the Prudential Center. The 7,000 square foot open-concept restaurant and bar, named Redd's Biergarten, had a soft launch last month, and was welcomed by city officials with a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week.

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"It's a great city," Redd's co-owner Frank Pinto said in a phone interview about the opening. "This is very different from anything else in the area."

Dan Palsi, Frank Pinto, and Doug Palsi, childhood friends who own Redd's Biergarten. (Courtesy Redd's Biergarten) 

Pinto co-owns the restaurant with brothers Doug and Dan Palsi - the three grew up together and are building on the Palsi family's experience running the Redd's in Carlstadt since 2002. The group's desire to open a location in Newark, Pinto said, goes back to 2007, when the New Jersey Devils moved from East Rutherford to the Prudential Center in Newark.

"We were on the hunt for years...and were finally able to get the right location," Pinto said.

The biergarten - which employs about 25 people - is in the ground floor retail space of 218 Market Street in the RockPlaza Lofts complex, a part of the area's "restaurant row" between Broad and Mulberry Streets. It serves traditional German fare, drinks, and hosts private parties as well as casual diners.

"(We've known for years that) the Four Corners Historic District... would experience a renaissance and return as a center of residential living and commercial business," Marc Berson, chairman of Fidelco Realty Group, an owner and developer of RockPlaza Lofts, said in a statement about the restaurant.

"Redd's joins the thriving district and brings something unique to RockPlaza Lofts and the surrounding community that's been missing from Newark."

When designing the space, Pinto said the owners paid special attention to the city and its history. The eatery includes a Newark history wall with murals depicting old city breweries and Newark's downtown, as well as a wall dedicated to the city's first responders.

"We wanted it to be a destination," Pinto said. "There's a lot to see when you get there."