Last year, it was announced that a new store, Butcher and Farmer, would open in January of 2025 in the Bernardsville centre. Now, ten months after the original projected opening date, no such store exists in the former Kings Plaza. 

Over the past year, little has been publicly known about the happenings of the store: the spot has been vacant for over a year now with no community knowledge of its direction. Even last year, in the shop’s initial lead-up to its ultimately unsuccessful opening, little to no information was available to those interested. Marketing campaigns were scarce, a simple google search of the name “Butcher and Farmer Bernardsville” leads those interested to a dead end.

The lack of updates has fueled speculation and confusion among residents about the future of the space. Some wondered if it had been abandoned all together.

However, for the first time, some new information is available for the citizens of Bernardsville and its surrounding towns and communities from store owner Ivan Fedorov.

Fedorov said that the delays were mainly due to “supply of materials, scheduling conflicts and lastly electrical and gas updates”. These issues have all combined to cause the year long delay of the opening of Butcher and Farmer in Bernardsville.

Despite the unfortunate delays, Fedorov has remained optimistic about the store, saying that “it’s all well worth it because we are building something great.” 

The Bernardsville Centre has undergone significant changes over the past few years, following the closure of the Kings supermarket. An Ace hardware store and Wells Fargo took up the vacant space left behind by the Kings closure, providing Bernardsville with a second option for hardware goods alongside Bernardsville Hardware.

Butcher and Farmer was intended to be a high-end food shop that would specialize in meat, serving as Bernardsville’s only butchershop. Among the options on the menu were “grass-fed beef, pastured pork, organic chicken, and pastured chicken”, Ivan Fedorov said. Instead, customers have had to wait for almost a year now with little to know information about where the plans went wrong. 

Placed strategically in the center of town, Butcher and Farmer will be located right next to the Fresh Press juice bar. Presuming all goes well over the next few weeks, the store should be set to open “in November”, however Fedorov acknowledges that the store’s opening may very well “spill into early December”. 

Brenda Curnin, the leasing agent for downtown Bernardsville, described the process as a “complicated build out”, but she, alongside Fedorov, remains confident that the store will be “opening soon”. 

The addition of the Butcher and Farmer is expected to play an important role in the continued development and chance of the Bernardsville Centre. Since the closing of Kings, the plaza has experienced many changes with little consistency. Once completed, the Butcher and Farmer should help to contribute to an increase in interest and foot traffic for the Centre, helping both its own sales and the economic activity of the rest of downtown Bernardsville

Only time will tell whether these goals are met, but until then the Bernardsville community will continue to wait for the Butcher and Farmer to make its grand opening in the Bernardsville Center.