Chamber News Feed: Hunterdon County, NJ: The Stockton Inn closed suddenly this week and a message on the inns website says it is currently closed for repairs and restorations. It is not for sale, and does plan to reopen, owner Mitch Millett said yesterday, July 31, 2014. Business has been very strong and gaining with wait times in excess of one-and-a-half hours on weekends for walk-ins at the peak dinner times. While a hiatus like this is never ideal, the Stockton Inn is a very special place with a rich and storied history and I am confident folks will enthusiastically return when its reopened, he said. Millett said the mid-summer closing enables us to accomplish certain repairs and projects which would be difficult if not impossible to do while remaining open and it allows for some time and space necessary for the reimagining of what the inn should be going forward. He pointed out that a great deal has been accomplished over the last 25 months in restoring and bringing the inn back towards its former days of glory. Millett Properties LLC, bought 1 Main St. Stockton, NJ, the inns address and off Main Street for $730,000 in mid-2012. It also bought 5 North Main Street for $300,000. In addition to renovations to the dining and drinking areas, Millet said another way to improve the inn was to stop the predominately out-of-towner weddings and banquets, which allowed us to rededicate the inn to the community in which we live and operate. He said that the inn completed prior wedding bookings in 2013, and no longer accepted them. Before buying the inn, he said there were as many as 75 weddings booked yearly, rendering the inn effectively . . . unavailable for a la carte dining on weekends. One part of future plans, Millet said, is a coffee shop/espresso lounge in what has been the Fox Room. For most of the 20th century the inn was operated by the Colligan family as Colligans Stockton Inn, a restaurant and hotel that many locals believe was the inspiration for the 1932 show tune Theres a Small Hotel With a Wishing Well by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Your Bernards Township Regional Chamber of Commerce Works for You!
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:50:00 +0000