Circus Liquor Store Opens Lincroft Store, Its Fourth In County

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Longtime Middletown liquor store Circus Wines Beer & Spirits is expanding, and will open its fourth store in Lincroft soon.

Circus Wines Beer & Spirits will open in what used to be the Manhattan Bagel in Lincroft Commons, on Newman Springs Road in Middletown.

The news was confirmed by Lou Scaduto, Jr., whose family owns Circus. He said the Lincroft Commons store may open as early as this coming Monday, Oct. 5.

This will be their fourth location in Monmouth County; Circus operates liquor stores on Rt. 35 in Middletown, at the Sea Girt Mall shopping center in Wall and in Red Bank.

Circus is known as the "Evil Clown" liquor store, as they have an iconic grinning clown in front of their Rt. 35 location at Kings Highway.

The Scaduto/Azzolina family own that entire property at Rt. 35/Kings Highway and they were planning to sell it to a developer, who would turn it into a massive — and controversial — Shoppes at Middletown complex. There would have been a movie theater, a Wegman's 24-Hour Fitness and hundreds of retail shops, plus Toll Brothers housing.

However, as Patch reported, the entire project fell through this summer when the developer, National Realty & Development Corp., pulled out, citing a recession due to COVID. Both 24-Hour Fitness and the movie theater declared bankruptcy due to COVID, and Wegman's said it was not the time to expand into Middletown. The loss of those three major anchor tenants caused the developer to pull out.

The Toll Brothers housing is still going forward at the site.Toll Brothers plans to build 320 new homes, including 80 affordable housing units, on site.

Wegmans Pulls Out, Village 35 No Longer Coming To Middletown (Sept. 2)