Go one easy mile down River Road, out of Red Bank, headed east towards the Atlantic Ocean, and you seem to cross a timeline, as well as a town line, when you enter Fair Haven — lovingly called “a little piece of Haven” by many who live and work there. Long celebrated as a place where the pace and pleasures of small town life are highly prized, dearly cherished and abundantly apparent, it’s a family-oriented community that one resident recently described as “a real town for real people;” the kind of place where folks make conscious choices about keeping life on a human scale… friendly, warm, and filled to the brim with a sense of belonging.

It’s also a vibrant business center and a great place to shop, eat and hang-out!

The Fair Haven Business Association counts more than fifty members in a wonderful mix of owner-operated businesses sprinkled, like stardust, along River Road. There’s that small-town, Fair Haven feeling of welcome that greets you — along with practical pleasures like free parking and plenty of it — but it’s the variety of what’s available for you to enjoy that adds its own delight. As Michel Berger, owner of FOREFRONT, a data integration company on River Road, and president of the Fair Haven Business Association points out, “You’d be amazed at what wonderful things are waiting behind every door.”

Coffee stops. Pastry shops. Fine fare. Hair care. Picture frames. Bicycle chains. Diamond rings. Antiques and things…Fair Haven has a little bit of everything, in just the right proportion…along with some real surprises.

Like SMALL FACTORY PRODUCTIONS, the incredibly creative, fun-filled storefront animation/cartoon/music production studio for kids that would be right at home in SoHo but would rather be next to KASSIE’S FAIR HAVEN GRILL, where muffin magic is just one of the delights on the menu, and across River Road from TASTE & TECHNIQUES, the cooking school for budding chefs of all ages, and around the corner from Jennifer O’Connor’s singing/dancing/music/arts&crafts/lang-uage learning place, DISCOVER LINGUA, where anyone from infants to adults can come to learn French, Spanish or Italian

Like the multi-dimensional NEW JERSEY CENTER FOR THE HEALING ARTS that reflects the town’s sense of community as a place where mind, body and spirit are all valued as essential aspects of integrated wholeness.

Like the three women-owned businesses — Betsy O’Neill’s MEN’S HAIR WOMEN’S FARE, Darry Guli’s THE YOGA STUDIO and Tina DeAngelis’s photography studio, VISUAL XPRESSIONS — all gathered under one historic roof in the Meyer Building that was once the Fair Haven Volunteer Company #1 Firehouse on Fair Haven Road, right behind that classic American hardware heaven — FAIR HAVEN HARDWARE.

Like THE ATTIC, Melanie Sellick’s consignment shop, with its secret stash of the best of fashion and finery from the two river area, nonetheless for wear, and at a fraction of the original cost.

Like RIVER ROAD BOOKS, the long-standing bastion of an independent bookstore, where owners Sharon Everett, Laurie Potter, Kim Robinson, and Karen Rumage are in the business of loving books, not just selling them.

Many of the town’s storeowners are hometown residents like outdoor outfitter Karen Hellman, proprietor of GEAR LOFT, and mother of four, who’s lived in Fair Haven for eight years. Or Erin Avery, founder of AVERY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES an independent educational consultant whose husband was raised here and simply calls it “one square mile of paradise.”

Kathy DeVincens, owner of SHUTTERS, a charming treasure trove of home furnishings and accessories, opened her shop on River Road ten years ago “I wish I had raised my kids here,” says Kathy. “It’s a lovely town with lovely values.”

There’s history, too, with retailers like Ike Burnstein of BLUE STOVE ANTIQUES and his building-mate, Priscilla “Perk” Bahr, of the incredible, eclectic NATURE’S EMPORIUM — shopkeepers whose roots in Fair Haven go down for more than thirty years. “I’ve always loved it,“ Perk says. “That’s why I’ve stayed.”

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