Most recently operated as Time Out Sports Bar, a Barrington building on the White Horse Pike was demolished this past week ahead of planned new commercial development for the corner of the busy intersection.
A Chipotle Tex-Mex restaurant was approved for the property about 18 months ago, which 42Freeway covered ahead of it’s Joint Land Use Board presentation in the Fall of 2022.
Planning for this new project was likely started long before that, as Time Out Sports bar closed in May of 2021. Not much has taken place at the property since the closing, until the demolition this week.
A Courier-Post article from last year (almost to the day) updated the status on the project and confirmed at that time with the Barrington Mayor that the project was still happening, but awaited NJDOT approvals.
While it has been a year since that update, it is my understanding that the Chipotle project is still planned for the property.
Most aren’t aware of this but when new development takes place on County, State or Federal roads, those associated entities need to approve the projects, particularly when changing driveway access. In some cases the road access approvals can take even longer than the municipality’s approval!
In the case of the Time Out bar property, it sits on the White Horse Pike which is a Federal roadway managed by NJDOT, at a busy traffic light intersection which likely has taken extra time to approve driveway access.
In the last 10 years this intersection of the White Horse Pike has changed significantly with traffic and turning considerations. Today at the immediate intersection is a Wawa (2015), Chuck Lagers Restaurant (2017), and a recently opened Chick-Fil-A (2021).
Chipotle is also a popular consumer destination and will be positioned at the last remaining undeveloped corner.
42Freeway has also reported that very close by in Lawnside, a Raising Cane’s Chicken Finger restaurant is in very early stages of planning.
Barrington Chipotle – Growing Commercial Stretch
The new Chipotle was approved by Barrington 18-months ago for the corner of the White Horse Pike and Bell Ave. The two buildings directly next to the property (along the WHP) will remain; an unused office building and the operating liquor store.
The corner (future) Chipotle property has operated as a bar for decades, but it appears that it originally was developed as a home.
Members of an online Facebook group shared memories of the bar location and its previous names which include Puppy’s Tavern, Bill’s, Jack’s, Barrington Pub, Dante’s and Time Out.
A search of a newspaper archive found the earliest reference to a bar at that address as being Puppy’s Tavern in 1958!
As mentioned, most recently the bar operated as Time Out. It is my understanding though that the property owner was not the daily operator of the Time Out Bar.
Time Out in Barrington closed about 3 years ago, and the property owner was approached by developers with ideas regarding new uses for the property.
Which is another aspect that many readers don’t consider; developers and businesses looking to expand will spend considerable amounts of time researching new locations, and at times will make offers of considerable value to take over properties… even when the existing businesses are already operating successfully! Everything has it’s price.
Consider that likely 10 years ago no one likely thought of redeveloping the corner Bar property, but now that considerable consumer traffic is at the intersection (Wawa, Chick-fil-A, Chuck Lagers) … it becomes more attractive to businesses for future redevelopment.
