Mexican restaurant approved by Planning Bd.
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer

WOODBRIDGE - Iselin will become home to the Mexican Post restaurant, which has been a staple in the Philadelphia area with its Mexican cuisine and trademark Gran Gold Margaritas since 1989.

The Planning Board unanimously approved Shebri Vishala LLC's application to build the restaurant, 571 Lincoln Highway (Route 27), at the board meeting on Jan. 9.

"I believe this application will be better for the area, since it has been a blighted area," said board member Lorraine Luban, who motioned to approve the application on all the stipulations discussed at the meeting.

The current site has an existing building holding a rental business as well as several storage containers.

The applicant proposes to remove the existing rental business and construct a one-story 5,822-square-foot Mexican restaurant building with a Spanish-style façade, an indoor plaza, and a fountain located in the interior of the building.

The applicant displayed photographs of the color renderings of the building exterior that depicted colors of beiges and reds on the exterior façade of the building.

A nine-stall employee-only parking lot is also proposed, approximately 200 feet from the main site, and has ingress and egress exclusively on Route 27.

Angelo Valettuto, professional planner and engineer for the applicant, said his applicant, Albert Jasani, was not able to acquire land adjacent to the property for employee parking.

The applicant agreed to the condition that the proposed employee parking lot would always remain a parking lot, and if the property were sold in the future, the parking lot would be sold with the main site as a whole.

The proposed site is located in the B-3 highway business zone and is at the corner of Route 27 and Talmadge Avenue.

The applicant promised neighbors of the proposed restaurant who came to the meeting that he would maintain his property and provide an over-12-foot-high retaining wall around the restaurant and a reinforced concrete wall of 7 to 17 feet surrounding the nine-stall parking lot.

The applicant deleted the second floor and balcony previously proposed.

The Mexican Post restaurant in Iselin will join the three restaurants in Philadelphia, a restaurant in Delaware a restaurant in Canada.

Jasani told the board that the restaurant would be open for lunch hours - 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. - and dinner hours - 5:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.

For more information about the Mexican Post restaurant visit www.mexicanpost. com.