Rose & Eye Reports Record Sales on Post-Sandy Re-opening

Mike Muratore and Stefano Malluzzo had enjoyed a good summer after they had reconfigured and refurbished their West End women’s boutique, Rose & Eye, earlier in 2012. Then Hurricane Sandy hit and they found themselves fighting for the survival of their business and shop.

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Last Saturday, the business partners took another important breath in their recovery. They returned to their rebuild shop and held an exceedingly successful grand re-opening.

“It was an outstanding day; the community was so supportive and happy to see us back in business,” Muratore said. “It was by far the biggest sales day we have ever had.”

He noted that one customer told him: “Now that you’re back, I know Long Beach will be back; it feels normal again.”

What was far from normal was what Muratore and Malluzzo found when they reopened their shop the day after the storm barreled into the barrier island in October. The flooding tossed around the clothes racks, the front counter, mannequins and everything in else in the store, leaving it in complete disarray. About 70 percent of the merchandise was unsalvageable and the store was destroyed.

Soon after Muratore and Malluzzo started to look for new store, a search that took them to many towns between Huntington and Hewlett. A month later, they were able to set up shop in a vacancy of comparable size at 45 S. Village Ave. in Rockville Centre.

“We were able to salvage the business,” Muratore said.

Meanwhile, his house on Georgia Avenue was destroyed, which he gutted and made livable but it still needs to be rebuilt. “I haven’t even begun to rebuild,” Muratore said.

He didn’t receive a dime from his insurance company to rebuild his shop, but he was able to borrow money from his mother to salvage it. The new shop, still at 893 W. Beech St. between Wyoming Avenue and Alabama Street, is a smaller unit, about 800 square feet, compared to the 1,300-square-foot storefront that he reconfigured from an even larger unit last year. His plan is to maintain the shop in Rockville Centre was well.
“We’ve been consistent with last year’s numbers,” Muratore said.

As the West End, an area of Long Beach that was particularly devastated in the storm, continues to rebuild along with the rest of the city, Muratore said he is “cautiously optimistic” about business this summer.

“I’m anticipating that most local people started work on their homes and they want to get out of their houses,” Muratore said prior to Saturday’s re-opening. “People don’t want to see vacancies in their neighborhood.”

His summer business also depends on beach-goers from New York City, many of whom he believes don’t realize the magnitude of Sandy’s impact on Long Beach. He’s thankful, though, that he has his loyal local customer who helped make the grand re-opening such as success.

“The warm welcome home and every kind gesture; it means a great deal to us,” he said.

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