An ex-employee picketed outside Sickles Market Wednesday, letting customers know the reopened market still owes its former staff money.
Updated Thu, May 8, 2025 at 8:26 pm ET
LITTLE SILVER, NJ — The garden center of the new Market at Sickles Farm opened for business last Friday, May 2, and the main market of Sickles remains on track to reopen in July.
However, multiple employees from the former Sickles Market say they still haven't been paid.
These are employees who worked at Sickles before it abruptly closed in early spring 2024 and filed for bankruptcy. There are at least five employees, but likely more, who say they have not been paid wages and severance the business promised to pay them.
One woman who worked there said employees' paychecks started bouncing in January 2024, about two months before owner Bob Sickles, Jr. suddenly shut down the market in March.
"They owe me roughly 40 hours of worked wages, approximately $700, and from what I understand two weeks severance," said the woman, who did not want to give her name. "At least that is what articles said they intend to pay us. We were told we would be paid in February, then in March. (It did not happen.) Truthfully, I have lost track of what checks bounced."
Find out what's happening in Little Silver-Oceanportfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
An ex-employee picketed outside Sickles Market Wednesday, letting customers know the reopened market still owes its former staff money.
A lawyer representing Sickles in its bankruptcy proceedings and restructuring, Daniel Stolz of Genova Burns law firm, told Patch this week:
"The employees will be paid shortly after the sale of the land closes. That closing is scheduled for May 14."
Sickles closed its original Little Silver location in March 2024 and filed for bankruptcy later that year, revealing it could not overcome $7.5 million in debt. In August, three Rumson residents, Jennifer Griffin Karp, Dennis Devine and Timothy McCooey, formed an LLC called 1663 Partners and hatched a plan to buy all of Sickles' assets (including the six acres on which the market sits on Harrison Avenue and the Sickles' private home) and reopen the gourmet food store under a new name: The Market at Sickles Farm.
All the creditors owed money by Sickles (the banks, the produce companies, butchers and alcohol companies) will be repaid, according to this restructuring proposal from 1663 Partners. Former Sickles employees will be paid two weeks' severance, 1663 Partners promised in this statement.
As per the agreement, Sickles, Jr., his daughters and former Sickles market manager Maria Carrigan were all hired to work at the new market, at salaries of:
And what about those $5,000 gift cards?
They will likely be honored once the market fully reopens in July.
"All outstanding gift cards can be honored over time once the market reopens," 1663 Partners said in this statement.
Many customers said Sickles sold expensive gift cards right up until the day they closed. Some residents of this area said they were stuck with $1,000 Sickles gift cards and one woman posted on Facebook that she still has $4,000 left on a $5,000 gift card she purchased. A Monmouth Beach woman even filed a complaint in small-claims court, saying Sickles owes her $2,500 for a gift card they sold her.
Sickles Provisions, their failed Red Bank offshoot, and Bottles by Sickles, their liquor store, will not be reopening.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy is also known as reorganization bankruptcy and it is a way to allow a company to reorganize their finances, pay off their debts and continue stay in business. The Sickles family has always said this is their goal.
Get great local news. Contact this Patch reporter: [email protected]
Past Sickles reporting: