It’s no secret that mom-and-pop family restaurants are fading away. Even diners are closing at an alarming rate. It’s harder and harder to be an individual operator of a restaurant here in our state.

The good news is that some of the national chains have come up with some pretty good menu ideas and very good food. One of those chains is growing on the East Coast and now boasts three New Jersey locations.

If you like Mediterranean food, you would love Mezeh. They have tons of locations in Virginia and Maryland and some in D.C., North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

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They now have two locations in New Jersey with a third coming soon to Rockaway, Morris County. Over the weekend. I visited the Mount Laurel location. The food was very reasonably priced, fresh and delicious.

They finally recently opened their Hamilton location on Marketplace Boulevard. Their long-awaited grand opening was earlier this month.

Mezeh is a word that can mean taste, flavor, nibble, relish, or even small plate in several different countries in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean.

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The restaurant chain is the brainchild of Saleh Mohamadi, Steve Walker, and Tai Chiao, who wanted to provide customers with fresh, created-in-house daily, exceptionally crafted Mediterranean food at a great price in an environment that pushes the fast-casual envelope.

You can choose from bowls, pitas or flatbread wraps. The menu comes with plenty of their concoctions, or you can build your own.

The best way to describe it is sort of a Chipotle, where you line up and choose your food as the server puts it together for you. The atmosphere is casual Mediterranean.

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It would be unfair to call it fast food because it’s just so darn good! Service was friendly and efficient, and we will definitely be going back. It might not be a fine dining establishment, but the food and the service get an A+.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Dennis Malloy only.

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CHERRY HILL – A Long Island-based credit union has expanded into New Jersey with a new office here.

Bethpage Federal Credit Union, a financial cooperative founded in 1941, now has 35 offices.

It’s also eyeing the Connecticut market, an executive said last September in announcing plans to open four offices in New York and the South Jersey branch by mid-2024.

“Branch expansion throughout the tri-state area is a major part of our growth strategy,” said LindaArmyn, the credit union’s president and CEO

Bethpage described the Cherry Hill office as “a significant milestone” for its plans.

The expansion comes as deposits are growing for federally insured credit unions, a regulator says.

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But the sector also is consolidating, with a downward trend for the overall number of the financial cooperatives, according to the National Credit Union Association.

It says assets in federally insured credit unions last year rose by $88 billion, or 4 percent, to a year-end total of $2.26 trillion.

However, the number of federally insured credit unions fell to 4,604 in last year’s fourth quarter. That was down from 4,760 a year earlier.

“The year-over-year decline is consistent with long-running industry consolidation trends,” says the NCUA, which insures deposits up to $250,000 per individual depositor.

Bethpage, the largest credit union in the Northeast, has doubled its assets over the past seven years, records show.

It had assets of $12.86 billion at year-end 2023, up from $6.2 billion in 2016.

The credit union was founded in 1941 for employees of an aircraft manufacturer in Bethpage, New York. But it’s now open to any customer with a $5 membership account, a spokesperson noted.

Bethpage had almost 460,000 members at the end of last year. That compared to about 277,500 members in 2016.

In a statement, Bethpage noted it belongs to a nationwide network that offers access to customers’ accounts via more than 30,000 free ATMs and 5,000-plus shared branches.

Jim Walsh is a senior reporter with the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal. Email: Jwalsh@cpsj.com.

PHILADELPHIA – A new study is shedding light on the cost of student loan debt in the United States.

GOBankingRates used the Education Data Initiative’s Student Debt by Generation 2023 to find each state’s total number of millennials with student debt and the total outstanding debt held by the generation. 

The company then used the data, collected earlier this month, to determine the average millennial student debt in every state.

GOBankingRates found the highest average student loan debt among millennials was on the East Coast, with nine of the top 10 most expensive student debts found in the region. Illinois was the only outlier.

Here is a list of the top 10 states with the highest student debt among millennials: 

1. Maryland: $37,337
2. New York: $37,173
3. Illinois: $35,976
4. Virginia: $35,846
5. Georgia : $35,246
6. Massachusetts: $34,821
7. New Jersey: $34,801
8. South Carolina: $34,672
9. Florida: $34,561
10. North Carolina: $34,440

Of the top ten, New Jersey is ranked seventh with an average debt for millennials of $34,801. 

Among the full list, Pennsylvania has an average student debt of approximately $33,951. The PA’s total outstanding millennial student debt is over $23 billion.

And in Delaware, the average millennial student debt is $33,110.

While $1.48 billion is no small tab and approximately 44,700 millennials share it in outstanding student loan debts for DE.

“It’s no surprise that states such as New York, Massachusetts and Illinois have some of the highest student debt amounts,” Andrew Murray, the lead data content researcher at GOBankingRates, told FOX Television Stations. “Cities such as Chicago, Boston and New York are popular destinations for college graduates, who take their student debt with them when they move.” 

A recent survey shows that students throughout the country agree that student loan forgiveness is a must. An Axios survey found that students on both sides of the political spectrum think the government should be doing more to help them pay off their debts.

Of the 4,168 students surveyed, 89% of the Democratic students and 81% of Republicans said the government should offer more relief options.