It has been a month since Gov. Phil Murphy allowed restaurants to reopen for outdoor dining. With the rules put in place to protect against the spread of COVID-19, ingenuity and sometimes unlikely partnerships have been the keys to a taste of success for Jersey Shore establishments.
Municipalities have played their part by closing down streets and allowing shore establishments to expand dining areas onto boardwalks and sidewalks. And restaurants have found ways to dress up their outdoor spaces, all in an effort to give diners an experience to remember.
“We’re in a time now where people have to be very creative, especially businesses,” said Ventnor Mayor Beth Holtzman. “It’s a time where government and businesses have to work together and be creative for the best results.”
Officials seem to be embracing their role.
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“We need to help those businesses stay alive,” Margate Mayor Mike Becker said. “I don’t want to open up next spring and have businesses gone because of something that we didn’t do.”
Becker said the feedback has been great, saying some people have told him that offering more outdoor dining has changed the character of the city.
Maria Gatta, owner of Red Room Café in Ventnor Heights, agrees. Ventnor officials closed down a piece of Monmouth Avenue so Red Room could expand its outdoor dining.
Gatta said the outdoor dining — albeit the only option for the moment — has been so popular she’d like to see it every year.
“I like the outdoor seating better,” she said. “There is just a different vibe being outside. It’s calming. It’s peaceful. It’s relaxing. I think people feel more comfortable being outside than inside. They’re pleasantly surprised.”
She said some customers worry about getting too hot, but they get over it once they sit down. But even with the heat and rain, she said the restaurant, and the customers, make the best of the situation.
“Where we are on Dorset Avenue, we’re right across the street from the bay,” Gatta said. “Last week there was a full moon, so it was high tide. I was joking around with a customer saying, ‘You didn’t know you were having dinner in Venice.’ I try to make light of the situation, and everyone was fine.”
In Wildwood, city officials closed Pacific Avenue between Schellenger and Spencer avenues to vehicle traffic so bars and restaurants could put more tables outside.
The Cattle n’ Clover — an Irish pub at Pacific and Spicer avenues, has little to no outdoor space for seating, except for a small outdoor courtyard it shares with a neighboring Italian restaurant.
“I thought it was necessary. I was grateful,” Karen Carpinelli, manager at the pub, said of the street closing. “We’re one of the properties that don’t have a parking lot to take advantage of, or an expansive sidewalk. It was pretty crucial to us that we get that.”
She said if not for street expansion, Cattle n’ Clover would only have room for four tables outside. It now has about 15 tables on the pavement and a bar in the outdoor courtyard.
Carpinelli said without the outside bar and people wanting to dine outside, the restaurant would fold.
And while the city’s efforts have helped, there are still challenges.
“I can pay the kitchen (staff), but I’m not putting up new lights and I’m not fixing the freezer,” she said. “I’m super worried. Every day is different, and we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Customers can still purchase a drink at the bar inside, while wearing a mask, but must bring the drink outside, but that has also been a challenge.
“It’s allowed, but who’s policing that? What’s the monitoring of that?” Carpinelli said. “We have regulars in there chatting for five minutes or whatever, it’s a really hairy situation. That’s where it gets nerve-racking. I’ll look in there and there’s 40 people and I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got to hoard them out. How do I do this?’”
Down the street at Castaway’s Pirate Bar, which is all outdoors, there are 45 additional tables — 6 feet apart — and hand sanitizer stations throughout. The bar is one of the only establishments on the closed portion of the street that has a parking lot.
When the city was discussing closing down a portion of the street, Tom Gerace, owner of Castaway’s, wasn’t exactly sold on the idea.
“But as soon as they did it, I saw a lot more business come into here,” he said. “The city’s been very, very cooperative about it and very pro-business about it.”
The closed portion of Pacific Avenue will remain closed until Labor Day, Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron said.
Aside from helping restaurants dotted throughout the city, Wildwood officials also helped sit-down restaurants on the Boardwalk.
Boardwalk restaurants can now place tables in front of their storefront up to a foot from the concrete strips the popular tram cars navigate.
“We want to try to give everybody the best opportunity to be as successful as they can during these uncharted times,” Byron said. “Does it alleviate all of their problems? It doesn’t even come close, but it’s better than nothing.”
In Margate, the city closed a portion of Essex Avenue so Bocca Coal Fired Bistro could put tables in the street.
“It’s nice to get support back from the city that we try to support all year round,” said Lauryn Freedman, general manager of Bocca. “We were super excited because we don’t have that much outdoor space to begin with. It was going to be disastrous for us this summer if we didn’t have those extra tables.”
And the city closing a portion of Essex Avenue for the restaurant may have been its saving grace.
“We may possibly have had to close down. I don’t know if we would have made it,” Freedman said. “We’re open year-round, but (the summer) is really our time to make money.”
