Mini golf is an underrated nostalgic summer staple. The rainbow array of golf balls, the sun-bleached artificial turf, the tilting windmills, and fiberglass volcanoes will transport you right back to childhood, melting ice cream cones and all.
It’s easy to find putt-putt courses dotted up and down the boardwalks of the Jersey Shore, but South Jersey has its fair share of miniature fareways, too. Many offer more than just mini golf, with homemade ice cream, arcade games, amusement park rides, and driving ranges for adults. Two courses are indoors, for big fun even when the sun isn’t shining.
Big Swing boasts not one but two mini golf courses. (For the second, “Go left at the volcano,” the attendant tells me.) Both are light on props and heavy on banks, curves, hills, elevation gains, and drops, making for some genuinely tricky shots.
Best hole: Number eight on the waterfall course starts at the top of a hill, with three options to get to the bottom, including two mystery chutes — one that could land a hole in one, and another that spits out on a separate landing.
Other amenities: Golf simulator, golf lessons, driving range
Price: $7 per adult for both courses, $6 for children 12 and under
Don’t let a rainy day (or a brutally hot one) stop you from hitting the links. Monster Mini Golf offers 18 holes of spooky-themed, indoor, glow-in-the-dark golf, with locations in Cherry Hill and Turnersville. Black light illuminates the dark interior, which is decked out with weird Jersey scenes rendered in glowing paint, and monstrous animatronics that come to life as you move around the course.
Best hole: Tie between hole number eight, which is presided over by an enormous, glowing, talking skull and number nine, where players can spin a wheel to add an random, extra challenge to their turn, like playing with one arm behind their back or with their eyes closed.
Other amenities: Arcade, mini-bowling alley, laser maze, laser tag (at Turnersville location only)
Players play rounds at Pleasant Valley Miniature Golf on Route 73 in Voorhees, N.J. on Tuesday, June 30, 2026.
April 1 to Halloween
Opened in 1972 and now run by the son of the original owner, Pleasant Valley is a throwback mini golf course with all the whacky obstacles you could dream of. The fiberglass Liberty Bell and giant sombrero, built by the owner, have been there since the 1970s. Guest-favorite hole number 12 features three gophers driving classic cars in circles. Conveniently located on the way to Atlantic City, it’s got a classic charm you won’t find at every course.
Best hole: “The sombrero,” owner Brian Whelan says. “It’s very difficult, very easy to have the ball fly out of the sombrero. Big risk, big reward there.”
Other amenities: Ice cream and water ice
Price: Before 6 p.m., $10 for adults, $9 for kids 10 and under and seniors; after 6 p.m., $12.50 for adults, $10 for kids and seniors
Previously known as The Golf Farm, Voorhees Golf Land reopened last year under new ownership after a year-long closure. In addition to 18 holes of mini golf, Golf Land sports the region’s only pitch-and-putt course. That’s 18 holes of golf that are just 20 to 50 yards long, “not quite the size of a par three,” owner Diana Hennefer says, so it’s a great option for people who don’t have the time or mobility to play a full round of golf, or who just want to practice their short game.
Best hole: Number 18 has a wishing well in the middle. “It’s probably the trickiest one,” Hennefer says. “It’s also the prettiest, most picturesque one.”
Other amenities: Pitch-and-putt course
Price: Mini golf: $8 for adults, $6 for kids; pitch and putt: $15 for adults, $10 for kids
A water feature at Serene Custard and Miniature Golf in Vineland, N.J.
Come for the challenging, hilly course, and stay for the vintage custard stand serving homemade ice cream. Built in 1959, Serene Custard still boasts its original mid-century signage and is celebrating its 67th season this year. The 18-hole mini golf course is a newer addition, featuring tough terrains and lush landscaping. “You sort of don’t even feel like you’re in South Jersey when you’re on the course,” owner Ari Dendrinos says.
Best hole: Number nine takes place entirely within a huge man-made cave.
Other amenities: Custard stand serving ice cream, water ice, and some savory snacks
The Funplex at Mt. Laurel has way more than just mini golf. There’s a waterpark, indoor and outdoor rides, a bowling alley, and more. But don’t sleep on the two mini golf courses, Adventure Cave and Lost Lagoon, both of which offer 18 holes of obstacles, including a few multi-level designs.
Best hole: At number 19, if you get a hole-in-one, your next game is free.
Other amenities: Waterpark, indoor and outdoor rides, bowling, arcade games
Price: $42 on weekdays and $49 on weekends for access to all attractions; $46 and $54 when purchasing at the gate
The Jersey Devil wants to ensure you never have to miss a mini golf fix. Despite their posted hours, this course operates on the honor system, making their putters and golf balls available every day, all year round, so you can play even when no one is working. Just drop $5 in the box at the first hole to enjoy putting on these long greens, which provide a challenge to kids and adults alike.
Best hole: Hole number 12 features a sharp bend and splits in two before converging.
Other amenities: Driving range, picnic area with cornhole, and fire pits
Price: $8 for adults, $7 for 6 to 16-year-olds, free for 5 and under
We all have a mental image of Benjamin Franklin, thanks to the $100 bill: balding, middle-aged, with tiny glasses and a stern look.
But what if he had a full head of hair poking out the sides of his tricorn? What if we saw Franklin singing and jamming on a guitar?
The Sound of America, a new musical showing at FringeArts this month, imagines Franklin as a young man: America’s very first rock star who finds fame after discovering electric rock and roll from the power of a lightning strike.
In the musical, he gains fame and fortune as a rock star. But stardom sweeps him up and pulls him away from the people and values that once defined him as a struggling musician, leaving him to question his true identity.
Leading the ensemble cast is a newly minted Temple musical theater graduate, Kohl Pilgrim. Last week, he stood with fellow actors Federica Andino-Vega and Jameson May, who play Franklin’s wife Deborah Read and his best friend Hugh Meredith, respectively.
Pilgrim and cast play their instruments live, serving as both performers and a band.
Delivering their lines and singing at microphone stands, Nashville Bluebird Cafe-style, the three practiced blocking the scene where Franklin and Read first meet. After a flirty exchange, a naive and confused Franklin finds out Read is married to a man who has disappeared without evidence of his death.
“We tend to see [Founding Fathers] as these infallible perfect people who created the perfect society,” director and Temple professor Kyle Metzger said. “It’s exciting to see a young Founding Father making mistakes and being complex and messy. It’s important to remember these were people, too, who didn’t have all the answers and were trying their best.”
Setting out to write a write a rock musical, the choice of protagonist was a no-brainer for the musical’s cocreator and Emmy-award winning producer Randall Lane and longtime friend and singer-songwriter Todd Schwartz.
“Under Poor Richard, he was the lyricist for colonial America,” said Lane, referring to Franklin’s pseudonym under which he published a yearly almanac. “And then when he discovered the lightning rod, he literally became the first American who was world famous, and toured the world.”
Just like a young rock star.
Federica Andino-Vega (left), who plays Franklin’s wife Deborah Read, adjusts Gerson Malave’s wig during a dress rehearsal for “The Sound of America” on June 24.
Lane, who is also the editor in chief of Forbes magazine, lives in Saratoga Springs but feels deeply connected to Philadelphia through the years he went to Penn to study history and political science.
For him, Franklin “checked every box.”
“He was a teenage fugitive who ran away from home and every Friday he was hanging out [at] the Leather Apron Club,” the mutual-improvement society Franklin and his friends founded in 1727, said Lane.
Every week, they’d meet in taverns, “jamming out intellectual ideas,” said Lane. In the case of his musical, they create a garage band.
Franklin, after all, invented the glass harmonica.
The musical’s soundtrack includes 23 original songs cowritten by Lane and Schwartz, influenced by Queen, Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, and the Beatles. Metzger describes the production as “80% rock concert, 20% musical.”
Kyle Metzger (center), the director for “The Sound of America,” directs the cast inside FringeArts for the forthcoming musical on June 24.
The cast will serve as narrators at the front of the stage, while a live band plays behind them. Floor seats will be available and swaying arms and singing along will be highly encouraged. It’s meant to feel like a concert and not just another historical “rock” musical (sorry, Hamilton).
“I’m always drawn to theater that’s untraditional or pushing into other mediums or incorporating other art forms,” Metzger said.
True to style, The Sound of America also doubles as a walking tourled by Pilgrim, still in character as Benjamin Franklin. After curtain call, audiences can participate in a tour of Franklin’s Old City house and grave, a short walk away from the FringeArts venue.
Needless to say, Pilgrim has had to really pack on the homework for this portion of the show.
“Most of my free time when I am not in rehearsal or with friends, I am home reading his autobiography,” he said. “I am reading anything I possibly can because there’s probably going to be a kid that’s like ‘What’s his favorite food? Did he like burgers?’ So I’m researching that, too.”
Barrymore award-winning director Kyle Metzger is also a professor in Temple’s Musical Theater program.
When asked about Franklin’s favorite drink, Pilgrim was certain it was wine. As for his hypothetical Jersey Shore vacation spot, Pilgrim named Cape May.
“I think he would like the houses,” he said.
“I want to pay homage to how honest, wise, and hard-working he was,” said the actor, who sought inspiration from iconic rock figures like David Lee Roth, Elvis Presley, and Sir Roger Daltrey, frontman of the Who.
Daltrey, in fact, makes a remote cameo in the musical, in support of Teen Cancer America, the nonprofit he founded along with Who bandmate Pete Townshend.
Lane and Schwartz’s royalties will be donated to the charity, which partners with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The production is also collaborating with Federal Donuts & Chicken for a specialty doughnut called “The Ben”; a portion of its sales will benefit the cause.
Kohl Pilgrim, the actor bringing Ben Franklin’s rock and roll persona to life, inside FringeArts.
“We want this to be a really big win to fight cancer, but we think that it’s also super true to the spirit of Benjamin Franklin,” Lane said. “He was a rock star in all the senses, but he was also somebody who really cared about where he lived, and we want to leave Philadelphia better than we found it.”
But as with any rock star, Franklin’s story would be nothing without his entourage.
In addition to wife Read and bestie Meredith, the ensemble cast includes British antagonist Lord Wedderburn, played by Kaedon Knight and Franklin’s illegitimate son William Temple Franklin (aka “WTF”), played by Gerson Malave.
Read is the only female character in the show, accompanying Franklin on his journey to stardom. Though she is often forgotten in history, her common-law marriage to Franklin saw her holding down the Franklin household and publishing company with a shotgun during the unrest of the Stamp Act.
“She was a baddie, the baddie on Market Street,” Andino-Vega said. “But [Franklin] got most of the spotlight just because she was very shy and a bit illiterate. I want to shine a light on those special ladies that have been forgotten, and bring them up a little more in a way where they can also be seen like Ben Franklin.”
The cast of “The Sound of America” are committed to delivering a rock concert, not just a musical.
The cast and crew, largely Philadelphia-based and/or raised, are deeply committed to reflecting the grit of the city through this unique portrayal, especially in light of the 250th anniversary of the nation.
“It’s almost like Ben was talking to us saying this year’s really important and this summer is important to Philadelphia,” Lane said. “It gives everybody that visits Philly a reminder that Philadelphia was the birthplace of democracy and it’s the soul of America.”
The Sound of America runs July 1-Aug. 1 at FringeArts, 140 N. Christopher Columbus Blvd. Tickets start at $60. soundofamericamusical.com, 215-413-1318, or hello@fringearts.com.
A previous version of the article misidentified the actors playing Hugh Meredith and Lord Wedderburn. Jameson May and Kaedon Knight play the characters respectively.
🍦 Stella’s Ice Cream out of Idaho (yes, Idaho) just opened on Front Street in Fishtown/Kensington, and Bea has the early scoop.
🍦 Winners, rocking a feel-good message, is new on South Street in Graduate Hospital. As Kiki Aranita says, Winners’ appeal is more than just the flavors, like Sweet Success S’mores.
🍦Our guide to our favorite ice cream is right here.
Critic Craig LaBan is back from his annual Jersey Shore exploration, and he’s shaking the sand out of his notebook. In Part One of his roundup, he heads to the mainland to find some gems. Read that here.
Looking ahead: Part Two, Craig’s reviews from Long Beach Island and thereabouts, will be online this weekend. On July 11, he’ll share his discoveries from points farther south in Part Three.
Ember & Ash on East Passyunk Avenue will be closed for an undetermined period after smoke and flames shot up through the ventilation last week just after closing time. No injuries were reported.
This weekend will see the debut of Broad Street Beer Garden at LOVE Park, the first phase of a planning reuse of the so-called flying saucer building at 16th and JFK. Here’s the long history of the city landmark.
We munched on fried silverfish that reminded us of French fries in Little Saigon, Argentine empanadas in West Philly, and a vegan po’ boy in Old City that tasted like the original.
Scoops
Intrigue! Albert Zheng, whose holdings include Javelin in Fairmount, is backing a yet-to be-named dual concept on the way to 808 Chestnut St., formerly a Dunkin’ Donuts. In front, the feature will be wagyu omakase, while the rear will be what he calls a Cambodian speakeasy. He says it’s six or seven months out.
Mylar Bar, a cocktail bar inspired by the spirit of South Philly’s Dino’s Party Center, is expected to open later this summer from hospitality veterans Liv Arterbridge and Gina Piccari. They bought the former building at Ninth and Morris Streets where Dino’s sold balloons, decorations, and party supplies for decades before it moved across the street. “We want the whole thing to feel like a party,” Arterbridge said. “Nostalgic, fun, a little silly, intentionally unserious — but not a theme bar,” Piccari said. Cocktails will include martinis, punches, and classic drinks, alongside draft beer and familiar favorites. A full kitchen, led by chef Colin White, formerly of Sally and Emmett, will serve shareable “party snacks” and larger plates. They plan to offer late-night desserts, so food will be available until 1 a.m. with the bar wrapping at 2. Arterbridge, whose resume includes Cry Baby, Poison Heart, and a.bar, met Piccari while working at Boot & Saddle, where Piccari was manager. Piccari is now behind the bar at Le Virtù.
Restaurant report
Sixteen restaurants, bakeries, cafes, and bars — including Lillian’s, shown above — are opening in July. Read on for the rundown.
Penny’s Bagels, on its way (for the last two years) to 212 Kings Highway East in Haddonfield, will hand out 250 red, white, and blue bagels on July 3 at the borough’s parade. The shop is eyeing an August opening, says owner Chris Fetfatzes.
Maru, a fast-casual Korean-inspired restaurant from David Backhus and the team behind the now-closed Oori, is expected to open in August in what is now Collective Coffee & Bakery, which Backhus also owns, at 2922 Conestoga Rd. in Glenmoore. Maru’s menu will feature Korean fried chicken sandwiches, wings, tenders, house-made mochi doughnuts, and specialty coffee, while continuing to serve Collective Coffee and honor existing coffee subscriptions.
Briefly noted
Ota-Ya in Newtown has announced that Friday will be its last day after 30 years with the retirement of owners Jeff Wong and Cindy Tam.
PETA is launching its “Nice Cream Trail,” highlighting 10 shops across the state serving vegan ice cream, and there are five local spots on the list: Dreams Ice Cream Factory in Glenside, Lu & Aug’s in Ardmore, the Main Freeze in Lansdale, Milk Jawn in South Philadelphia and Northern Liberties, and Scoop DeVille in Center City and Queen Village. The first Pennsylvania resident to complete the trail by visiting all 10 participating shops through August will win a vegan ice cream party with PETA’s “iScream” truck for themselves and up to 50 guests. Details are here.
Two local BBQ chefs, Matt Groark (Medford Lakes, N.J.) and Maxwell McGibbon (Newark, Del.), are competing on Food Networks’ Pitmasters, premiering July 13 at 9 p.m.
Diner en Blanc registration is still open. This year’s version of the pop-up picnic is Aug. 20.
Miller’s Ale House, in the shopping center next to the Home Depot in Springfield, Delaware County, closed this week after 13 years, while Fishtown is abuzz with speculation that Bottle Bar East, which opened at 1308 Frankford Ave. around the same time in late 2012, has closed. The phone is down, and owners could not be reached for comment
When is Adda ever going to open in Fishtown? — Rich C.
True, Adda has been a long time coming, since I initially wrote about it in June 2025 with an end-of-2025 target. Adda — from New York City’s Unapologetic Foods, whose establishments are acclaimed for their bold, no-holds-barred approach to Indian cooking — is now looking at a late-fall opening at 1700 Frankford Ave., the new building across from the Fishtown post office.
Corrigendum: Reader Stephanie points out that Kalaya is the third Philadelphia restaurant, not the second, to win the James Beard Award for outstanding restaurant, as I wrote two weeks ago. Zahav was the first in 2019, while Friday Saturday Sunday won in 2023.
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Big Night is a food movie, an Italian American movie, a movie about brotherhood, and a movie about the immigrant experience. And , it’s a Jersey Shore movie.
Released in 1996, it stars Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci as Primo and Secondo, a pair of Italian immigrant brothers who operate an authentic but failing Italian restaurant in an unnamed Jersey Shore town in the 1950s.
Chafing under the competition of the more successful but less authentic restaurant across the street, the brothers stake it all on the eponymous “Big Night” when they’ve been told the jazz bandleader Louis Prima is coming to dine at their spot. Presumably, he’d then talk up the food and save their restaurant.
Big Night is full of mouth-watering food, starting with the timpano, a complex dish that includes a crust, meat, pasta, and more.
Codirectors Stanley Tucci (left) and Campbell Scott, on set of the movie “Big Night,” circa 1996. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
While the film’s exteriors were shot in Monmouth County’s Red Bank and Keyport, the film never specifies exactly where it is set. The interiors were shot on a soundstage in New York City.
“It was really one of those towns that had not changed too much,” Shalhoub said to The Inquirer. “The town, the outside of the restaurant, the beach sequences, were all shot in Jersey.” Even in 1996, the areas easily stood in for the 1950s Jersey Shore.
Shalhoub, well-known for the TV series Monk and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, among numerous movie roles, shot Big Night during a summer hiatus from his sitcom Wings.
“I knew Stanley Tucci; we had done a play together in the late ‘80s,” he said. “We were both actors in New York, I had seen his work in the theater, [and] we had similar friends and directors in common.”
Actors Stanley Tucci and Ian Holm on set of the movie “Big Night,” circa 1996.
There was a specific reason Tucci decided to make Big Night, Shalhoub said.
“[He wanted] to sort of begin to establish himself as an actor … not to be pigeonholed into the stereotypical Italian Mafia zone.”
There was no mention of that in Big Night.
“It’s all about the brothers,” Shalhoub said. “It’s about the period, it’s about the food, it’s about the old country, Primo having one foot still in the old country.”
“The closest we get to violence is those two clowns rolling around. They don’t even know how to fight,” the actor said during a conversation recently following a special screening of the film at the Lighthouse International Film Festival on Long Beach Island.
Campbell Scott (left) and Tony Shalhoub speak at a 30th anniversary screening of their film “Big Night” at Lighthouse International Film Festival on Long Beach Island, on June 12, 2026.
Big Night had been “in the pipeline” for many years, and Shalhoub had originally auditioned for the role of Pascal, the rival restaurant owner ultimately played by Ian Holm.
It finally came together in the summer of 1995; the shoot lasted about four weeks.
“I was thrilled,” Shalhoub said. “Any part, either part, I was happy to join, because I loved the material, and I had a lot of respect for Stanley.”
Tucci and Campbell Scott, actors who had been high school classmates, codirected the film, which was cowritten by Tucci and his cousin Joseph Tropiano.
“I don’t know how he wore all those hats,” Shalhoub said of Tucci. “Being a cowriter … and co-directing, and being in almost every scene, and it being his first film.”
Shalhoub, who is from a large Lebanese American family in Green Bay, Wisc., had limited exposure to Italian American culture growing up. He also didn’t live anywhere near an ocean.
Master of Ceremonies for the 12th Annual Independent Spirit Awards ceremony, Samuel L. Jackson (center) jokes with Best First Screenplay winners Stanley Tucci (left) and Joseph Tropiano for “Big Night,” on March 22, 1997, in Santa Monica, California.
(AP Photo/E.J. Flynn)
The Big Night shoot was his first time at the Jersey Shore. He had, however, had some experience with Italian food.
Growing up, he remembers being taken to a family friend’s apartment, where an “older Italian woman” made “some pasta dishes.”
“I don’t know what I was eating, but I couldn’t get enough of it.”
At 19, after heading East for college at the University of Southern Maine, Shalhoub had his first “Italian sandwich, which I’d never heard of before … And all the variations on an Italian sub, and all those great Italian deli meats.”
On the sets of Big Night, he said, the crew had food stylists preparing the dinners shown in the film.
“All these meals that we had to consume on camera … it was delicious!” he said.
Campbell Scott (left) and Tony Shalhoub speak at a 30th anniversary screening of their film “Big Night” at the Lighthouse International Film Festival on Long Beach Island, on June 12, 2026.
The film ends with a famous scene — five minutes of no dialogue, just Tucci cooking an omelet and the brothers sitting down to eat it.
The film’s financiers didn’t understand that scene and wanted it changed or removed, Scott said at the screening. The directors then pulled the old Mel Brooks trick; they said they’d take the scene out but didn’t.
Tucci and Shalhoub, 30 years later, are not only busy actors, but both have recently hosted food-focused travel shows: Hulu’s Tucci in Italy and HBO’s Breaking Bread, respectively.
“I could never have imagined that this movie would have the legs that it has, that 30 years in, it would still be a film that people go back to and consider one of the best food movies,” Shalhoub said.
Philadelphia chef and restaurateur Marc Vetri is a fan.
“In 1996, chefs were in this kind of zone,” said Vetri, who watched the film shortly after it came out. “We all made the menus, and we had our visions, and we didn’t want to alter anything, and [said] ‘this is how we do it’.”
He still remembers the unveiling of the timpano in the film.
Marc Vetri makes pasta at Vetri Cucina, in Philadelphia, Oct. 30, 2025.
“For me, that was magic,” he said. “I was like, ‘I gotta make that’ … I get that because when I finish something that I’m working on, I have that same look, that same feeling; it looks like I’m in love. That never leaves us.”
Vetri, who has gone on to cook for many famous people, said the film always reminds him of when, early in the life of his first restaurant, he cooked for famed French chef Jacques Pépin. He cooked whole roasted fish, with cherry tomatoes and olives.
Thirty years on, Vetri — like many others — remains a fan.
“The music, the vibes, and even the ending … Everything [with] cooking, you always just want to make it the most awesome thing. Having them make that omelet — it’s just that magical thing that they’re sharing.”
This Fourth of July will be unlike any in recent memory. As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, Philadelphia and the surrounding region are packed with celebrations — and fireworks displays. From the city and suburbs to South Jersey and the Shore, there are dozens of opportunities to catch a show.
Whether you’re staying in Philadelphia, heading to the suburbs, or spending the holiday down the Shore, here’s where to find Fourth of July fireworks across the region.
Wawa Welcome America: 🕙 July 4, 5 p.m. 📍Christina Aguilera and Philadelphia native Jill Scott headline a concert followed by fireworks, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pa., 19130, 🌐 july4thphilly.com
Conshohocken Fireworks Display: 🕙 July 3, 9:15 p.m., 📍The fireworks will take place at Sutcliffe Park, but the borough is closing the park and surrounding areas to the public due to the size of the display. (They advise you to watch the show from another vantage point in town.), 🌐 conshohockenpa.gov
VENTNOR, N.J. — The e-bike revolution will not be coming to Ventnor’s famously chaotic boardwalk. The city banned motorized bicycles decades ago, and raised the penalties in 2023, citing dangers from the speeds and heavier bicycles.
Ocean City tried doing the same in 2024, but reversed course on the lowest speed e-bikes after an outcry, particularly from seniors who have grown to cherish the electric bikes that take them farther and faster, and against the wind without breaking a sweat.
Wildwood allows them but has a 10 mph speed limit for any vehicle. Atlantic City prohibits them.
But while boardwalk rules vary, the state’s e-bike law, passed in January with a grace period through July 19, requires New Jerseyans with e-bikes to register them and, in some cases, purchase insurance.
The law was adopted amid a sense of urgency after a 13-year-old Scotch Plains boy on an electric bike was killed in a collision with a landscaping truck. Earlier this month, Chase Sudano, 16, a rising wrestling star at St. Augustine Prep, was killed after he collided with a UPS delivery truck in Southhampton, Burlington County.
The law defines two classes of e-bikes: low-speed, where the motor assists only while pedaling and shuts off when the bicycles reaches 20 miles per hour, and a motorized bicycle that is throttle-capable of assisted speeds up to 28 miles per hour.
All users of both categories must have a permit or driver’s license and wear helmets. Nobody under 15 can ride one at all.
‘It’s a mess’
So far, there is no way to actually comply. The state’s own Motor Vehicle Commission website has no way to register an e-bike. The state now says it will begin taking appointments only after the grace period ends.
Scott Chambers, owner of Zippy’s Bikes in Wildwood, says the new e-bike law in New Jersey “is a mess,” with no way for people to comply with registration requirements, and confusion over other issues.
“It’s a mess,” said Scott Chambers, owner of Zippy’s Bikes in Wildwood. “It’s so overwhelming because they created this law, I don’t want to say haphazardly, but they rushed it.”
Crawford said his customers are reluctant to buy an e-bike until they know they can ride it in compliance with the law.
He says the law doesn’t mention e-tricycles, so it’s not clear where those might fall. (The state now says the law does not apply to e-tricycles.)
In Ventnor, there’s a big electronic sign on Atlantic Avenue alerting people to the new law’s helmet, insurance, and registration requirements. A new sign was added to the Boardwalk itself, highlighting two prohibited categories: e-bikes and dogs.
Ventnor police Lt. Bryan Gaviria says the department will have its hands full, educating and, at some point, enforcing the new e-bike law.
But first, he said, they need some answers themselves.
“We’re absolutely waiting for clarity all around,” he said, adding that the city’s bicycle officers are choosing to ride on non-electric bikes because they don’t want to be out of compliance themselves, and they don’t want to be on e-bikes while enforcing an e-bike ban.
Ventnor installed this sign on the Boardwalk warning that electric bikes were prohibited (as well as dogs). The state’s new e-bike law goes into effect July 19, but Pennsylvanians will not be required to register their e-bikes while in New Jersey, the state says.
Waiting on the state
The state recently clarified some of the issues that were causing confusion.
William Connolly, the press secretary for the N.J. Motor Vehicle Commission, says the MVC will begin offering appointments for e-bike licensing and registration in July. The law’s grace period ends July 19.
“We will be making an announcement later this month about when appointments will become available, along with offering newly updated resources and step-by-step guidance for e-bike licensing and registration,” he said.
He said the delay was due to the “extensive IT upgrades” required for new licensing and registration systems, educational resources and testing procedures, not to mention buying new materials such as “specialized license plate stickers,” that will have to be displayed on the registered bikes.
“We are establishing a first-of-its-kind, comprehensive process for e-bikes,” he said.
Ventnor installed this electronic sign on Atlantic Avenue to educate people about the state’s new e-bike law. Pennsylvanians will not be required to register their e-bikes while in New Jersey, the state says.
Connolly said there is one category of e-bikes that will not require insurance, though they will still require registration: the lowest speed e-bikes.
“These are the low-speed e-bikes with a motor that provide pedal assist only when the rider is pedaling and cease to provide assistance when the e-bike reaches 20 mph,” he said.
So what if you’re visiting the Shore and bring an e-bike?
Connolly said: “E-bike registration through the New Jersey MVC is only available to New Jersey residents.” Meaning, Pennsylvanians can bring their bikes and use them without registering them.
But bicycle advocates say the law is confusing, because it also states that any bike must display a sticker showing that it is registered.
While the law was prompted by a series of crashes, and particularly by the ubiquitous use by teenagers, it has been seniors that have taken to the e-bikes and urged towns to let them ride on their boardwalks.
Annamarie, 70, and Mike Carr, 71, of Ventnor are best known for the Jagielky’s candy shops they own, but it’s e-bikes that have become their passion.
Loading their bikes back onto their truck in Ocean City, where they began and ended a bike ride around various bridges, Mike Carr said he’d be sure to wear a helmet, because he believes that will be the thing that officers will focus in on in the beginning.
Annamarie said, “Sure we’re upset,” about not being able to ride on Ventnor’s boardwalk, but they recognize the risks from people going too fast, particularly on electric scooters.
E-bikes have allowed the couple to go on numerous bike rides a week, for upward of 30 or more miles. They’d never do that on a regular bike.
“We parked here, we went the whole length of the boardwalk, we went down to 29th Street, we went back to Haven Avenue, came back and went over the bridge to go see the birds,” Mike said, describing the couple’s route that day.
With the e-bikes, they don’t have to worry about the wind, he said. The couple will typically go 13 miles an hour.
They are hooked on the freedom, distance, and exhilaration that e-bikes have given them, even as they passed 70. They ride all over the bridges of the barrier islands.
Mike’s got some of his regular routes timed so that he can get over the bridge without getting a red light and without automobile traffic catching him from behind. “When we’re going into Longport, you turn around, you look at the light. When it’s red, you have four minutes to get over. You hit the throttle and you go as fast as you can.”
He said they’ll try to register the bicycles and comply with the law, once they’re able to:
“I’ll have to wear a helmet because I’m guessing they’ll look for the guys with no helmet, pull them over.”
E-bike riders can sign up for direct updates from MVC here.
Yes, Memorial Day weekend is the official start of summer, but there’s a pleasant lull down the Shore between then and when kids get out of school. These are the final moments to enjoy the excellent weather and relative serenity of the microseason, and Seven Mile Island — home to the bougie siblings of Stone Harbor and Avalon — has rolled out the white-sand carpet.
These towns contain some of the most expensive real estate at the Jersey Shore, and in the height of the summer, staying anywhere nice is prohibitively expensive for anyone who is not on a Comcast C-suite salary or whose grandparents didn’t buy a house in 1975. This is another benefit of visiting before July 4. Rates are lower, reservations are easier, and the line at Springer’s is only slightly less insane.
Situated right in the center of Seven Mile, at the southern end of Avalon, beachfront ICONA has the location edge over the island’s other luxury hideout, the Reeds at Shelter Haven, which is convenient to Stone Harbor’s 96th Street shopping district. Both properties are expensive, but you can still find some lingering June rates under $400 a night. ICONA’s beach is beautiful and peaceful, with a breezy bar and lounge between the property and the shoreline, and Avalon Brew Pub is a popular canteen for locals and Shoobies alike.
The origins of Pete Smith’s Surf Shop lie in Virginia Beach, but the boutique has been part of the Jersey Shore for decades. The Stone Harbor location, spread across two storefronts, stocks men’s and women’s swimwear, woolly shackets for chilly nights, and enough Sun Bum for the entire summer. Pick up a branded T-shirt; Pete’s releases a new design every Christmas.
📍 285 96th St., Stone Harbor, N.J. 08247
Learn: The Wetlands Institute
Whether you’re visiting the Shore with kids or simply marine-curious, the Wetlands Institute, located just before crossing the bridge into Stone Harbor, makes a perfect stop. Learn about the local terrapin turtles, pet a sea star in the touch tank, or walk along the marsh trail and elevated boardwalk for views of an integral Jersey ecosystem that most of us rarely see up close.
📍 1075 Stone Harbor Blvd., Stone Harbor, N.J. 08247
Surf: Avalon Surf Camp
Don’t be dissuaded by the multitude of kids on Avalon Surf Camp’s website. Their instructors teach wannabe surfers of all ages and experience levels through group and private lessons on 12th Street beach at the north end of Avalon. The camp provides everything you need: boards, wetsuits, and a working knowledge of the ocean’s mercurial temperament before ever getting in the water. With a little luck and a little wind, you’ll be up on a board by noon.
Because surfing is a workout, and because you’re a good person who deserves nice things, book a treatment with 7 Mile Island Massage. This isn’t a spa but a mobile studio that comes to you. Owner and therapist Nik Pattantyus, who’s also a registered nurse and avid stand-up paddleboarder, will set up in your hotel suite, on the back porch of your rental house, or wherever else you happen to be staying. In addition to deep-tissue, reflexology, and other massage styles, he’s recently added manual lymphatic drainage to the menu.
The fire wood grill cooking various meats at La Portena in Stone Harbor, N.J., on Thursday, June 12, 2025.
Dine: La Porteña
Lucas Manteca has been cooking down the Shore for two decades, and La Porteña, a few blocks from his Quahog’s seafood tavern, is his most personal project yet. The menu and family-style format draw from the chef’s Argentine heritage. Every table receives a spread of snacks and salads to share, including Manteca’s famous empanadas, followed by each diner’s choice of entrée: New York strip, short ribs, Iberico pork secreto, and more. At the time of this writing, dessert is dulce de leche rice pudding with compressed rhubarb. Make reservations.
The line stretching from the white-sided front porch of Springer’s Homemade Ice Cream down Third Avenue is legendary. You might run into your college lacrosse coach, the kids you babysat who are now disconcertingly grown and lifeguarding on 88th Street, or the local girl you spent that one magical summer with in 10th grade. Springer’s has been scooping since the early 1900s, and the nostalgia it inspires is as much a part of the appeal as flavors like banana fudge, the slightly salty butterscotch brickle, and Cookies in My Coffee, crushed Oreos veined through dark coffee ice cream. Worth the wait, always.
The show, initially an adaptation of a 1981 film directed by Alan Alda, released its second season in May with its ensemble cast, including Fey, Colman Domingo, Will Forte, Kerri Kenney-Silver, Marco Calvani, and Erika Henningsen. Each season sees the friend group travel together on four trips throughout the course of one year, going as far as Italy and Puerto Rico and as near as upstate New York and the Jersey Shore (where they filmed in Ocean Grove and Point Pleasant Beach).
Created by Fey and fellow 30 Rock writers Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher, The Four Seasons has been credited for its realistic and heartwarming portrayal of middle-aged couples in long-term relationships and friendships.
Fey and Domingo, from Upper Darby and West Philly, respectively, direct some episodes as well. Like their on-screen friendship, the actors have gotten closer as they’ve worked together on the show, they told The Inquirer last month.
“We grew up so geographically close together. I was like on the very edge of the last street in Upper Darby, and across the street was Cobbs Creek Park,” said Fey, adding that they’re the same age.
Tina Fey as Kate and Colman Domingo as Danny in Season 2 of the Netflix comedy series “The Four Seasons,” which premiered May 28.
“I feel like you can see [our friendship] on screen, because it’s actually what has happened personally for us as well, as we got to know each other and each other’s families, each other’s hearts,” said Domingo. “The Jersey Shore location felt very personal for us, because I feel like we grew up there and it brings up [memories].”
In Season 2, the group is grieving the death of their friend Nick (Steve Carrell) and navigating major life changes, like in the case of Domingo and Calvani’s characters. Danny and Claude move to Italy after deciding not to have children. In the finale, however, the couple decide to move to Danny’s hometown of Philadelphia to care for his aging mother. (Initially, Danny tries convincing his mom to live with them in Italy, but when she hears there’s no Wawa in the country, she simply replies, “Then there’s no Beverly in Italy.”)
Will Season 3 see the cast spending any time in Philly? The itinerary hasn’t been announced, but we’re holding out hope.
Cocreator and writer Tina Fey in “The Four Seasons.”
Calvani, in the Netflix announcement, suggested that Season 3 might feature Danny and Claude’s “other, hotter” friend group; Calvani said he hopes to “explore our gay friends” and Domingo added that it would be fun to “take the straights on that vacation.”
One potential new addition to the show is Doctor Who actor David Tennant, who made a cameo in the Season 2 finale as a love interest for Kenney-Silver’s character, Anne. Wigfield hinted at the idea of more story lines with Tennant’s character, but his involvement isn’t official just yet.
“Tina Fey, Lang Fisher, and Tracey Wigfield have a magical way of blending heart and sharp humor, making us feel like part of the inner circle,” said Netflix’s vice president of U.S. comedy Tracey Pakosta in the announcement. “Audiences have fallen in love with these characters and this legendary cast’s electric chemistry.”
At noon on a bright June Tuesday, the scene at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza on the Wildwood boardwalk felt more like a South Philly block party than a soft opening.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino worked the crowd at his new shop — hugging, shaking hands, posing for photos — moving easily among his friends and admirers. At 64, five years removed from the criminal justice system, the onetime alleged head of Philadelphia’s underworld is enjoying a second act that few could have predicted: cheesesteak entrepreneur, podcaster, and social-media personality.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) and Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. (right) posing with a customer outside the Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza shop in Wildwood.
Orbiting him with a phone and a grin was Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. — 30 years his junior — Skinny Joey’s collaborator and the man who helped set him up with a new career. While customers lined up out front for steaks, slices, photos, $35 hats, and $25 T-shirts, Perri was shooting clips for social media.
Their partnership has transformed Merlino from a flashy, polarizing tabloid fixture into a flashy, polarizing Instagram-age brand. Merlino provides the mythology, while Perri supplies the algorithm.
Symbiotically, they are building an unlikely enterprise. Merlino gives Perri access, credibility, and a bigger stage. Perri gives Merlino comic relief, social-media fluency, and a way to be seen as entrepreneurial rather than simply infamous as a reputed former mob boss.
“Without me, there’s no him,” Perri said. “Without him, there’s no me. It’s just a good mix.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino joining customers at Skinny Joey’s in Wildwood during its soft opening on June 2. They call themselves “the Schuylkill Girls” (from left): Julie Shelton, Cindy McCullough, and Terry Landy, all of whom now live in Wildwood.
A ‘mob media’ moment
George Anastasia, who covered organized crime for more than 30 years at The Inquirer and now teaches an organized-crime course at Rowan University, said Merlino’s new career fits a broader moment in mob media.
Former wiseguys, associates, historians, and fans now gather in a true-crime subculture known online as “MobTube,” where the lore is packaged into YouTube shows, Patreon feeds, podcasts, clips, and merch.
Merlino has lived the story that fuels the genre. One of Philadelphia’s most recognizable organized-crime figures, Merlino was convicted in 1990 for his role in a $352,000 armored truck robbery in 1987.
In 2001, he and six co-defendants were tried on federal racketeering charges, including three counts of murder and two of attempted murder. Merlino was acquitted on those counts, but served about 12 years on other charges, including gambling and extortion. A supervised-release violation briefly returned him to prison in 2014, and a second major racketeering case ended in 2018 with a guilty plea to a single illegal-gambling charge after a mistrial. In a separate trial in 2004, he was acquitted of the 1996 killing of Joseph Sodano, an underling in North Jersey. Merlino completed federal supervision in 2021, but he’s been banned from New Jersey casinos since 1988 and from Pennsylvania casinos since a 2016 incident at the former SugarHouse Casino.
And Merlino has made it no secret that he is different from many of the former figures who populate the MobTube genre. Unlike Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, John Alito, and Jimmy Calandra, Merlino never cooperated with prosecutors.
“He saw guys who cooperated come back and become media sensations,” Anastasia said. “And I think he got [annoyed] that these are all guys who, in his view, violated the code, and now they’re making money on that old life. He did his time as a stand-up guy. ‘So [to heck with that] — I’m going to make money, too.’ And he created this brand.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) and Joe Perri Jr. on the set of “The Skinny” podcast.
Perri helped make that legible to a younger audience.
“Lil Snuff is part sycophant and part guide,” Anastasia said. “He’s the one who, in a lot of ways, sets the flow. Joey is going to be Joey, but somebody has to keep bringing him back to the point.”
The rise of Lil Snuff
Before he was Merlino’s co-host, Perri was Lil Snuff.
The nickname came from his father: As a 10-year-old, Joe Sr. turned around when a cousin was calling for a dog named Snuffy. Boom. He was Snuff. When his son was born at Methodist Hospital in 1992, Snuff became Big Snuff.
As a teenager, Lil Snuffbussedtables at Stogie Joe’s, the Saloon, and Fitzwater Cafe. At 18, he joined the stagehands union. At 21, he got a job at Mall Chevrolet in Cherry Hill. The older salesmen had relationships and repeat customers. Perri’s mentor told him that he needed a lane.
It was 2013, and social media was beginning to reshape promotion. Perri started making his own brassy, unscripted commercials. “Selling Chevys for less” became his tagline.
He also made videos about gambling and food, his two passions. He was not famous, but he was visible in the South Philly-to-South Jersey social media corridor where restaurants, sports, betting, family, and neighborhood identity blur into one feed.
At the same time, Perri said, he was abusing pills. In 2014, at 22, his parents found him a rehab center in South Florida. To make sure he got there safely, they called a family friend whose Italian restaurant in Boca Raton had recently opened:
Joey Merlino.
“My father grew up with his grandfather,” Merlino said, explaining the bond. “I grew up with his father. I’ve known him since he was born.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino in 2014 at the Boca Raton restaurant bearing his name.
Perri said it took several attempts before recovery stuck. He has been sober since Sept. 11, 2016. “I’m big with recovery,” he said. “That’s the main thing in my life. I put sobriety first and then everything after that.”
Merlino’s — where Merlino was maitre d’ because his legal situation then precluded ownership — closed in 2016, just before the feds arrested Merlino at his home in Boca in the lead-up to his second racketeering case. “If I didn’t have this trouble, it would still be open,” Merlino said earlier this month.
After Merlino attained freedom in July 2021, producers called with movie, television, and book deals. Merlino turned them all down. “Nothing seemed right,” Merlino said. Someone brought up the idea of a podcast.
“I didn’t even know what that was,” Merlino said.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino leaving the federal courthouse in Manhattan after being sentenced on Oct. 17, 2018.
His friend Raymond “Wags” Wagner explained the concept and suggested a loose format built around food and sports betting. Actor Kevin Connolly of Entourage fame, who was involved early as a producer, told Merlino that he needed a co-host.
“They said, ‘Who would you want?’” Perri said. “They were sending him people, and he was like, ‘I’m not doing nothing with these people.’”
Then Ray Wags suggested Perri.
“Joey was like, ‘100 percent. Get him on the phone,’” Perri said. “Kevin Connolly said, ‘Send me your videos.’ I sent him my videos, and he said, ‘You’re the guy.’ The rest was history.”
The world of ‘MobTube’
Merlino and Perri launched the video podcast in 2023. Viewers are not just watching Merlino talk about the old life. They see him bust Perri’s chops about eating too much and mock his parlays. They get gambling tips, watch them interview athletes and celebrities — all part of a South Philly generational comedy.
Perri describes it in family terms. “My dad’s my dad, but he’s also my best friend, too,” Perri said. “We gamble together. We go out together. We have fun together. So they see me and Joey as that, and they can’t figure out how we mix so good.”
“He’s good,” Merlino said. “I’m old, he’s young. He talks good, he’s funny. He’s a pain in the balls, but it’s a good fit.”
They began The Skinny podcast on YouTube, but now focus more on Patreon, where the content is unfiltered. And better monetized. Perri says TheSkinny has 1,600 Patreon subscribers paying $15.95 a month. He said their social-media pages combined average 30 million views a month.
Perri’s wife, Danielle, handles bookings and schedules. “I produce,” Perri said. “I cut the clips. I do everything. It’s me and Joey. Two-man show.”
A wider audience
When they started, Perri was still selling cars at Mall Chevrolet. But the now-shuttered dealership got tired of people showing up hoping to see Merlino instead of test-driving a Suburban.
Perri quit. The show grew.Merlino’s reinvention has coincided with a broader shift in the gambling world. Legal sportsbooks, now ubiquitous on television and online, have largely supplanted the corner bookmaker, turning an activity once associated with organized crime into a mainstream consumer business. Guests span sports, hip-hop, gambling, and entertainment, including Wallo267, Fat Joe, Ric Flair, and Bernard Hopkins.
Each booking widened his audience, and Merlino was being absorbed into a broader celebrity ecosystem.
Last October, Netflix released Mob War: Philadelphia vs. The Mafia, a docuseries revisiting the violent 1990s power struggle between John Stanfa and Merlino’s younger faction. It steered even more viewers to Merlino and Perri’s world.
‘Skinny Joey,’ wit’
Then came the cheesesteaks.
One night, Perri, Merlino, and friends were playing poker. Merlino wanted cheesesteaks. Perri said he’d make them.
“He’s like, ‘You can’t make cheesesteaks,’” Perri said. “I said, ‘Are you nuts? I’ve been making them my whole life.’”
Perri cooked some. “He was like, ‘This is the best f— cheesesteak ever,’” Perri said. “He said, ‘Let’s open up a cheesesteak place.’ I said, ‘All right. Call it Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks.’ And that was it.”
The first shop opened in March 2025 at 3020 S. Broad St., near the sports complex. From the start, Skinny Joey’s was more than a sandwich shop. It was a set. The shop leaned into Merlino’s notoriety; the sandwiches are wrapped in a collage of newspaper articles about his past.
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino (left) working the grill beside Joe “Lil Snuff” Perri Jr. at the Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks in Philadelphia at its opening in March 2025.
Celebrities showed up: Jason Kelce, Landon Dickerson, Mack Wilson. A customer eating a cheesesteak was good content. A recognizable person eating one on camera was better.
The restaurant also became a magnet for the kind of drama that fuels digital engagement: online beef. Podcaster Gene Borrello, a former Bonnano crime family associate and Merlino antagonist, weighed in last year on an apparent feud between Skinny Joey’s camp and Frank Olivieri of Pat’s King of Steaks. Merlino and Perri had taken issue with a video posted by Olivieri — whose great-uncle invented the steak sandwich — in which he chided shops that chop the meat on the grill. Like most online food feuds, this seems to have subsided.
Then came the deal for Wildwood, where Skinny Joey’s replaced Joe’s Pizzeria, which had been on the boardwalk at Magnolia Avenue for 15 years. There, Skinny Joey’s added pizza and stromboli, which are not sold at the South Philadelphia location.
Reflections in the pizza display case on the boardwalk at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza in Wildwood.
The pizza recipe comes from Vito’s on Haddonfield Berlin Road in Cherry Hill, and the stromboli from Pizza Shack at 15th and Oregon in South Philadelphia, both owned by Skinny Joey’s business partners Stephen Casasanto and John Fioravanti, whom Merlino also described as longtime friends.
More locations are planned. Perri said a Boothwyn shop is expected around Sept. 1, and several others are in the pipeline.
Bypassing the gatekeepers
Merlino is an extreme case of a recent phenomenon. People with complicated histories — criminal, scandalous, controversial, or simply overexposed — no longer need traditional gatekeepers to reintroduce themselves. They can speak directly to followers and monetize the attention.
Perri is not a journalist, of course, or a publicist, exactly. He is not merely a manager, producer, or sidekick. He is something in between — a new kind of local media operator.
He knows the scene, and how to make content feel unscripted even when the business behind it is deliberate. He is close enough to Merlino to bust his chops and deferential enough to preserve the hierarchy. He can translate Merlino to younger audiences without making him seem managed.
Perri softens Merlino without sanding him down. Merlino still curses, rants, and mocks rivals. Anyone they disagree with is a “bedbug.”
Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino greets a table of customers at Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks & Pizza in Wildwood.
“At the end of the day, Joey isn’t going to change who he is for anybody,” Perri said. “If he can’t talk the way he wants to talk, what’s the point?”
That is part of the appeal and part of the discomfort. The audience knows Merlino’s history. They may see him as funny, defiant, loyal, misunderstood, or simply entertaining.
“There’s a segment of the American population that has always been fascinated with the outlaw: Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Don Corleone, Al Capone,” Anastasia said. “What the internet has provided is: Here are these guys in their own words. Are they being genuine? I don’t know. You can say that about any personality. But here’s a look at them without any filter.”
The filter used to be people like Anastasia.
“I was, in a lot of ways, the middleman between the people who were interested in this and the guys who were doing it,” he said. “And people who are interested in this don’t need the middleman anymore. They just go online and listen to whoever they want to listen to.”
People have been bragging about their trips to the Outer Banks since I moved to the Shore three decades ago. Quieter, cheaper, more laid back, more of a relaxing vacation than anything you’ll find in, say, Sea Isle.
Last summer, with an increasingly unaffordable Jersey Shore spawning a subculture of people swearing by other places, we looked at the cost of vacationing in Hawaii and Paris, along with Margate. Deals could be had.
This summer, as gas prices are on the rise, the appeal of an eight-hour drive to North Carolina might give even a priced-out Margatian pause.
Is it worth the drive to get to Duck, N.C.? What about flying to Dublin? Has the “We’re going to Europe instead” crowd thinned out?
We priced options for a family of four and targeted a week in July, the 11th to the 18th.
Rental inventory at the Jersey Shore is rapidly depleting, said Duane Watlington, the CEO and founder of Vacation Rentals Jersey Shore LLC. As of April 1, Long Beach Island is 83% booked for the eight summer weeks, June 27-Aug. 22, he said.
But Watlington said rental prices were looking better, with “Most listings … the same price or up to 10% lower for weekly rentals due to the soft market we had in 2025.”
Everything is relative, of course. Available rentals for that week on LBI can range from a four-bedroom Harvey Cedars charmer at $11,000 to a cozy two-bedroom Beach Haven duplex available Friday to Friday for just $3,000.
The real value, Watlington advised, is in September, with rentals as much as half the price of peak summer weeks, a warm ocean, and the joys of “locals summer.”
Data from HomeToGo showed that Sea Isle City rentals ranged from $6,745 to a whopping $18,828, with an average of $9,389.10 for available properties during that peak July week.
Bethany Beach, Del., ($5,537.59) and Duck, N.C., ($5,361.90) had similar average weekly rentals. Ocean City averaged $6,321.53 for that week, according to Berger Realty data.
Watlington said the median price on LBI for a July or August rental is $7,000 per week, with a range of $1,000 to (yikes) $55,000 week.
The sun peeks out from under the clouds as it sets in Mazatlan, Mexico (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Looking abroad
Paul Ferdinand of Rainbow Voyages in Philadelphia found little available in Dublin during July, “regardless of price.”
He advised switching to early August, and came up with a very competitive trip, detailed below.
Mezgaron James of YouBeEverywhere Travel suggested Mazatlán, Mexico, which she said combines the charm of a Jersey Shore boardwalk with the luxury of a hotel on Mexico’s Pacific coast.
In the end, results were undeniable: The total cost of the more adventurous destinations like Ireland or Mexico was comparable, or even less, than a typical weekly rental at the Shore.
Here are the details.
In this Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010 photo, wild horses are seen in Corolla, N.C. A boom in vacation homes in the last 25 years in this remote place has seen the descendants of colonial Spanish mustangs confined to a 7,500-acre sanctuary on the northern tip of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and now the herd itself may shrink along with its habitat. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)
Outer Banks: Linens included
Outer Banks rentals trend toward the larger side, so the trick might be to vacation with that other family whose kids like your kids.
Myles Wood, of Shoreline OBX, said his company includes a friendly $250 credit for beach gear rental during your stay.
Jersey Shore veteran renters, used to having to (literally) bring their own sheets, find this extremely attractive.
“One of the things we aim to do if someone comes down, everything’s taken care of,” Wood said.
Rental prices have crept up a bit, he notes, but said those priced out of buying a beach house in New Jersey will be pleasantly surprised to see a lower bar of entry, like this Duck beach cottage listed at $650,000.
Sample food: At Aqua, $34 gets you Chef Cory Bryant’s Shrimp and Grits, with smoked pork belly lardons, sun-dried tomatoes, and a creamy lobster sauce.
Vibe: Personal space-y. Says Wood: “Our beaches are wide enough and plentiful enough. You get a slice of personal heaven.”
What’s free? Beaches and parking, oh my.
Drawbacks: No true boardwalk scene. Long, and increasingly expensive, drive for a week’s vacation.
Drinkers and tourists visit the Temple Bar pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin on September 15, 2024.
He found a “stylish one-bedroom apartment” for four at the Dublin City Center location of the Staycity chain that will rent for a week for $1,996. If it’s just for two, he recommends the Hoxton Hotel for its “tasteful decor and fawning service,” which will run about $2,029 mid-August, “a steal for that hotel group,” he said.
Airfare round-trip from Philly on Aer Lingus Irish Airlines will run you around $929 per person, including a seat assignment, checked bag, and in-flight meal.
Vibe: Sea Isle meets James Joyce. Cliffs!
Sample food: Three-course menu at Vintage Kitchen in Dublin for 72 euros features theSkeaghanore duck with miso, sprouting broccoli, sweet potato, and samphire (sea beans).
What’s free? At the Guinness Storehouse, take the basic tour where mom and dad get a free stout.
Drawbacks: Peak Dublin Bay temps are about 59 degrees.
Boardwalk near 6th Street, Ocean City, NJ.
Ocean City: Nostalgia — for a price
Brian Logue, of the Anchor Group in Ocean City, notes that Ocean City has had some record sale prices. But that hasn’t affected rental prices, he said. “The upside for tenants is that rental prices have not kept up with value.”
He’s not sold on the North Carolina alternative.
“From experience, I have clients who love the Outer Banks,” he said. “But unless you have your own plane, it’s eight hours in the car each way.”
He thinks people may think they want an alternative to their ancestral Shore destinations, but in the end, they really don’t.
“There’s not a boardwalk,” he said of the Outer Banks. “The things that make Ocean City ‘America’s Greatest Family Resort,’ it doesn’t exist there. It doesn’t have that nostalgic Jersey feel.”
Maria Sacco Handle, of the Shore House Team, said the snowy winter has spurred interest in Jersey Shore rentals. She said prices have stayed “fairly steady,” with some early booking incentives that will disappear as the season approaches.
“Believe it or not, we love a snowy winter at the Jersey Shore — it reminds everyone how amazing a week at the beach will feel,“ she said. “My advice to anyone thinking about renting this summer: Don’t sit on the fence — the best weeks always go first.”
A typical week in Brigantine in July comes out as about the same as the Outer Banks, minus the cost of driving and plus the cost of a beach tag ($15 per week per person).
In a time-honored Jersey Shore tradition, you’ll have to bring your own bed linens or rent them (no Outer Banks-y credit included).
A four-bedroom, two-bath charming blue rental house in Brigantine’s “A zone,” in the middle of the island, is listed for $5305, a bargain by current Jersey Shore standards.
Sample food: Spicy tuna with Caribbean jerk seasoning at La Scala Beach House will run you $25.
Vibe: With one way on and off, Brigantine is its own insular vibe. All-terrain vehicle holders can go tailgate at the cove.
What’s free?Hmm. An early morning around the island bike ride, as always.
What’s not? Linens! BYO.
Perks: The Borgata is just a short hop over the bridge, and you can visit some stranded marine mammals at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. Also, golf.
Frolicking in a beachside seawater pool in Mazatlán, Mexico.
Mazatlán, Mexico: 13-mile boardwalk
“This was the first thing that popped in my mind,” said Philadelphia travel agent Mezgaron James.
She’s referring to Mazlatán, Mexico, a resort town on Mexico’s Pacific coast. “A lot of people don’t know they have the longest boardwalk in the world, a 13-mile boardwalk. It’s a place that’s untouched.”
James priced out seven nights in our target week, July 11 to 18, at Costa de Oro Beach Hotel, including round-trip tickets on American Airlines from Philadelphia for … $4,000.
“It’s family-friendly,” James said. “There’s a lot of things to do. It’s still lively like the Jersey Shore, but you’ll see a nice mix of people, fishermen hauling the morning’s catch, people bicycling and jogging, catch a coffee and pastry. There’s zip-lining. There’s open air taxis.”
The hotel provides direct access to the beach at no extra cost.
“It’s actually a four-star hotel with a pool right by the beach,” she said.
Sample food: I’m ordering the Zarandeado fish, a whole grilled fish available at multiple places.
Vibe: The 13-mile boardwalk will meet all your Jersey needs.
What’s free? Beaches.
Drawbacks: Check with the U.S. Department of State’s travel advisory to see about impacts from any nearby (but not in tourist areas, typically) cartel violence.
Inquirer staff writer Chris A. Williams contributed to this article.
