🚚 Food trucks and affordability | Down the Shore

It is, at last, the summer of food trucks in Atlantic City, and I am on board. For the record, this week I enjoyed a whiting fish sandwich with a Cajun rémoulade from the Krispy Culture food truck that is parked near O’Donnell Park, often near El Sabor De Mi Tierra, a pupusa truck that’s also got the city buzzing. More food trucks are making the sea wall near Gardner’s Basin their home.

What’s the big deal? Food trucks have a turbulent history in Atlantic City (see the saga of the evicted Fishheads), a town where little is off-limits for controversy. But Atlantic City’s quest to get out from under the casino town shadow and become a more vibrant city, a more shore-y shore town, a town whose downtown feels like one, is well underway.

Is this A.C.’s moment? A new midtown luxury townhouse on Kentucky and Pacific just sold for $850,000 with more on the market. Casino competition is coming from the North, and casino ownership locally is consolidating. My colleague Jason Nark reports that Atlantic City may well be the last affordable Shore town.

In other news, it’s going to be a Cape May throwdown this November for the congressional seat in New Jersey’s 2nd District held since 2018 by U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, of Dennis Township. Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock pulled a bit of an upset in Tuesday’s Democratic primary by knocking off civil rights attorney Tim Alexander, the heavily-funded Bayly Winder, who moved to the district a year ago, and progressive Terri Reese.

📮 Have you recently bought a house down or near the Shore? How’d you make it happen? Let us know, and you could be featured in our “How I Bought This House: Shore edition.” Contact us here.

Have ideas or news tips about the Shore or this newsletter? Send them to me here.

🌞 Looking like beach weather.

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me at @amysrosenberg, on Instagram at @amysrosenberg. 📧 Email me here.)

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🔥 A fire tore through Wally’s restaurant in Surf City. Owners say they will rebuild.

🇭🇹 The World Cup team from Haiti will use Stockton University in Galloway as its team base.

🏈 Jason Kelce hung out at Strathmere’s Twisties.

🪺 It was a challenging year for ospreys.

🎣 A.C.’s sea wall may be a little too popular for some.

🤍 A teenager who went into the ocean while on a school field trip to Wildwood is missing.

🚨 Atlantic City police said two of its officers were recovering after a shooting that also left a man dead.

⛴️ Ride the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, as columnist Stephanie Farr did.

🎡 Skinny Joey’s Cheesesteaks sold out of everything on its first official day on the Wildwood boardwalk.

🙃 Try a little hanging and rolling at Wonder Wheel and Sling Yoga on the beach in Brigantine and Ventnor.

🪗 Tony Mart is expanding to two nights of Mardi Gras-themed and other weekly free concerts on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

🐷 Resorts has a fun new pop-up bar, the Piggy Bank.

🐙 Craig LaBan praised the $23 octopus and sweet potato at Rustico Ventnor, the former Velo cafe.

Two neighboring bayside homes in which Shore town recently hit the market for a combined $26 million?

A. Stone Harbor

B. Avalon

C. Harvey Cedars

D. Margate

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. Or take a guess and email us with the answer here.

A reader wrote us: “Unfortunately, we are no longer permitted to operate our e-bikes on the boardwalk. … I wish AC and Ventnor wouldn’t deprive seniors of this wonderful activity.”

We turned to our group chat and asked whether e-bikes should be allowed on busy Shore boardwalks.

So many replies, with most people in favor of some kind of ban. Look for an upcoming story that explores the topic more generally, and how New Jersey passed a new law requiring e-bikes to be registered and insured but so far has no way for people to do that.

Here’s a sampling:

Have an opinion on this or another beach etiquette question for us to tackle? Let us know by replying to this email.

Tom Reed writes:

After the big storm of ‘62 my dad was able to move a house from Philly to a foundation of a previous home in West Wildwood. I was 8 years old. We spent every summer there until the mid seventies. It was a long walk to the beach or boardwalk but we did it a couple times a week. The “boards” was a great entertainment venue as the many ride ticket prices on Hunts Pier, Sportland Pier and later, Morey’s, were reasonable and the girl-watching was priceless. Mack’s Pizza and later Sam’s Pizza was the ultimate meal.

I would later marry a girl that I met in West Wildwood in 1972 and we are still together all these years later.

Send us your Shore memory! In 200 words, tell us how the Shore taps into something deep for you, and we will publish them in this space during the summer.

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