An old hand at fresh seafood
Mike Monichetti will spend this weekend as he always does: on his stool behind the counter at Mike's Seafood in Sea Isle City, thinking. He's thinking about the weekend's business - and about the sacrifices of his grandparents and parents, who brought him to his place down the shore.
SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. — Mike Monichetti is on his stool, thinking.
This is where Mike always is at Mike's Seafood in Sea Isle City — on the stool behind the counter, against the wall on the right.
He's looking in five different directions at once, is what he's doing.
"When I want the guys' attention, I bang the stool on the floor like this — bang, bang, bang," he says. "I've glued this thing back together 15 times."
The Jersey Stone Crabs are not, as the Mike's legend sometimes goes, farmed in traps along the harbor, regenerating claws in their traps, but are caught in lobster pots from local boats that go 70 miles off the coast. The whole ones have found a big market in Asian communities, says Capt. Eric Burcaw. But the claws he sells to Mike's and a few other restaurants have become very popular, especially with the Jersey Shore crowd, all the way to Margate, who know from Joe's Stone Crabs in South Beach, where similar-looking claws sell for $60 a pound. This is a deal, and Mike Monichetti is all about the deal.
"There's a rush," he says.