Landmark Cherry Hill eatery, Coastline, set to close

A landmark Cherry Hill restaurant that for decades has served up seafood, Sunday brunch, dance parties, and charity events will soon close its doors.

The Coastline Bar & Grill, which filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, will close after the case's settlement, which likely will be early next year, according to a lawyer for the Brace Road restaurant.

"They are - and I guess they still are - a great institution," former Cherry Hill Mayor Bernie Platt said. "I remember it before it was the Coastline. They always had great food, great people working there, and they were very charitable to police and veterans."

Platt said he had dinner there with friends just last week and during his long political career has attended many functions and charity events there.

Dino Mantzas, a Marlton lawyer representing the restaurant, said Tuesday its parent company, JCBG Inc., plans to sell its liquor license to Cherry Hill's Woodcrest Country Club and then the property to Philadelphia-based Orens Development Co., which plans to open a senior living facility on the site.

The impending transition comes at the same time as one on Route 70, where Penn Medicine has announced plans to locate in the long-vacant Syms clothing store.

Penn Medicine said this week that it had signed a 20-year lease for the 150,000-square-foot building with Finnmarc, which paid $4.75 million to buy it in 2013. Penn said it plans to invest $50 million to develop the building.

The complex will include outpatient facilities and a three-story parking garage. Syms went out of business in 2012.

Bridget Palmer, a spokeswoman for Cherry Hill Mayor Chuck Cahn, said the Penn project speaks to the township's reputation as a growing hub for medicine in South Jersey. She noted that Kennedy Memorial Hospital had recently broken ground on an office building and surgical center, and that three urgent care centers have opened in the last year, with a fourth in the works.

As for the Coastline, Cahn said in an e-mail that it "has been a long-standing institution in Cherry Hill, and we are disappointed to learn that it will close."

"We look forward to seeing the site redeveloped in a positive way that will benefit and serve the members of our community for many years to come," Cahn said.

Palmer said the area's highway business zoning would allow for construction of an assisted living facility.

Woodcrest plans to purchase the liquor license because it would let the club serve alcohol to members and guests at weddings and other private functions, she said. The semiprivate golf club has a limited license that only allows it to serve alcohol to members.

On June 30, the Coastline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allows debtors to reorganize their finances with court protection, according to documents filed in federal bankruptcy court in Camden.

The Coastline will remain fully operational until the settlement, Mantzas said.

Representatives from Orens Development and First Montgomery Group, which owns Woodcrest, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

JCBG reported nearly $4 million in assets and nearly $5 million in liabilities, according to court documents.

"For a very long period of time, [the Coastline] was a restaurant that seemed to cater to an older crowd . . . seniors [in their] 60s, 70s," said local historian Paul Schopp.

Schopp said a restaurant called the Farm preceded the Coastline, and an old farmhouse used to sit on the property.

While the Coastline prepares to sell, other businesses are under construction in Cherry Hill, Palmer said. Projects in the works, she said, include an Audi dealership on Route 70 and a shopping center at Route 38 and Coles Avenue that is to include a McDonald's and 25,000 square feet of retail space.