Community Corner
Oh, The Lobster! And The Shrimp! Festival Tantalizes Taste Buds Again
The 34th annual Festival By The Sea draws thousands to 'unofficial end' of summer tourist season
As the New Jersey Transit train finished unloading passengers at the Arnold Avenue station and cleared the tracks headed for Bay Head, the throngs of people streamed across, then crossed Route 35 as police officers directed traffic.
The midafternoon sky had taken on an ominous color of gray, and there was a distinct chill in the air, but the pedestrians seemed to be focused more on what lie ahead behind the barricades at Bay Avenue: lobsters, shrimp, clams on the half-shell, steamers ... the list was endless.
"What do you think you want?" James Steem of Bay Head said to Rachel Bishop as they began to move through the crowd.
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"I want everything!" she said, and laughed. With offerings that ranged from whole steamed lobsters to go, to crab cake sliders, to butterfly fries and fish and chips, there was something for every taste.
For Roberta Hand and Bruce Book of Lakehurst, it was fish and chips for her and jambalaya for him. They come to the festival every year. Roberta grew up in Point Pleasant, so it's long been a tradition, she said.
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Andrew Mazza and Brian Kaden tended grills loaded with sliders of Kobe beef and crab cakes for the restaurant 709 on Arnold Avenue. They estimated they had cooked 3,000 Kobe sliders and 2,500 crab cakes as of 4 p.m.
The Wharfside Lobster Shanty & Patio Bar stand had sold more than 600 lobsters as of 5 p.m. and the entire 90 pounds of crab legs that the crew had brought to the event.
"We normally sell more (lobsters)," said Bob Cooper, president and CEO of Chefs International, the owner of the Wharfside. "We've sold a lot of soup today."
"I love the tradition of this event," Cooper said. "You get to see a lot of local friends, and it puts an unofficial ending on the summer tourist season.
"You don't really want it to end, but this is a good way to end it," Cooper said.
Police on scene said they had no real problems other than a few requests for first aid, and heard no complaints about the shuttle vans that were provided for festival-goers.
