Not Much Time Left to Enjoy Shore Restaurants That Close In September

Here we are on the next-to-last day of what is considered meteorological summer, which has been one of the wettest on record and also included a couple of heat waves, wild thunderstorms and even tornadoes.  Of course we have dodged hurricanes to this point but there are still two more months of that season.

As I get older the summer season goes faster and every year around Memorial Day my wife and I usually talk about the restaurants and places we want to get to before Labor Day…the ones that are truly seasonal and in some cases close early in September.  Well when driving down Route 35 the other day we started going through the list of those we did not get to and in truth it was longer than those we did visit over the past three months.  We’ll try and do better next summer.

Spur of the moment Jane and I did stop into Runners Seafood Restaurant located in Ocean Beach, just north of Lavallette early on Friday before they got busy and as always it was very good.  Ken Degnan has owned and operated the restaurant since it first opened 21 years ago and the retired teacher is often found in the busy seafood market next door.  The restaurant is full of pictures dedicated to his father Richard who began running later in his life and was very competitive up until his untimely death from a 1999 auto accident.  Of course that’s where the name of the restaurant came from.

By the way they are only open until Labor Day so if you have not gotten there yet you only have a week to “run over there.”

There are many other places throughout the shore that will be wrapping it up soon so check your list and try and get there.  It’s a long wait until next summer.