Chicken or the Egg, the Jersey Shore restaurant, hatches a jumbo location in Marlton
This version, on Route 70, is enormous, with nearly 275 seats indoors, high ceilings, bold graphics, a multiple-TV-topped bar that seats nearly three dozen, and room for 200 more people outside.
When you discuss the restaurant Chicken or the Egg, you need to ask: What came first?
The answer is Beach Haven on Long Beach Island.
That’s where brothers Mark and Craig Cohen opened the popular breakfast-and-lunch spot in 1991. Two years later, they moved “Chegg” across the street into larger quarters and went 24/7 in season. They retired in 2017 and sold the business to Rob LaScala, who owns the seven LaScala’s Fire and LaScala’s Birria restaurants that dot the Philadelphia region.
Soon — and LaScala will not say when — the second Chicken or the Egg will open at Renaissance Square on Route 70 in Marlton, a mixed-use development that used to be a Kmart.
Where the original on Bay Avenue has that look and feel of a seashore restaurant, with its wooden booths, drop ceiling, and kitschy signs, this version is slicker and enormous, with nearly 275 seats indoors, high ceilings, bold graphics, a multiple-TV-topped bar that seats nearly three dozen, and a sprawling outdoor space that can seat about 200 people and has with its own bar, lounge seating and fire pits. The original has no bar.
The new location also will open daily at 7 a.m. for breakfast and will remain open till late. Breakfast will be served at all times. “Pancakes at midnight, wings at 7 in the morning,” LaScala said.
Chegg seemed like an unlikely concept for LaScala, who grew up in the pizza business with locations at the old Market East food court in Center City and Apollo Pizza nearby at Seventh and Chestnut Streets (now a LaScala’s Fire).
A resident of Marlton, LaScala said he didn’t necessarily buy Chegg to expand it.
“I bought it for the coolness of it,” he said.
In 2017, he got the opportunity to develop two restaurants and a bar at Renaissance Square. By the time the shovel went into the ground, he already had a LaScala’s Fire at the Promenade at Sagemore, less than 10 minutes away and opted to build a Chicken or the Egg, instead of another Italian restaurant. The pandemic delayed the opening, he said.
The food menu will be similar to the original location, which is closed through mid-February.