LBI’s Holiday Snack Bar in danger of being shut down by Beach Haven after 75 years

In 75 years in Beach Haven, not much changed at the little Holiday Snack Bar, other than its owners and a move toward serving breakfast.

But now, the little white shack with bright red trimming on Centre Street is in danger of being shut down by the borough of Beach Haven, which has denied the owners a mercantile license for 2023.

“I think that they were angry with me when they said you can’t open for breakfast,” said Eileen Bowker, a former athletic trainer at Pemberton High School who bought the Snack Bar in 2021 with her husband, Brian, a former teacher at Rancocas Valley High School.

Bowker said on April 20, the borough denied the renewal of the bar’s mercantile license, which will now expire on Sunday. She turned to social media on Wednesday, and got an outpouring of support from Snack Bar’s many fans.

“OUTRAGEOUS!!” wrote one commenter. “You are a staple in the community and have been since I was a child. We stand with you!! How can the community help?”

“Long live Holiday Snack Bar!” wrote another.

“I didn’t want to shame the town and point fingers,” Bowker said in an interview. “We tried not to put this out there. We still tried to give them a chance.”

She said negotiations continued with the borough, and that she’d met with Sherry Mason, Beach Haven’s borough manager and clerk, on Wednesday.

In an interview, Mason said it was simply a matter of requiring Holiday Snack Bar to submit a formal Land Use request through the township. She said nobody wanted to see the Snack Bar shut down.

“I’m really hoping that the Holiday Snack Bar will make the application that they need to,” Mason said.

She said the business operates in a residential area, making it an existing non-conformity. That means anytime you want to expand the use, you have to get approval.

“We support the Holiday Snack Bar,” she said. “Every business has to follow the rules.”

She said the confusion may have come because of temporary approvals granted during the pandemic, when they purchased the property. But New Jersey law has extended outdoor dining approval through 2024.

She said if an application comes in, the borough will not prevent the Snack Bar from continuing to operate.

On social media, Bowker wrote, “In the middle of the crisis, we are struggling to find the right words, but know that we are doing everything, and I mean everything, to keep HSB open.”

She described the borough’s tactics as “selective enforcement, intimidation, harassment, threats, and bullying.”

Last summer, Bowker said in an interview, uniformed police officers would show up during the day with summonses, and the zoning officer visited to count seats. The restaurant has been in litigation with the borough for about a year, after the borough tried to prevent them from serving breakfast outside, and then breakfast at all.

One neighbor had complained about the outside seating, Bowker said, which was an outgrowth of the pandemic.

She said the total number of seats at the restaurant was 70, up only 1 from when they bought the property.

The borough argued that serving breakfast was an expansion of the business’s permit and would require a Land Use hearing.

“Litigation continues, and most importantly today we will start making and baking for the weekend!” Bowker wrote on Holiday Snack Bar’s social media pages. “By all means please do whatever you believe is right in you heart to help The Holiday Snack Bar… this is much bigger than us.”

Bowker said the couple has worked hard not to change a thing about the beloved institution, a throwback to LBI’s simpler past. They added one sandwich as a tribute to the former owner, the Warfield grilled chicken, she said.

“We didn’t change a thing,” she said. “We make everything from scratch every day. It’s a labor of love. We have the best kids and adults working for us.

“Our tomato aspic and split pea soup has a cult following,” she said. Hopefully, LBI has not seen the last of it.