🥤New Jersey spoils the fun at Remedee Coffee | Down the Shore

New Jersey has done it again. It’s only been a couple of summers since the state ended the run of the adored Fish Heads food truck in Gardner’s Basin, Atlantic City, and evicted the crafters from their little huts at the beautiful bayside enclave. The state cited Green Acres regulations, and a beef between the mayor and the owner of Fish Heads didn’t help. I’m still a little salty about having to say goodbye to Fish Heads.

And never mind the millions spent extending the Boardwalk and its bike path around the inlet to Gardner’s Basin. The state managed to eliminate one of the signature highlights. (You can still get blueberry pancakes at Gilchristand eat and drink at the Back Bay Ale House. The A.C. Aquarium won’t reopen until September.)

Now, they’ve set their regulatory sights on Remedee Coffee, refusing to renew a Cottage Food permit to the Escobar sisters, who operated a popular coffee roasting business out of their family’s beach block garage in Atlantic City the last two summers.

Dalya Ewais, communications chief for the Department of Health, sent me one sentence of an explanation on Monday, citing section 11.7 (a) of the Cottage Food Rules, which, in some circular bureaucratic reasoning, merely said that the department has the right to deny a permit for any violation of the regulations.

On Tuesday, Ewais expanded and said Remedee’s selling of iced coffee and other items besides just their beans went beyond their permit renewal application. It’s unclear whether the issue was the application not matching what Remedee was doing, or if iced coffee itself is never permitted under cottage rules.

In any case, Amanda Escobar told me that Remedee is looking to reopen as a retail shop nearby, possibly Ventnor, and maybe by August. Fine. But it’s not as if Atlantic City, and its Lower Chelsea neighborhood, can’t use all the cool and unique places it can muster. Why chase them away?

Alas, it looks like Remedee’s garage era will be ending. Why does the state of New Jersey seem to find itself on the wrong side of DIY hipster fun? Brewers and distilleries battled for years for the right to serve some food.

The Escobars are looking forward. “If the only reason we were ever cool is because we sold coffee out of a garage, then we’ll learn that lesson the hard way,” Amanda told me.

Read my full story on why the state shut down Remedee coffee.

⬇️ Keep scrolling for the latest on food, wind, the Kelces back in Sea Isle, and memories from the Flyers’ Broad Street Bullies team, who told my colleague Matt Breen how they fell in love with Avalon.

📮 Is New Jersey too strict with cottage bakers and cooks, breweries and distilleries? Is it a matter of fairness and safety? Am I taking elite coffee too seriously? Read the story here, and let me know what you think by replying to this email.

🚨 Have news tips or ideas for stories? Send them to us here.

🥶 Indeed, it was soooo much cooler at the Shore during the heat wave, but in part as a result of plummeting ocean temps!

— Amy S. Rosenberg (Find me at @amysrosenberg, on Instagram at @amysrosenberg, or 📧 Email me here.)

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Programming note: Tommy Rowan will take over the newsletter keys next week.

🏈 It’s peak Kelce week in Sea Isle with Eagles Autism fundraisers, including Thursday’s Beer Bowl. Alas, Travis burst the Taylor Swift watch bubble by saying on the New Heights podcast that he wouldn’t be leaving London for Sea Isle City. Follow all our Kelce coverage here.

🍪 Brotherly-in-law love: Travis defended Kylie’s interaction with the “entitled fan” at Steve & Cookie’s in Margate.

🌬️ The fight over ocean wind turbine farms heated up over Atlantic City beachfront property that Atlantic Shores needs to run underground cables. Shores says the impact will be minimal, but some residents disagree. The Sierra Club notes Atlantic Shores is proposing in return to preserve 46 acres of coastal wetlands on West End Avenue with a viewing stand and walkways.

🎢 Morey’s Surfside Pier in Wildwood was evacuated briefly over the weekend at police request after reports on social media of a person with a gun. Morey’s and police said the pier reopened without incident.

🚘 No diet: The Casino Reinvestment Development Authority said no to a plan to enhance pedestrian safety with a road diet in Atlantic City.

⛱️ But beach tags are iconic: Cape May is joining the pack with digital beach tags.

⛯ Speaking of iconic: Atlantic City will dedicate Rhode Island Avenue, between Pacific and Atlantic, as George “Buddy” Grover III Way in memory of the legendary Absecon Lighthouse keeper.

⚖️ Former Ocean City Beach Patrol lifeguard Jonathan Howell, named in sexual misconduct allegations initially posted on an Instagram account, OCBP Predators, was sentenced to four years probation.

🤔 Where was Taylor? Wildwood historian Taylor Henry, thinks this photo of Taylor Swift on the beach on display in Stone Harbor’s Museum was actually taken in Wildwood. “Look at the length of the beach,” Henry noted. (Henry says Swift used to shop at Wildwood’s Cookie’s Fun Shop (now, appropriately the rock vintage What Goes On shop) in the 2000s.

🎇 It’s almost Fourth of July! Is summer almost over? Here’s a guide to local fireworks and celebrations.

🌲 Leave the beach to explore the Pine Barrens.

🦅 Send sightings of bald Eagles, which are no longer considered endangered in New Jersey.

🍸 Get ready for Angeloni’s Club Madrid in Atlantic City, whose owners are teasing an opening soon.

🦈 Scare the little ones with local showings of Jaws. Ventnor’s kids seemed unfazed at a free daylight pre-Fourth of July showing of Jaws.

🍺 Drink with Jason: Obviously, head to Sea Isle on Thursday for day two of Kelce-fest. Jim Collings, general manager of the Sea Isle Yacht Club, which is hosting Beer Bowl, thinks Jason will one day be Sea Isle’s Mayor Kelce.

Islander: Noun. A local in a beach town, not widely used in New Jersey, but popularized and used perfectly in the 1975 Shore town classic Jaws. A designation that will never apply to its polar opposite: the Shoobie.

Ellen Brody: I just want to know one thing — when do I get to become an islander? Mrs. Taft: Ellen, never, never! You’re not born here, you’re not an islander, that’s it.

More than 900 square feet of sand has been lost at this popular beach in Brigantine, limiting the ability of people to tailgate in 4x4s by the water.

Is that beach:

A. Poverty Beach

B. The Cove

C. The Jetty

D. Nun’s Beach

If you think you know the answer, click on this story to find out. Or email us with the answer (and any memories) for a possible shout-out.

Here’s an excerpt from Matt Breen’s story in which the Broad Street Bullies Flyers team reminisce about their adopted town of Avalon, and, in particular, a bar called Jack’s Place at 36th Street and Ocean Drive.

Don Saleski, 74, has owned a home in Avalon since the late ‘90s. Bernie Parent is there, too. Tim Kerr and Paul Holmgren — Flyers stalwarts of a different era — are on the island, too. Brian Boucher, the former goalie, is nearby in Stone Harbor. The Flyers have made Seven Mile Island their home. It all started with a game of softball and some free beer in a sleepy Shore town.

“I came to regret Jack’s Place,” Saleski said. “When we bought here, we bought like 2½ blocks from there. Every 21-year-old kid in Philadelphia rented on our street. I said, ‘Where the hell did we buy?’ The drunks and the parties. ‘What did I do?’ "

Those 21-year-olds were soon a memory as rental prices eventually increased and the Shore town became more pristine. There are no more dirt roads in Avalon, the oil trucks don’t come anymore, and every street has a sidewalk. But those sleepless nights were a reminder for Saleski of the nights he spent partying with the Bullies in a sleepy Shore town.

✍️ Send us your Shore memory. In 200 words, tell us how the Shore taps into something deep, and we will publish the best ones in this space.

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