Newcomers provide an upgrade to the Boardwalk’s menu
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Photos by Rob Seitzinger |
May 28, 2008
WILDWOOD -- They’re new, they’re run by locals, and they’re welcome
additions to traditional Boardwalk food. They’re Boyd’s Texas Style
Barbecue, Pete’s Pork Roll and Stewart’s Root Beer.
“The guys at Stewart’s made a tremendous investment in their property,
Boyd has done a really nice job renovating and cleaning up that old
property, and this place is really going to look cool,” said Pete Byron,
of Pete’s Pork Roll. “I think we’re all really good additions to
Boardwalk food.”
Boyd’s Texas Style Barbecue
2812 Boardwalk (at Magnolia)
Wildwood
898-RIBS (7427)
Boyd Lafferty returned to the area after a stint in the service that
ultimately landed him in Texas, where he learned the craft of cooking
barbecue Texas style, which is to say over low heat and mesquite wood
using dry rub spices. If you insist on sauce, they’ll accommodate you
and then some with Boyd’s own barbecue sauce.
He returned to the county and started Boyd’s Texas Style Barbecue on
Bayshore Road in Villas four years ago before being recruited to the
Wildwood Boardwalk in the offseason.
“I had been invited by the owner of this building to bring in a
family-style restaurant Dec. 1 and by the end of January we had
everything signed and a deal was in place,” Lafferty said. “We’ve been
painting and cleaning up ever since.”
While the Villas location remains open for business, the Boardwalk
provides a new opportunity for Lafferty.
“The reason we wanted to go to Wildwood was the exposure. Some people
have trouble finding Villas sometimes but everyone seems to be able to
find the Wildwood Boardwalk,” he said with a laugh. “These huge crowds
give us the chance to introduce more people to Texas-style barbecue.”
After a “soft opening” in early May, Boyd’s hit its stride over the
Memorial Day weekend and is now gearing up for a big grand-opening
celebration this Saturday, May 31, at 10 a.m.
“Sen. Jeff Van Drew will be officiating and instead of a ribbon-cutting
we’re going to have a rib-cutting ceremony. They’ll be giveaways and
prizes and specials, and just a good time for everyone who stops by,” he
said.
There is seating for 120 people in the building with full table service,
but the food is also available for takeout. Lafferty even figured how to
make some ribs Boardwalk friendly.
“One of the (owners) at Stewart’s right across the Boardwalk from us
said he and his brother (own and operate) a number of (arcades) and when
they got off work at 10 or 11 o’clock, the only thing to eat was pizza.
So that was part of their motivation to open Stewart’s, and we certainly
endorse that. That’s why we’re selling Rodeo Ribs, which is a small pork
rib with a lot of meat and a little handle at one end so you can eat it
while walking down the Boardwalk.”
They’re also offering a breakfast menu you won’t find anywhere else.
There are Texas Waffles in the shape of that state, Cowboy Omelets
filled with bacon, pepper jack cheese, chunky salsa and jalapeno
peppers, Texas Tenderfoot, which is a flour tortilla filled with eggs,
cheddar cheese and sausage, the Lonestar, which has eggs, cheddar cheese
and chunky salsa, and the Texas Cowpoke, which is a flour tortilla
filled with eggs, black beans, bacon, pork roll, salsa, guacamole and
pepper jack cheese.
“So you can’t say we’re cooking the standard-old breakfast,” Lafferty
said. “This is breakfast with a Texas flair to it.”
Also new to the menu is a Bison Burger with chipotle seasoning which
already has been selling very well.
“And we’re continuing to grow our catering business. We already have the
American Legion and The Elks,” Lafferty said, “and we just did a job for
the Boy Scouts.”
Boyd’s is open daily from 8 a.m. until the piers close, seven days a
week.
Pete’s Pork Roll
Wildwood
3806 Boardwalk (at Garfield Avenue)
522-4411
Last year, Pete Byron, of Byron Real Estate, had a property listed for
sale on the Wildwood Boardwalk that was an ice cream parlor for 30
years. By the end of summer and a lack of offers, the owner just wanted
out.
“So I made him an offer and he accepted. Not long after that, Jon Bon
Jovi was being interviewed by a radio station just across the street
from my real estate office,” Byron said. “And the interviewer pointed
out that Bon Jovi was a North Jersey guy and he asked him what the
biggest difference is between North Jersey and South Jersey.”
Bon Jovi answered, “pork roll.”
“And the interviewer’s like, ‘Huh? Pork roll?’ And Bon Jovi says, ‘Yeah,
in North Jersey we like it with mustard but in South Jersey, you eat it
with ketchup.’ And then I’m reading Philadelphia Magazine and there’s an
editorial about a guy who left South Jersey for 15 years and when he
returned, he went to Atlantic City to get some Taylor Pork Roll and the
place was closed, and the editorial was about how sad it made him.
“So within a matter of months, I hear this rock star talk about pork
roll and this article talk about a guy’s love for pork roll, and I’m
thinking -- it’s a sign.”
And – viola! – the idea for Pete’s Pork Roll was born.
“When I was a kid, there were three things I remember about Boardwalk
food: pork roll, Alpine Orange Juice, and those little square waffles
with Neapolitan ice cream,” Byron said. “So I’m bringing back the pork
roll and the waffle ice cream sandwiches.”
Pete and his wife Sheri, parents of seven children ages seven months to
21 years – guess who’s making up most the restaurant’s staff? – found
photos of the pork roll restaurants and have been trying to replicate
the look.
“It’s really starting to come around,” he said. “We have this big barrel
on the front – it’s really cool.”
They were open for their first day of business this past Saturday but
plan on being open daily for breakfast around 8 a.m. and will stay open
all the way until about 1 a.m. in the heart of the tourism season.
“There will be some very long days,” Byron said.
The star ingredient will be Taylor Ham, otherwise known as Taylor Pork
Roll.
“A couple distributors tried to get me to go with Trenton Pork Roll or
Habersett, and they are cheaper, but Taylor is the filet mignon of pork
roll,” he said.
The menu is a work in progress, but the obvious will be there.
“We’ll do a lot of combination pork roll sandwiches. We’ll have Pete’s
Special Hamburger with pork roll, bacon and cheese and my own special
hamburger recipe, we’ll do a Hawaiian sandwich made with pineapple,
we’ll have the pork roll, egg and cheese sandwiches and we’ll have the
waffles and ice cream sandwich, so it’s a pretty simple menu featuring a
lot of pork roll.”
Pork roll purists will be happy to know that Pete’s will be cooking the
pork – as well as the hamburgers -- on an open flame.
“It makes a big difference. It’s the same as the difference between
cooking a hamburger on a grill or on a skillet,” he said.
Stewart’s Root Beer
2901 Boardwalk (at Magnolia)
Wildwood
770-8538
E.J. and Sean Dougherty have been Boardwalk entrepreneurs for almost two
decades. They started as teenagers running arcades and putting
themselves through college. Today, they still own and operate Olympic
Fun Center on 24th Avenue in North Wildwood.
Now they are the proud owners of the Boardwalk’s most impressive looking
restaurant: Stewart’s Root Beer. The brothers finally received their
certificate of occupancy on Wednesday before the Memorial Day weekend
and they served their first customers that evening.
The building, on the east side of the Boardwalk, looks like a diner on
steroids, with an entranceway in the shape of a jukebox. It has a
second-floor open-air deck with an impressive view of the ocean and
Boardwalk. It’s a terrific family-style restaurant that resembles a
’50s-style diner, like Johnny Rockets, only without the singing waiters
and with better root beer.
“We wanted to do something upscale but stay with the Doo Wop theme,”
said E.J. “We brought an architect in from Philadelphia and showed him
the sights around town, and then gave him some of our ideas and this is
what he came up with. It’s really a cool building.”
It continues a trend of more upscale Boardwalk buildings like the
aforementioned restaurants, Sam’s Pizza, Cook’s, and Sand Jamm, whose
owner Steve Mendel was one of the first people to see the architect’s
drawings for Stewart’s Root Beer.
“As soon as he saw the drawing he said, ‘You have to build this. We made
a huge investment into our surf shop and people responded to it.’ And
he’s right. This is something people want to have,” he said. “The people
who come here now have been to the newest and biggest casinos, they stay
in hotels with high-end amenities, they want upscale things. They don’t
want to come down here anymore and just see junk, for lack of a better
word. I feel very strongly about that.”
When they were younger, E.J. said he and his brother and employees would
routinely shut down their arcades and walk the boards looking for
something to eat and couldn’t find much else than Sam’s Pizza.
“We were looking for something a little more upscale, something trendy
and we just thought the Boardwalk was lacking that,” he said. “That’s
where this comes in.”
The menu is classic Americana, with top grade ingredients. All beef
burgers, high-end chipped steak for steak sandwiches, Sabrett hotdogs,
onion rings, cheese fries, chicken sandwiches and wraps, and, of course,
milkshakes and root beer floats among the choices.
“It’s ’50s diner-style food, and we hired a chef -- Dennis Pellanger –
who’s been down here for 17 years including the last four at the Emlen
Physick Estate in Cape May,” said E.J.
The open-air rooftop seats 45 with another 30 seated on the first floor.
Servers walk around in attractive orange and black bowling-style shirts
with the Stewart’s logo on the back. They will be open daily from 7:30
a.m. serving breakfast sandwiches and the lunch and dinners being served
until as late as 1 a.m. depending on foot traffic.
Rob Seitzinger can be e-mailed
at seitz [at] catamaranmedia.com or you can comment on this story by
calling 624-8900, ext. 250.
Check out his Cape Cuisine food blog
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