Marina Owners Buy Brick Liquor License For $611K

BRICK, NJ — Brick Township could wind up with two esablishments serving alcohol overlooking Barnegat Bay after the Township Council approved the award of a retail consumption liquor license for a property at the base of the Mantoloking Bridge.

Barnegat Bayside Services LLC of Branchburg won the license after sealed bids were opened earlier this month. The company bid $611,000 for the license to be used at 5 Mantoloking Road, according to the resolution approved by the council at its Dec. 20 meeting.

The property is right across Mantoloking Road from Traders Cove Marina and Park, where the township has proposed a restaurant. Chefs International was awarded a redeveloperment contract to lease the property and build and operate a 400-seat restaurant on the site, a move that has been opposed by environmentalists and Ocean County Freeholder John C. Bartlett Jr.

Brick Township officials held a meeting in September to collect comment for state Green Acres officials on the proposal for Traders Cove but there have been no public announcements on the matter since except for an amendment to the lease to correct problems cited at the Green Acres meeting.

At the council meeting, residents asked about the potential affect on the Traders Cove proposal of a restaurant or other establishment right across the street from the propsed restaurant. Mayor John Ducey said the owners of Barnegat Bayside Services had been told ahead of time of the township's plans for Traders Cove and had not expressed any concerns about that.

"This is a great thing for the town," Ducey said in introducing the resolution, noting the potential for a restaurant would give the town two waterfront facilities that residents could enjoy "by boat, by bike or by car."

The property in question had been home to Hinckley Yachts and, before that, Winter Marine Basin. Township attorney Kevin Starkey said Barnegat Bayside Services purchased the property a couple of years ago. It sat mostly empty for several months after Superstorm Sandy destroyed the site.

Ducey, who called the sale of the retail consumption license exciting, said that while Barnegat Bayside Services has submitted plans for a marina and for a gas dock, further plans for the site have yet to be submitted.

Chefs International had hoped to open the restaurant at Traders Cove in the summer of 2017.

Photo via Google Maps