One of NJ Shore’s best restaurants is closing after this season

There is a terrific restaurant at the Jersey shore that is being forced to close after the summer season. This one hurts.

I grew up in Union County in a very working-class family. When my parents didn’t have the money, they took us to Keansburg.

But when they could afford it, they took us to Seaside Heights.

Not to a rented beach house, no. I never once did that as a kid. They didn’t have that kind of money.

I’m talking just day trips there to Seaside Heights and back in your bed at night. But it was great.

Because it’s what I grew up with, I’ll always have a fondness for that area. When Sodl’s on the boardwalk went away, that was sad.

When the Jet Star roller coaster was sent to the ocean in Superstorm Sandy, that was tragic.

In later years, when I had my kids and finally could stay at a beach house in Seaside Park, I discovered an amazing restaurant at the southern end right before Island Beach State Park.

Chef Mike’s ABG — the food was and still is the best in the area.

The service was higher-end but still friendly and down-to-earth.

The view of the ocean as you dine is breathtaking. I’ve never written a Yelp review in my life, but if I were to for this place, I would tell you it would be a love letter.

It’s going away. It’s closing down after this season, and it’s such a loss.

Even sadder, Chef Mike didn’t want it to end this way.

Mike Jurusz took over as head chef in the early 2000s, back when it was called Atlantic Bar & Grill.

It had been open for a few years by then, since the late 90s. It was more of a casual place, intended mostly to be a convenient place to eat for guests staying at the adjacent motel.

In 2013, Mike Jurusz, or Chef Mike as he’s known, purchased the place. He began to slowly transform it.

He knew with what he calls its “million dollar view” of the Atlantic, it could be something more top shelf.

He willed it into existence, and it became Chef Mike’s ABG.

He added a wine cellar, brought in mixologists, played with the menu, and built something truly special. I loved dining there on vacations for a good number of years.

"Everybody has their path. In culinary, there are a million avenues — fine dining is just one of those roads," Jurusz said in a 2019 interview with The Asbury Park Press. “That's the road I went down. I love the creativity, the colors, the plates, the excitement, and the technique. That, for me, fueled me."

So why is it ending?

The building he leases is being sold to developers.

The plan is to tear it down, along with the motel next door, and build houses on the land.

Mike isn’t bitter. He knew it could happen, and he plans to make the most of the time he has left.

"It is a shame, and it’s something that I have no control over," Jurusz said. "But everybody has a right to sell, so I'm not mad about it."

He’s planning an end-of-year concert using bands that have performed there in the past.

He’s also working on a big customer appreciation party. Mike would even like to organize a reunion for former workers.

"I don’t want anybody to be sad," Jurusz told The Asbury Park Press. "Let's embrace it. Let's go out on top ... let's smile."

He’s right, of course. It’s just for us fans that the smile will be bittersweet.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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