By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Freshly brewed gourmet iced coffee will be back on the “menu” again this summer for food and drinks sold on the beach in Sea Isle City.
Starting Memorial Day weekend, baristas will be pushing specially designed carts that are essentially mini coffee bars up and down the beaches from one end of the island to the other.
Beach Brew USA, the company that has held the beach coffee concession in Sea Isle since 2022, was awarded another two-year deal by City Council on Tuesday. The company will pay the city a little more than $100,000 over two years for exclusive rights to sell coffee on the beaches.
“This is wonderful. We love being in Sea Isle. The people are the best. People come to the beach looking to get their coffee first thing,” said John Barnes, one of the Beach Brew owners.
Iced coffee is among the treats that Sea Isle offers to hungry and thirsty beachgoers. In separate contracts, the city also allows ice cream and acai bowls to be sold on the beaches.
Hotdog vendors are allowed to operate at eight beach locations: 32nd Street, 40th Street, 52nd Street, 59th Street, 75th Street, 77th Street, 81st Street and 85th Street. By state law, the licenses to sell hotdogs are given to military veterans.
“Beachgoers get hungry and thirsty and certainly love having ice cream. It’s important to enhance the beachgoing experience,” Sea Isle spokeswoman Katherine Custer said of the variety of food and beverage vendors the city has on the beaches.
“But I would also remind the public that we have many wonderful businesses not located on the sand that can also satisfy their hunger or their sweet tooth and quench their thirst,” she added.
Beach Brew makes freshly brewed gourmet iced coffee right in front of the coffee lovers. Flavors include caramel, mocha, hazelnut, vanilla and “dirty banana.”
Beachgoers also have their choice of different flavored creamers, including half and half and almond milk, to go with their gourmet coffee. Decaf coffee is another option.
This year, Beach Brew will charge $8 per 16-ounce cup of coffee, up from $7 last year, Barnes said.
Beach Brew also sells iced coffee on the beaches in North Wildwood and Wildwood Crest. Tom Donnelly and Tom Byrne are the other owners of the company with Barnes.
During its last contract, Beach Brew paid a little more than $45,000 to Sea Isle for a two-year coffee concession. Now, the company will pay the city $101,101 for the new two-year deal.
“It says that the market is strong here. People love their coffee,” Barnes said of the company’s decision to pay more than double of the last contract for the coffee concession this time around.
To celebrate the new contract, Barnes handed out some of the company’s T-shirts to the City Council members after their meeting Tuesday.
