Iconic Sea Isle Restaurant Looks for New Tenant

By DONALD WITTKOWSKI The high-profile location of one of Sea Isle City’s best-known restaurants is up for lease. Angelo Camano, owner of Angelo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria, is looking for another restaurant operator to take over the space he has occupied at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue since the 1980s. “After 40 successful years, I’m happily and officially retiring from the restaurant business,” Camano said. Camano will continue to own the three-story building that includes the restaurant space on the first floor and eight residential units on the second and third floors. But he has made the decision to close the pizzeria and wants another restaurant operator to reopen the commercial space under a $425,000 lease. “I’m selling the business, including all of the equipment, and leasing it out to a suitable, qualified tenant. But I’ll continue to own the building,” he said. The building occupies one of the most prominent locations in the heart of Sea Isle’s downtown business district. It is just a block from the Promenade and the beaches. “It’s the ideal and best location for a commercial business in Sea Isle,” said Nick Preuhs, a Long & Foster real estate broker who is helping Camano to lease the restaurant space. Underscoring the building’s premier location, Preuhs noted that it is one of the first landmarks that visitors see when they enter the center of town off the Sea Isle Boulevard bridge. The building’s location just a block from the Promenade would allow a new restaurant operator to capitalize on the foot traffic heading to and from Sea Isle’s popular oceanfront walkway as well as all of the activity in the downtown retail district, Preuhs pointed out. Angelo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria was an iconic name in Sea Isle City for 40 years. The lease includes the 3,900-square-foot restaurant with seating for 130 customers, two large dining rooms and a fully equipped kitchen. “It’s a big place,” Preuhs said. “There’s definitely an opportunity for somebody who knows what they’re doing.” Camano and his late father, Alex, were in the construction business when they built the restaurant in the 1980s on property formerly occupied by a gas station. Even though the 65-year-old Camano is retiring from the restaurant business now, he is returning to the construction industry with his Camano Construction firm. Over the past 40 years, Camano and his wife, Ann, built up the restaurant business with help from their children, Celeste, Angelo Jr. and Rocco. “All of my family was involved. All three of my children grew up with the business and now they’ve become professionals,” Camano said. Camano put the building up for sale in 2021 for $5.4 million, but changed his mind later on and pulled it off the market. He then decided to reopen his restaurant for his 40th summer last year. “After analyzing it, I had a change of heart and it was a family decision to keep it in the family,” he said. Now that he is retiring, he hopes to find an experienced restaurant tenant who can easily step in and take advantage of a landmark building in a prime location. “It’s a turn-key operation. Very little needs to be done. It’s a great operation,” Camano said. When it was first built, Angelo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria was at the forefront of a development trend in Sea Isle for mixed-use projects combining commercial space such as restaurants, bars or retail shops on the first floor with residential space on the second and third stories. For more information on leasing the former Angelo’s Ristorante & Pizzeria space, contact Angelo Camano at (609) 665-3657 or Nick Preuhs of Long & Foster at (609) 263-2267 or visit Nicholas Preuhs | Real Estate Agent | Long & Foster (longandfoster.com). The building's high-profile location, depicted by the red arrow, is at the corner of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Landis Avenue. (Photo courtesy of Long & Foster)