Nice Weather Money Maker in Wildwoods

WILDWOODS — A summer full of sunshine and toasty temperatures gave many businesses in the Wildwoods a much-needed shot in the arm.
“The tourists just won’t come to town if it is raining,” said Kieran Lannane, part owner of Hooked on Books, located on Pacific Avenue. “The weather was real good.”
Lannane told the Herald Sept. 12 that business for the bookstore was better than last year.
However, he said that he noticed many of the “regulars” had not stopped by to shop.
“Maybe the places where they used to stay aren’t around anymore,” said Lannane and noted that the town was still very much in transition due to the move away from mom and pop motels to condominium development.
The change, he said, has brought a lot of new faces to town. In order to get customers to find out about the shop, Lannane said, that advertising had to be “a lot heavier.”
John Paxton, owner of JP Prime Steakhouse in North Wildwood and Juan Pablo’s Margarita Bar and Restaurant in Wildwood, said “as the town cleans up, it gets a reputation as a nice, clean place.”
“Some people may say I’m biased, but I think the condo development helped,” said Paxton, who also own a construction company. “Even though a lot of those units have kitchens, the last thing people want to do on vacation is cook every one of their meals.”
JP Prime celebrated its one-year anniversary Aug. 16, Paxton said, and ever since then his business has been up.
Juan Pablos, he noted, started the summer with a softer opening but then experienced more business after the July 4th holiday.
“I think we were about average at Juan Pablo’s,” Paxton said. “And every time there is a convention in town, we do much better.”
Paxton said that he isn’t ready to stop investing in the town and has plans to open John Paul Café, at the Al the Steak King location, in two weeks.
Carol Bergeron, one of the three owners of The Cook’s Shoppe on the Wildwood Boardwalk, also commented that the condo development impacted business during the season.
“We really need the hotels that we are supposed to get,” Bergeron said. “I think that will really make a difference.”
According to Bergeron, business was average this summer with traffic along the boardwalk by the store keeping about the same as last year.
The Cook’s Shoppe is open until Jan. 1, according to Bergeron, and will continue to be available for custom-made baskets all year.
Christine Rodrigues, of Magic Brain Cybercafe, said that the two store locations, one on Pacific Avenue, the other on the boardwalk, faired a little better than last year.
“It was not a huge jump, but we’re happy,” she said.
“The weather helped get people down here, but we actually like it when it rains,” she admitted.
Rodrigues credited the city and the Business Improvement District (BID) for helping improve the face of Pacific Avenue.
“When we first opened on Pacific, there was nothing around us,” she said. “Now we have the restaurant on the corner and stores next door and across the street.”
“It is getting much better,” Rodrigues said of the city’s main street. “I don’t know what it is with the other end of the street. I just think something needs to be done to some of the stores that are just basically warehouses. Either make them open or close them up.”
Rodrigues said that in addition to her regular customers, she noticed a growing number of visitors from New York, Philadelphia and Canada.
“Much more high–end,” she said of some of her clientele. “They’d come here for the coffee and end up using the Internet, because many of condos they were renting don’t have Internet access.”
For other businesses, like the Tangiers Motel in Wildwood Crest, the generous amount of good weather and condo owners didn’t spur visitors to reserve rooms.
“We were below average. It was worse than last year,” said Arlene Smith, who owns and manages the motel with her husband Bruce.
“This was the first Fourth of July that we had vacancies,” she added. “And the rest of July was 53 percent below what it normally is.”
Smith said she believed that the island’s influx of condos made a negative impact.
“I don’t know if that negative trend will continue,” she said. “But I do know that this summer many of the condos were full and the motels weren’t.”
According to Smith, quite a few other hotels and motels were also down in business from previous years.
“If it weren’t for the Canadians, we’d be even worse,” she said. “It was the only area where we did more business.”
There were more Canadian visitors than last year, Smith added.
Among other borough businesses that complained of a slower summer season was the Crest Shirt Shop, located on New Jersey Avenue. The shop is already advertising some of its merchandise at 50 percent in an attempt to drum up some off-season business in the borough, said Renee McCartney
“We put the sale signs up real early this year,” she said.
“Things have been off in the Crest,” she added. “It was worse than last year.”
But the couple’s newest location in North Wildwood on New Jersey Avenue has done “exceptionally for the first year of business.” She said that the North Wildwood branch of the shop would remain open year round.
Contact Suit at: (609) 886-8600 ext. 25 or lsuit@cmcherald.com
(Ed. note: Next week, the final installment of this three-part series on the Summer 2007 business season will focus on the upper and some mainland portions of Cape May County, along with an overview of county-wide business trends.)