On a Tuesday in December, The Gables, Black-Eyed Susans, The Leeward Room, Russo's and Joy & Salt will all have their lights off. On a Thursday, all five are open. They are all year-round restaurants and none of them is closing for the season. They have each dropped a different set of nights.
Most restaurants that stay open all year on Long Beach Island cut back their days and hours in the off-season. Their schedules don't shrink evenly, though. Each one picks its own nights to skip, and the dropped nights pile up early in the week. Thursday is where they come back together. If you live on the island from November into spring, you plan your week around that.
The short list that cooks every night
Only a handful of island kitchens post daily hours for the off-season, and they sit at opposite ends of the island and in the middle.
At the north end, Kubel's at 28 W. 7th St. in Barnegat Light says it is open daily and year-round. It runs lunch specials from noon to 3, dinner specials from 4 p.m. to close, and a weekday happy hour from 4 to 6 in the bar room. Seating is first come, first served, and the restaurant notes that its off-season promotional food is not sold for takeout at promotional prices. Down the Boulevard in Harvey Cedars, Ray's Sunset Pizza makes New York style pies daily all year. In Surf City, Wally's serves breakfast through dinner every day and has a full vegan menu and a gluten-free menu with a separate prep area.
In Ship Bottom, Burger 25 is open daily all year, with more than 25 burgers and a rotating burger of the month. LBI Table at 502 Long Beach Blvd. serves breakfast daily from 7:30 a.m.
At the south end, Tucker's Tavern at 101 S. West Ave. in Beach Haven posts "OPEN YEAR-ROUND" with full weekly hours. It's open Monday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday until 10, Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Just over the bridge, The Old Causeway Steak & Oyster House in Mud City is open seven days a week. It has late-night food, weekend brunch, and live music Thursday through Sunday.
Those are your Tuesday options. On the island, that means one sit-down dinner at each end, pizza in Harvey Cedars, all-day Wally's in Surf City, and burgers in Ship Bottom.
How the week fills back in
Here is the week laid out by the posted off-season schedules. The Black-Eyed Susans hours come from its own site. The hours for The Gables, The Leeward Room, Russo's, Joy & Salt and LBI Table's dinner service come from 2026 local dining guides, so call ahead before you count on them.
| Night | Who adds dinner service |
|---|---|
| Monday | Russo's from 4 p.m.; Joy & Salt, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. |
| Tuesday | Only the daily places |
| Wednesday | Black-Eyed Susans, 4 to 8 p.m.; The Leeward Room from 5 p.m. |
| Thursday | The Gables, Russo's, Joy & Salt, and LBI Table dinner join Wednesday's list |
| Friday | Black-Eyed Susans runs until 9 p.m.; LBI Distilling Co. opens |
| Saturday | Same as Friday; last night of LBI Table dinner and Black-Eyed Susans for the week |
| Sunday | The Gables, The Leeward Room, Russo's, Joy & Salt, LBI Distilling Co. |
Monday is a little busier than Tuesday because Russo's and Joy & Salt both run Thursday through Monday. Both are in Ship Bottom, so on Monday most of the extra choices are near the causeway. Wednesday brings back the north end's cocktail room and the Engleside Inn's dining room in Beach Haven. By Thursday almost the whole off-season roster is serving again.
The higher-end dinners take the most planning. The Gables serves a seasonal three-course prix fixe in an 1892 Victorian inn at 212 Centre St. in Beach Haven. It's BYOB, open nightly in summer and Thursday through Sunday the rest of the year, and reservations are a must. Black-Eyed Susans changed its setup on October 7. The main dining room is now walk-in only, and a limited number of reservations stay available upstairs in the second-floor dining room for guests over 12. That means walking in on a Wednesday or Thursday, when service ends at 8 p.m., or booking upstairs ahead of time.
Ship Bottom has the most options
One town gives you the most room on any night of the week. Of the year-round restaurants named in this year's island dining guides, Ship Bottom has the largest group: Raimondo's, Salt Kitchen & Bar, D'Fortuna, The Arlington, Zen Sushi, The Gateway, Baker's Port Hole, Joey's Pizza, The Local Market & Kitchen, Burger 25, LBI Table, Bōhdy, and Joy & Salt. No other island town is listed with more than seven.
A few of these keep their own schedules. Salt Kitchen's happy hour in the Hotel LBI lobby bar runs Monday through Thursday in the off-season. That puts it on the early-week nights when the rest of the island is quietest. Raimondo's is an intimate BYOB with an off-season early dining special. Baker's Port Hole is the island's only year-round dive bar. Its pool table is back from early October to mid-May, and it doesn't take cards, though there's an ATM on site.
During the day, Ship Bottom and its neighbors also have most of the year-round coffee. The Local and Bōhdy are in Ship Bottom, How You Brewin is in Surf City, and Andy's Coffee Shack is by the lighthouse in Barnegat Light.
The holiday calendar follows the same weekly pattern
Off-season events mostly land on Saturdays and Sundays, when the full dinner list is open. The Southern Ocean County Chamber of Commerce calendar and the venues' own pages list the dates.
- Saturday, November 7: A comedy night supports the Beach Haven Volunteer Fire Company. Comedians are still to be announced.
- Saturday, November 14: Center Stage Opera presents an evening of opera. On the same day, the LBI Foundation Holiday Market opens in Loveladies at 120 Long Beach Blvd. It runs daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Sunday, December 13, and sells handmade work from fine art and ceramics to jewelry and textiles.
- Sunday, November 22: Holidays with The Duprees comes back to Surflight.
- Saturday, November 28: Ship Bottom's annual Christmas Tree Lighting runs from 5 to 6:30 p.m. at the Municipal Ramp on W. 10th Street. Surflight's Holiday Inn opens the same day.
- Sunday, November 29: The 72nd Annual Fall Surf Fishing Tournament, which started August 29, ends.
- Saturday, December 5: The Borough of Ship Bottom holds its 47th Annual Christmas Parade from 1 to 4 p.m. on the Boulevard between 5th and 25th Streets.
- Thursday, December 31: The Rave-Ons play Surflight on New Year's Eve.
Two of these dates take extra planning. December 5 has the parade on the Boulevard from 1 to 4 p.m., while Surflight runs a 2 p.m. matinee and a 7:30 p.m. show of Holiday Inn. If you're going to both the parade and the evening show, give yourself time between them. Surflight's posted schedule has 2 p.m. shows on November 28 and 29 and December 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19 and 20, and 7:30 p.m. shows on November 28 and December 4, 5, 12, 18 and 19. Check the evening dates with the theater, because the Chamber's listing includes a December 11 performance that Surflight's own page does not.
The other date is Tuesday, December 8. It's the one Tuesday on the Holiday Inn schedule, and it comes on the thinnest dinner night of the week. A 2 p.m. matinee that day pairs with an early dinner at one of the places that cook every night, like Tucker's Tavern in Beach Haven or Kubel's at the north end.
Holiday closures matter too. Tucker's is closed Thursday, November 26 for Thanksgiving and Thursday and Friday, December 24 and 25 for Christmas. It reopens Friday, January 1 for a pajama brunch from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
One fewer pizza place in Beach Haven
The south end lost a kitchen just before the season turned. On September 30, an early-morning fire badly damaged BLVD Pizza at 610 N. Bay Ave. in Beach Haven, and a police sergeant called it "a total loss," The SandPaper reported. The Sincerely June boutique next door was also affected. Okie's Butcher Shop in Surf City and the social media page LBI Source organized a fundraiser for both businesses, and it had raised $29,194 as of October 5, according to a follow-up in The SandPaper. In that article, Okie's owner Robert "Okie" Whitcraft explains why island schedules work the way they do: "We have a small window to pay for the winter's bills."
That short window shapes the restaurant schedules above. Kitchens that stay open all winter cut their nights to the ones that pay. That leaves Kubel's, Ray's Sunset Pizza, Wally's, Burger 25, LBI Table at breakfast, and Tucker's covering Tuesday, with a long list waiting on Thursday.
If you're thinking about how the off-season week fits the way you use your home on the island, Cheryl Brunetti is happy to talk through it with you, Tuesdays included. Let's connect.