Beginnings & Endings

Random notes on a Monday morning following what was a spectacular weekend at the shore:

Friday morning I participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the Marquee Cinemas on Route 37 West in Toms River and was so impressed that I came back in the evening to catch a movie. There are ten auditoriums in the cinema and all of them feature stadium seating with high-back rocking chairs. Marquee Cinemas is a West Virginia-based company and the Toms River location is their 18th and first in New Jersey.
By the way my wife and I not only enjoyed the comfort of the theatre but the movie “Knocked Up” which features Grey’s Anatomy start Katherine Heigl.

Not only was Saturday one of the nicest beach days you will ever enjoy at but the ocean was like a postcard that could have been from any exotic location around the world. I don’t know about everywhere else but in Seaside Park we were looking at blue-green colors that reminded people of the beaches in Mexico or the Caribbean.

An era has come to an end with Tony Baiamonte closing his restaurant known for years as The Pizza King and later Mugsy’s on the corner of Hooper Avenue and Fischer Boulevard in Toms River. Tony will actually be building a “Boston’s The Gourmet Pizza” on the location which will open later this year. The Pizza King was where I ate many meals while a student at Ocean County College in the mid 70’s and I was among the hundreds who engraved their names in the big wooden tables. In 1998 Mugsy’s was the place to be if you wanted to watch the Toms River East All-Stars games on television as they went on to win the Little League World Series…WOBM hosted a couple of tailgate parties before the games.
Tony has contributed much to the area, has been a huge supporter of Vocational Education and for years has helped me personally by providing food to the WOBM Christmas Classic.
I’ll miss him and his pizza.