Asbury boardwalk buzzes with Bamboozle business
On second day of festival, waterfront merchants happy to see uptick in sales
After a slower first day, boardwalk businesses are seeing extra traffic thanks to crowds brought in by the Bamboozle music festival.
The festival occupies the northeast section of town, with borders in front of Convention Hall and Bradley Park. Yesterday, the festival started at 5 p.m. and drew about 23,000 people. Today and tomorrow, it starts at 2 and estimates for crowds have been placed at 40,000 and 30,000 respectively.
Chill, a new gourmet ice cream and bubble tea shop, is located in Ocean Grove just south of the Casino. Chill benefited from the Bamboozle bustle when the line yesterday stretched from Convention Hall past the Casino and halfway into Ocean Grove.
“Kids were so hungry, they were just coming in and asking for anything,” said owner Denise Russo.
Even after the doors to the festival opened and the lines cleared up today and yesterday, Chill still enjoyed a constant buzz.
At Mogo, a week-old Korean Taco stand located just north of Watermark on the Asbury boardwalk, business has also been steady.
“There’s a ton of people on the boardwalk,” co-owner Samuel Chung said. “It’s really awesome.”
Langosta Lounge was a little shaky yesterday but benefited from the older crowd on the boardwalk today. Last night’s headliner, Skrillex, caused the crowd’s demographic to skew very young. But today, the Foo Fighters are headlining and an older crowd seems to have taken interest.
“It’s all Bamboozle wristbands,” Langosta manager Steven Barrantes said of the packed restaurant’s patrons. “Yesterday kind of scared us a little bit because there was nothing all day.”
Marnie Lister, owner of The Sand Witch, which sells health-oriented wraps, sandwiches, iced tea and smoothies, is capitalizing on her pop-up’s location near where the shuttle buses drop off hordes of festival-goers. All weekend, she is offering lunch bags with peanut butter and jelly or grilled cheese sandwiches, chips and a small candy, all for $5, designed for festival-goers who are in a rush to get on line.
She has done better business today than yesterday, she said, and also attributed this to the age of the spectators.
“Yesterday was young — really young,” Lister said. “Today it seems very mixed. Today it picked up. People seem to have a little more money today.”
She feels the festival is benefiting the town, although some area merchants have seen slow sales or over-ordered food in anticipation of huge business.
“The thing is this was the unknown,” she said. “How do you prepare for something like this if it’s never been on this scale before?”
As for people who over-ordered on food for their businesses, “next weekend’s Memorial Day Weekend, so I just won’t have to do as much shopping,” she said with a smile. “I hope they bring it back next year. I hope it was a success for this town. It brought in a lot of new people.”
