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A rooftop beer garden may be coming to downtown Asbury Park.

Restaurateur Andy Ivanov owns a beer garden in Hoboken, Pilsener Haus [pictured above]. He and his wife were principal owners of Radegast beer garden in Brooklyn, and now he’s set his sights on Lake Avenue for his next location.

“We want to introduce the whole concept in Asbury Park.” he said at last night’s council meeting.

Ivanov hopes to open a restaurant in the bottom floor of 527 Lake Ave., on the corner of Lake Avenue and Emory Street. He also wants to open a beer garden on the building’s roof.

Ivanov sells 20 to 25 tapped and 40 to 50 bottled European and American craft beers in his existing location, and would continue to offer the same in Asbury Park. The beer garden has an “Austro-Hungarian 1930s theme,” he said.

Ivanov was also involved in the management of another beer garden, Radegast, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, before opening the location in Hoboken.

His beer garden offers communal seating with long tables and few or no televisions in order to encourage conversation, he said.

Jennifer Lambert is handling the music booking for the beer garden.

“The most common comment in Hoboken is, ‘I’m not in Hoboken. I feel like I’m in Munich,'” she said of Ivanov’s Pilsener Haus location. “That’s what beer gardens are about. They’ve been around for hundreds of years and it works.”

Lamber and Ivanov will conjure an early-20th-century feel through decor and music, Lambert said. They will book “gypsy swing and gypsy jazz, New Orleans-style” music on the roof that doesn’t require amplification, she said. They hope to occasionally hire oom-pah bands to play inside the beer garden.

Mayor Ed Johnson stopped Ivanov midway through his presentation.

“I appreciate the presentation you’ve put together,” he said. “We’re not really feeling any objection here.”

The city council voted unanimously to send the matter to the planning board. If the planning board approves the plan, it will be sent back to the council once more as a beer garden would require an amendment to the central business district [CBD] redevelopment plan.

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Clarification: A previous version of this article stated Mr. Ivanov owned Radegast beer garden in Brooklyn. Although he and his wife were principal owners in the business and Mr. Ivanov was part of the original management team, they are no longer affiliated with the business.

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Above photo courtesy of Pilsener Haus website.

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