Fifty miles south of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the seaside town of Asbury Park, NJ, also brags about its ’70s rock ’n’ roll heyday — only its denizens are more apt to name-check Bruce Springsteen, an alumnus of the Stone Pony, the town’s concert venue, than Joey Ramone, a grad of the now-shuttered CBGB.
And just as NYC’s Avenue D separates housing projects from the pricey boutiques of the Lower East Side, a set of train tracks splits Asbury Park’s quaint shops from an area of blight.
So it seems only fitting that Max Fish, the famous Lower East Side bar at 178 Ludlow St. run by owner Ulli Rimkus, would find its way to the water and operate as Max Fish Beach Bar this summer.
Rimkus thinks Asbury Park is reminiscent of the Lower East Side neighborhood she’s called home for nearly 20 years. “I like this area because it’s very diverse,” says Rimkus, 48.
Like its older sister, the new Fish operates in a gentrifying neighborhood; it’s built out of the back of an old convention center that now operates as a mall. Both bars showcase works by local artists and festive, Pee-wee Herman-esque interiors. And a PBR at Max Fish Beach Bar costs $3, just like on Ludlow Street.
But at the beach, you can slurp your beer with a deli-style sandwich, complete with chips and a pickle ($6). And rather than having a muted TV playing old movies, Asbury Park’s Max Fish offers the ocean as scenery. There’s even a large furnished deck that overlooks the water — making its seaside sister about three times larger than the original.
The biggest difference, though, says Rimkus, is that in Asbury Park, “You can smoke [on the deck] and you can dance and [nobody’s] going to stop you.”
Last Friday night, organic farmer and former musician Deb O’Nair — yes, as in “debonair” — seemed in her element at the new outpost.
“There’s a huge artistic community down here,” says O’Nair, who’s had a place in the East Village since 1977 and a second home in Asbury Park since 2006. A former vintage-clad punk rocker, she looks like she might have owned a record store in a John Hughes movie.
“The days I was hanging out in [Manhattan’s] Max Fish, it was all artists and musicians,” notes the former keyboardist for ’80s band the Fuzztones.
“Now that neighborhood feels like a big NYU dormitory.”
Asbury Park Chamber of Commerce executive director Jacqueline Pappas echoes that sentiment. She says Max Fish is a good fit for Asbury Park’s “gritty artistic community.”
“We’re still an urban city that has all the challenges of an urban city,” says Pappas. But, she adds, “Slowly we’ve had a New York influence weaving its way through, and it’s always well-received here.”
Many patrons like Easton, Pa., resident Tracy Hixson wander in oblivious to the bar’s long history of offering solace to Manhattan “hipsters” — before that term even existed.
“It’s summer. Ya gotta go to the beach,” shrugs Hixson, who is having an after-work beer with a pal.
During the original’s downtown heyday — it opened 23 years ago — grungy celebs like Ethan Hawke and Johnny Depp would make the rounds, generally undisturbed by the locals. Even now, Josh Hartnett and members of the Strokes will swing by on weekdays, though on weekends the bar is overrun by college types.
As for Rimkus, she doesn’t know how long either bar will last. While the Asbury Park pop-up is under contract through the summer, the Lower East Side locale exists because of an indefinitely extended lease Rimkus refuses to discuss.
“Right now, I’m surviving day by day,” she says. But at least she isn’t worried that her new neighbors will call in complaints to 311 this summer. Pointing toward the ocean, she says, “They’re fish.”