PAM: “Thank you for remembering the Homestead Restaurant. I worked there 2 summers. It was an unforgettable experience. I tell my grown children about the interviewing process at Constance Hughes home complete with lemonade and cookies. It was the place to work in the 70′s. It was an honor to wear that navy blue apron as I proudly walked from Loch Arbor Beach Club into Ocean Grove to work my shift.”
PG (Editor): Evidently, this site was once a successful restaurant. You would think that the oceanfront location would be a sure bet for success, but, in at lease the last decade, it was a loser. Send us your memories of the Homestead. Below is Kathy Arlt’s BF article all about it. Kathy’s article (link below) is very interesting. Evidently the Homestead was open for about forty years in the Grove and it closed around 1979, to be followed by a Perkins.
Blogfinger Homestead Restaurant article by Kathy Arlt
DOOLEY WILSON (From the movie “Casablanca”)
ps: If you see me around, ask for my impression of Bogie saying, “Sam, I told you never to play that song again.” —-PG (I can also do Cagney and Jolson)
My family used to go there in the summer. I loved going there because as appetizers they served fruit cocktail topped with sherbet.
I was part of the Perkins era.
After the Choir festival rehearsal, my Father and I would dash down to Perkins for dinner.
My Mother would be waiting for us at a reserved table.
The views of the Ocean and Beach were wonderful.
It was an ideal location for a restaurant.
But as the Commenters say, no parking, no customers.
I worked there the summer of 1963, just before my senior year in high school. My family had been visiting OG in the summer ever since I can remember, and my mom always thought it would be nice if I could work at the Homestead. It was the best summer of my life up till then!
I stayed with a family friend in her boarding house on Asbury Ave. – the only way I was able to be there without my family! After meeting and dating a local guy,Buddy Stoll, I became part of a group of kids who lived in OG year round. What a great experience!
As far as the restaurant, Connie Hughes’ mom, Mrs. P, was in the kitchen 24/7 making sure that everything ran smoothly. My first weekend there, she scared me so much that I didn’t know if I wanted to go back. My mom made me finish what I started, and I am so glad that she did!
Once the C.M. took away the parking lot no business can succeed.
It’s a different era. Ocean Front or not, without ‘dedicated’ parking it will be very hard for any type of restaurant to succeed there. You can’t plan on going there, hope there’s parking somewhere in town, walk a half mile or so to get to it or, heaven forbid, pay in Asbury. It’s not really convenient or user friendly.
I worked there in the summer of 1954. I was in college and got the job through a friend who worked there the previous summer. Being one of the best restaurants around, we were always busy.
The owners were great, but strict. We were only allowed to have certain foods on the menu, Manhattan clam chowder and corn sticks, fried fish and veal or chicken parmigian, salad, and as a treat, the famous fruit cup with raspberry sherbet.
About six weeks after I started I became the staff waitress for the North End Hotel staff, about 25 people, upstairs. The food all came from the Homestead, and I had a little more freedom eating everything on the menu, working 3 meals everyday, 6 days a week. Great memories.
Shirley Loder