Sandy Five Years Later: The Rum Runner

The Rum Runner is a bar and restaurant in Sea Bright New Jersey. It's considered a local landmark among both tourists and residents. Sea Bright sits on a narrow peninsula between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic Ocean. 

 

While the proximity to the water may be great for business, it's not so great when it comes to severe weather. So when Hurricane Sandy touched down, the Rum Runner was hit with water from both sides. Tim McLoone owns the restaurant. He said when he first walked into the restaurant after the storm he was in disbelief.    

 

"Everything inside was thrown around and destroyed," McLoone said. "And maybe for a week we went around and we're like well maybe we can salvage the building. But then it became clear that nothing could be salvaged and it was a complete loss."

 

Ryan Musillo shares McLoone's sentiment. He's the General Manager of the Rum Runner and has worked here 15 years. A few days after Sandy hit Musillo saw what was left of the building. He said the experience was completely surreal.

 

"It brought back all kinds of memories and levels of emotion," Musillo said. "It happened all the time when you would drive past something, and you realized it was destroyed or shut down."

 

When McLoone realized the building would have to be demolished he immediately started thinking of what they needed to do to build it back. First, he applied for and was granted a 5 million dollar federal loan. Then, he received insurance money. And he was given other funding for construction from the Economic Development Administration. McLoone said it was a difficult time for everyone in the restaurant. But he wasn't going through this process alone. McLoone said many restaurants were in the same position. And that everyone from the mayor to the city council were trying to help them rebuild. 

 

"I mean we still had to fight the fight," McLoone said. "The architects had to be there and the engineers and we had to go through the board. In order to do everything properly, as it should be. But there was also this sense of urgency, that we were symbolic to the community as a whole."

 

5 years later, McLoone's Rum Runner is back, but it's not the same restaurant. The once small cozy eatery now looks more like a large catering hall.  It took three and a half years to build.  McLoone said he wanted the Rum Runner to come back bigger, but not be an eyesore. 

 

"What I was trying to do was to get a look that if you went to Martha's Vineyard or something like that it would look like it belonged there. I also wanted it to look somewhat like a house, so that it looked like it belonged in the community and not some behemoth commercial venture." 

 

Musillo said customers have noticed changes in the restaurant too. He said some customers actually call him to ask if they've changed the Rum Runners address. 

 

"They'll call me and say are you located in the same place," Musillo said. "And I'll say yeah of course. They'll say 'cause I drove by there and it's not the same place.' It is, it really is. We're just that different now."

 

Frank DiLascia is a long time patron. He said that although the storm did a lot of harm, the new Rum Runner is a silver lining. 

 

"Well it was very traditional and very nice, old, been here a long time," DiLascia said. "It was on the river just like this is. It need upgrading, and I guess Sandy solved the problem."

 

During the restaurant's hiatus, many employees had to find other jobs. While McLoone moved most of his employees to one of his other 11 restaurants, some couldn't make the change.  

 

Joy Cognata is a third generation Rum Runner server. Both her grandmother and mother still work at McLoones. Cognata said it was a hard 3 years without the restaurant. 

 

"This was always a place I felt welcomed at, a place I knew how to do my job," Cognata said. "And the community really missed McLoone's Rum Runner."

 

McLoone said in a lot of ways the Rum Runner is reflective of the community as a whole rebounded. 

 

"I think in general everyone throughout the state was rooting for the Jersey Shore to succeed because a lot of people come to it. They really depend on it, and this is where they want to have fun."

 

And thanks to it's resilience, McLoone says the Jersey Shore is now stronger than ever.