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Hey all, I love writting down these stories so I'm sorry if I seem to flood them in. I still have many to go through, but I thought I would give a little insight on what it means to be a Jersey shore resident and what BENNY means.
The jersey shore is obviously a hot spot for maryland, new york and Pennsylvania residents. two of those states don't have many beaches and the other doesn't have as many boardwalks as us. So some areas get certain types of tourists while others get completly different ones. I lived and worked right smack dab in the middle (Point Pleasent beach, Jenkinsons) so we got all the tourists you could imagine. now, not all of them are bad, I love talking to nice visitors and telling them some hot spots we have around, but here is the few terms I'll use the most when referring to tourists...
BENNY's- which is an acronym for Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York, so northen jersey and new york areas. we don't call all of the tourists from there bennys. only the mean, nasty and entitled ones. ones who throw trash on our beaches, rent a home for the summer and consider themselves "residents", loud and obnoxious talkers and just generally rude folk.
Shoobie- a shoobie is a tourist to jersey from the south. they get their names from 2 possible sources. one is that they always bring their own food (long ago it was in shoe boxes.. hint hint) so they never bought local food, which annoyed people who depend on tourists to eat here. the other guess is because they wear sandles like shoes, with socks on... usually black socks. this one I don't think is true because Bennys do that too. shoobies are ok compared to Bennys, they are only a slight annoyance.
European- not a bad name, and we normally don't care (please don't chew my head off
) but when working in a resturaunt it is easy to understand why we aren't pleased. they don't know how to tip ( I have been to Europe and know why), and some don't understand we don't allow smoking. it's not a big issue. only problem we get is some who don't care to understand this, or that in the US, resturaunts aren't a place you eat a meal for 3 hours or more. we make money off tips, while in many places in Europe they get paid well enough on their own. we try our best to make sure they know we need the tables... but sometimes.... sometimes you get those really mean folk who don't care and then don't tip. just a double whammy for the poor server.
so those are the normal three offenders. I don't have any bad stories of my own when it comes to any Europeans. the main offenders are almost always Bennys. but just for future reference.
Some shore residents have a special hatred for Benny's. my friend co-owns the "Benny go Home" company that caters to locals with shirts and fund raisers for historical spots. during the summer our crime rate sky rockets and traffic gets to be epic. they mostly try their best to save local historical spots that harken back to the 1920's-1950's era.
Asbury park is the latest victim in this. they have recently "rebuilt" the area. which translates into taking all of the amusment parks down and replacing them with niche shops that only carter to tourists, dismanteling a historical visitor center and turning it into a hotel, and destorying several historical arcades to put up... more hotels. even tourists hate it there, there is nothing to do, and it has lost all of its charm.
The year I moved to Philly was the year I saw my favorite spot be destroyed. mini golf is a big thing on the shore... or was... this one mini golf place was the best. it was a big fake mountain with 2 golf courses on it. one was the privateer side while the other was the buckneer side. each hole had signs with some local legends and history written on them. surrounded by water falls and caves! not to mention they had the 2 cutest german shepards that loved visitors (who came in the main enterance...). so the year I left I came back to visit... to see it no longer there, and a motel being put in its place.
so that's my back story and some local history for future reference in my stories. hope it wasn't too boring!
The jersey shore is obviously a hot spot for maryland, new york and Pennsylvania residents. two of those states don't have many beaches and the other doesn't have as many boardwalks as us. So some areas get certain types of tourists while others get completly different ones. I lived and worked right smack dab in the middle (Point Pleasent beach, Jenkinsons) so we got all the tourists you could imagine. now, not all of them are bad, I love talking to nice visitors and telling them some hot spots we have around, but here is the few terms I'll use the most when referring to tourists...
BENNY's- which is an acronym for Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York, so northen jersey and new york areas. we don't call all of the tourists from there bennys. only the mean, nasty and entitled ones. ones who throw trash on our beaches, rent a home for the summer and consider themselves "residents", loud and obnoxious talkers and just generally rude folk.
Shoobie- a shoobie is a tourist to jersey from the south. they get their names from 2 possible sources. one is that they always bring their own food (long ago it was in shoe boxes.. hint hint) so they never bought local food, which annoyed people who depend on tourists to eat here. the other guess is because they wear sandles like shoes, with socks on... usually black socks. this one I don't think is true because Bennys do that too. shoobies are ok compared to Bennys, they are only a slight annoyance.
European- not a bad name, and we normally don't care (please don't chew my head off
) but when working in a resturaunt it is easy to understand why we aren't pleased. they don't know how to tip ( I have been to Europe and know why), and some don't understand we don't allow smoking. it's not a big issue. only problem we get is some who don't care to understand this, or that in the US, resturaunts aren't a place you eat a meal for 3 hours or more. we make money off tips, while in many places in Europe they get paid well enough on their own. we try our best to make sure they know we need the tables... but sometimes.... sometimes you get those really mean folk who don't care and then don't tip. just a double whammy for the poor server.so those are the normal three offenders. I don't have any bad stories of my own when it comes to any Europeans. the main offenders are almost always Bennys. but just for future reference.
Some shore residents have a special hatred for Benny's. my friend co-owns the "Benny go Home" company that caters to locals with shirts and fund raisers for historical spots. during the summer our crime rate sky rockets and traffic gets to be epic. they mostly try their best to save local historical spots that harken back to the 1920's-1950's era.
Asbury park is the latest victim in this. they have recently "rebuilt" the area. which translates into taking all of the amusment parks down and replacing them with niche shops that only carter to tourists, dismanteling a historical visitor center and turning it into a hotel, and destorying several historical arcades to put up... more hotels. even tourists hate it there, there is nothing to do, and it has lost all of its charm.
The year I moved to Philly was the year I saw my favorite spot be destroyed. mini golf is a big thing on the shore... or was... this one mini golf place was the best. it was a big fake mountain with 2 golf courses on it. one was the privateer side while the other was the buckneer side. each hole had signs with some local legends and history written on them. surrounded by water falls and caves! not to mention they had the 2 cutest german shepards that loved visitors (who came in the main enterance...). so the year I left I came back to visit... to see it no longer there, and a motel being put in its place.
so that's my back story and some local history for future reference in my stories. hope it wasn't too boring!
I LOVE Jenkinson's Boardwalk, but avoid it like the plague summer weekends. Now early March, THAT'S a great time to go. Or mid-October. I've done early January, too, but half the arcades are closed then. 
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