Walk Asbury Avenue this month and the street tells two different stories at once. At 1000 Asbury, there's a new yellow awning and a line out the door for build-your-own grain bowls. A few doors down, a storefront with the shades still drawn looks exactly the same as it did months ago. Most people who live here fold both of those facts into one sentence: downtown's changing, and not for the better.
That's the wrong read. Ocean City's downtown has seen real business turnover this year, and the handful of dark windows that keep showing up in neighborhood group complaints are a separate, much smaller problem. Confusing the two makes the street look worse than it is, and it also means residents are complaining about the wrong thing.
What actually changed this year
Start with what's real. Three storefronts on or just off Asbury Avenue changed hands in ways worth knowing if you walk this street regularly.
- 1000 Asbury Avenue went from Burger Boyzz and Fruit Freezz to Chop Wave, a build-your-own salad, grain bowl and wrap spot from chef Ryan Tyers that also does customizable ice cream sandwiches. It opened in August with a ribbon-cutting, runs year-round from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, and sits across from Ocean First Bank at 10th and Asbury. Burger Boyzz and Fruit Freezz didn't close. They moved to 906 Boardwalk.
- 701 East 4th Street is Maria's Cafe & Grille's new home. The restaurant had been dark for three or four years after its old spot at 846 Central Avenue, previously The Ocean City Café, shut down in early 2024. Maria's reopened this spring at the new address and, based on customer reviews dated in May, had been running for about five weeks at that point.
- 761 Asbury Avenue, the longtime home of Ron Jon Surf Shop, is becoming a lululemon location, according to reporting from the Press of Atlantic City. That's a national retailer choosing a downtown storefront over a shopping center, which is its own small signal about where foot traffic is headed.
None of these are stories about vacancy. They're stories about a street where a chef took over a sandwich spot, a longtime cafe found a second life a few blocks away, and a national brand decided Asbury Avenue was worth the rent. That's turnover, not decline, and it's the kind of activity that shows up when a downtown's lease market is tight rather than soft.
The one that isn't part of this story
Dot's Pastry Shop, on Asbury Avenue near 32nd Street next to Berger Realty, has been part of the neighborhood for more than 75 years. This year it didn't open for the season. The family posted on social media that it was a deliberate choice, not a closing. They wanted a summer together after decades of running the bakery, and they were clear that the decision wasn't permanent.
That distinction matters more than it sounds like it should. A business owner choosing to pause is a completely different situation from a business failing or a landlord refusing to lease. Locals who've been walking past a dark Dot's all summer have every reason to miss the pastries. They don't have a reason to read that particular window as evidence the street is struggling, because the people who own it told you directly why it's closed, and it isn't money.
So what's actually behind the dark windows
If the turnover story is healthy and Dot's is a planned pause, that leaves the smaller number of storefronts that really have sat empty for a while, the ones that generate the social media complaints. Chamber leadership has addressed this directly, and the explanation isn't about demand.
Michele Gillian, executive director of the Ocean City Regional Chamber of Commerce, has described the pattern as a landlord issue more than a market issue. The businesses interested in downtown space outnumber the spaces actually available for rent, because some property owners simply aren't putting their storefronts back on the market.
Caitlin Quirk, who owns The Garb Collection at 1014 Asbury Avenue along with Bowfish Kids, Bowfish and Driftspaces elsewhere downtown, has made the same point from the tenant side.
"Unfortunately, in my experience, from what I know about those properties, a lot of them are landlord issues. The ones that I know that are vacant, it's truly the landlord is not willing to rent the space. I actually have other business owner friends that are trying to come into Asbury and there's no available spots."
That's a very different picture than "nobody wants to open a business downtown." It's closer to the opposite: there are more people who want in than there are spaces being offered. Quirk said as much about her own move into 1014 Asbury, telling the chamber she jumped on the space the moment it opened because openings like it are rare.
Reading the street correctly
If you live here and walk Asbury Avenue on your way to the bank or the post office, the useful habit is separating what you're looking at into two categories instead of one. A storefront with a new name and a fresh coat of paint is turnover, and this year's turnover, from Chop Wave to Maria's new spot to lululemon moving into Ron Jon's old space, has been active. A storefront that's stayed dark for a season or longer is almost never about whether people want to shop there. It's more often a landlord who hasn't decided to lease it yet.
Ocean City's downtown business district isn't shrinking. It's cycling through owners and concepts at a pace that outsiders sometimes mistake for instability, when what's actually happening is a strip of real estate tight enough that tenants are competing for the same handful of open doors. The empty windows that draw the most attention on social media are the exception, not the rule, and the exception has a specific, unglamorous cause that has nothing to do with whether Ocean City still wants a downtown.
That's worth knowing the next time a Facebook thread starts asking what's wrong with Asbury Avenue. Nothing is wrong with it. A few landlords just haven't signed a lease yet.
If you're weighing what a home or a storefront near Asbury Avenue is actually worth in a market like this one, The Anchor Group can walk you through what the current turnover means for buyers, sellers and investors alike. Reach out for a free home valuation or to start your search.
