It’s almost autumn, which is our favorite season of the year – but before we switch over to the crisp air and changing leaves, we wanted to give one last hurrah to the warm weather.  This past weekend, for our final summer travels, we visited two places on the northern end of the Jersey shore:  Point Pleasant and Seaside Heights.  Both of these are fun beach towns, each with their own vibe – Point Pleasant has a long, fun boardwalk with lots of family-friendly activities, while Seaside Heights has a more rowdy nightlife-oriented boardwalk (it’s where they filmed Jersey Shore, after all).  We spent about a day and a half between these two places, and in between going to the beach, walking up and down the boardwalks, and riding the sky ride in Seaside Heights, we also decided to try some local food.  We’ll show you what we got in each town, but be aware that we have some images of meat here.

First up, Point Pleasant – we started there because the town and its beach are accessible via the NJ Transit North Jersey Coast line, so we just hopped on a train in Manhattan and arrived in Point Pleasant in a little under two hours.  On the boardwalk we discovered that Chippy’s was the local french fry stand that seemed to be the most popular, so we got ourselves a medium cup and ate it on the beach.

After spending some time in the sun we decided to head a little inland, to downtown Point Pleasant.  We found two interesting food spots there:  first, there was Joe Leone’s Italian Specialties, which is mainly a market for pasta, sauce, and the like, but they also have a counter serving up sandwiches.  You can choose your own fillings and cheese as well as what kind of bread you want your sandwich on, so we got roasted eggplant, zucchini, red peppers, and tomatoes, plus arugula, fresh mozzarella and pesto, all on a big semolina roll.

Also nearby was Rosie’s Pizza, which a couple of locals told us was the best pizza spot around.  Rosie’s only makes a set amount of dough each day, so you have to make sure you order early – we had been hoping to get slices but by the time we arrived they only had whole pies left, so we got one with roasted red peppers.

Next we hopped into an Uber to head about 10 miles south to Seaside Heights.  You can stroll down the boardwalk there too, so we meandered around and tried a couple of different things – including these buffalo fries from the House of Fries stand.

And some more pizza – this time just a margherita slice from Maruca’s Tomato Pies.

We also got some fun candy from Lucky Leo’s Sweet Shop – on top here are some milk chocolate-covered Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle, and on the bottom are slices of fudge:  rocky road (on the left), cookies and cream (in the middle) and s’mores (on the right).

But just like in Point Pleasant, we also discovered some hidden gems located a little more into town.  On our second morning in the area, we stopped into Bobber’s Family Restaurant, which has a pretty extensive breakfast menu.  Miriam had the French toast, which you can get topped with fresh fruit …

… while Cyril decided he finally had to try a New Jersey specialty:  a pork roll sandwich, this one with egg and cheese, plus home fries on the side.

And we also happened upon Steaks Unlimited, which might not sound like a great place to take a vegetarian, but they were kind enough to make Miriam a sandwich with some of their veggie toppings.  This one has green peppers, mushrooms, fried potatoes, and provolone cheese, all stuffed into their unique half moon pizza bread roll.

Of course Cyril tried one of their traditional cheesesteaks – this is Seaside Tony, made with peppers, onions, mozzarella, and cheese balls.

Speaking of cheese balls – we shared a side order of these as well, since they’re apparently famous at Steaks Unlimited.  They’re little tater tot-sized pieces of cheddar cheese, battered and fried.

All in all it was a good weekend for food – we didn’t eat gourmet or anything like that, but we got some fun fries, candy, pizza, breakfast, and sandwiches.  That’s exactly what you want to eat on a casual beach weekend, and we’re glad we were able to search out and find some vegetarian options.  We know that by this point you might not be headed down to the Jersey shore until next year, but if you do decided to check out these two towns in the future, we think our recommendations will lead you toward some pretty interesting local eats.