Home to Anarchists, Darts, and Flirts
When I asked my mother for stories about the infamous hyper-local Jersey Shore watering hole, The Bluffs, she said, “I didn’t go. It was kind of a rough crowd.” The reaction of friends was similar: A long pause, a shake of the head and a knowing chuckle—then “Oh, I have stories, but I can’t repeat them.”
One of the coolest things about The Bluffs—a seasonal hotel bar built by the Johnson family in 1890, opened to the public year-round in 1954, and sadly demolished in 1996—was that because it was the only game in town, any hottie you passed during the day riding bikes, on the beach, or at Central Market ended up at there that night. The low-ceilinged, smoke-stained, unremarkable room had a long bar, a sunken couch on a sticky linoleum floor, and one console TV that in my day played MTV videos. But all I noticed was a sea of 200 happy, sweaty people, laughing and flirting in a space meant to fit 40.
The back bar was called “The Green Room,” where many remembered using the air conditioner’s convenient dripping to cool off. And when bartender “Big Jim” wasn’t looking, girls could be hoisted up and through an unlocked window. How else were they going to get in underage?
In spite of there being no signage for the famed Bluffs bar—save for its tall, imposing privet hedges—miraculously folks found it, except for a few out-of-towners who occasionally walked into the private home next door.
There were very few rules at The Bluffs—but according to law, you had to wear shoes. A friend recalls the only reason she was ever kicked out was because she had no shoes, and not because she had used her mother’s “borrowed” driver’s license to get in—which worked. And yet another friend remembers improvising bespoke flip-flops by using duct tape and paper plates.
IN SPITE OF THERE BEING NO SIGNAGE FOR THE FAMED BLUFFS BAR—SAVE FOR ITS TALL, IMPOSING PRIVET HEDGES—MIRACULOUSLY FOLKS FOUND IT, EXCEPT FOR A FEW OUT-OF-TOWNERS WHO OCCASIONALLY WALKED INTO THE PRIVATE HOME NEXT DOOR.
Once inside, bartender John Henry Morris (1988–93) served Budweisers for $2.50, a draft for $1.50, and a commonly ordered shot called a Woowoo comprised of vodka, cranberry juice, and peach schnapps. There were $2 packs of cigarettes from the cigarette machine that went ka-thunka when you pulled out the stopper.
Some crazy things happened—like that time a guy wearing a sport coat made of feathers threw a dart and hit a guy in the forehead. It stuck for a moment, and everyone froze. The thrower was thrown out; the dart board stayed. Ah, the ’80s.
One friend said he and his pal’s pickup routine was to wander over to the ladies’ bathroom line and press the emergency light fixed to the smoke detector, which created a flashing disco effect, then call out, “Spotlight dance!” The women who rolled their eyes were no fun; the ones who danced were worth pursuing.
Some even fell in love. Win Dougherty says: “I met and did most of my courting at The Bluffs in a brand-new pair of white buck shoes. I wanted desperately to break them in, so I asked Nancy if she would kindly scuff them. She left a dark black streak that never came out. I still have the shoes, the streak, and Nancy.”
Eventually, they added a low-key restaurant with a one-man chef and kitchen staff leased by Al Nunan Sr., who worked seven days a week, three meals a day. A Bluffs cheeseburger was $5, French fries were $2, and oysters on the half shell were a whopping $4.50. A former waitress said Nunan made the best baby bay scallops she’d ever tasted and he became famous for his $9.99 lobster nights with lines out the door. Another recalls Nunan invented the “The Bluffs Special”: ham, turkey, Swiss, cucumbers, and Russian dressing on pumpernickel.
Nunan’s son, Al Jr., recalled that one summer of lifeguarding, he had a cheeseburger every day for lunch and dinner. When his mother caught wind, she insisted his father vary his diet, so Al diversified with stuffed manicotti. Later, he was dragooned to wash dishes as his sisters, Liz and Virginia, waited tables. When I asked him if he remembered what he got paid per hour, he said, “I was paid in cheeseburgers.”
At closing time, they kicked us out and many romances continued along that narrow side alley, under the neighbors’ noses and occasional water pistols. One friend’s college roommate claims to have been conceived at The Bluffs, while another remembers trying to fall asleep as a kid in her house a few doors south of the bar, listening to the after-hour nocturnal gatherings of last-callers through her open bedroom window.
Many spoke of cozy winters sitting on a broken-down couch with a pot belly stove keeping the regulars toasty. The PacMan machine was a controversial addition to the no-tech experience. And the pay phone’s shrill ringing rarely interrupted, because one husband or another would take the receiver off the hook so their wives couldn’t call them home for dinner.
When The Bluffs closed in December of ’95, they auctioned off every piece of the interior—even a toilet seat. The Green Room bar itself, fittingly, went home with Al Jr., who uses it to this day.
What The Bluffs did for Bay Head was provide its community with a makeshift living room hearth. Where friends and reprobates could enjoy an alternate home, where you could always go, where everyone knew your name. It was a monument to friendship, small-town drama, and the memories we make and struggle to remember. As someone said, “Are you even really friends until you’ve been kicked out of a bar together?”
Was it a rough crowd? Maybe. But aren’t the best people, the interesting folks, a little rough around the edges? So, let’s share a toast to human fallibility, sweat, and mirth—and the smokers and darts players, anarchists and flirts, and those who dared to sneak into bars barefoot.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The author recently served as moderator for the Bay Head Wellness Initiative’s Founders Day spoken history event. The definitive book, The Bluffs (by Francine LaVance Robertshaw), is available at Jersey Shore Publication and local Bay Head merchants.
