Jersey Shore Fact of the Day 57: Bring Cash

I hit the shore last weekend for a book signing and a little R&R. Before settling my beach chair on the sand in Strathmere, we hit up McGowan's for some hoagies and a couple of bottles of water.

Good thing we had cash, because that's all they take.

"Cash Only" is common down the shore. So common, in fact, that "do you take credit cards" was on my standard form of questions asked to shops and restaurants I wanted to put in the book. Off the top of my head: Hot Dog Tommy's (Cape May), Red's Jersey Mex (Ocean City), Dead Dog Saloon (Sea Isle City), Charlie's (Somers Point) are all cash only.

You can't really blame these places. Accepting credit cards can be expensive for merchants, with monthly fees and then a cut of each sale going toward processing costs. If you're an established shore business, you don't really need to take credit if you don't want to.

Now, some of these places, like Charlie's and Dead Dog, have ATMs on the premise, but your better bet is to bring cash or hit the closest Wawa. The Wawa ATMs don't charge you a service fee (though if you're not a PNC customer, your bank most likely will charge you for using an out of network ATM).