After decades of memories, shuttered Jersey Shore bar moves to new spot up the street

Chances are if you met anyone who spent any significant amount of time in Wildwood they will have a Shamrock story.

Located on the ground floor of a 1900s Victorian home, the popular orange and green-painted bar and restaurant was the spot for local music and old school beer prices.

“Everybody has a fond memory,” said Tom Gerace, owner of the Shamrock, who purchased the bar in 2016. He remembers in 1979, when he frequented the bar after high school, beers were five for a dollar.

Wednesday morning those memories were picked up and moved, as the home began the journey to its new location, approximately 200 feet away on East Lincoln Avenue.

There will be no more Shamrock, but the historic building will live on — it will now be Gerace’s residence — offering passersby the opportunity to remember both the good and not-so-good times the bar had to offer.

“Some guy told me they used his head to open up the door,” laughed Gerace.

He said he decided to permanently close the bar and sell the property, which also included Castaways Pirate Bar and Club Amnesia, after it was shut down in May of last year for violating the state’s coronavirus restrictions in November 2020 and March 2021, including social distancing rules and a 10 p.m. curfew on indoor food and drink services.

Gerace said he could have opened back up after that, but decided it was time to call it quits. He didn’t want to be under the same microscope as before.

“I’m hitting a point in my life where I just don’t need the aggravation.”

Gerace, who is a lover of old homes, said the new owner would have knocked the building down so he decided to relocate it and keep it as his summer residence.

During the past five years Gerace lived upstairs after converting the original 18 boarding rooms, which were like sleeping in closets, into a nine-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bathroom house with three living rooms with the original double staircases.

According to Taylor Henry, president of the Wildwood Historical Society, the home was built circa 1900 as the Berwind Hotel and was an example of Queen Anne resort architecture similar to styles in Cape May.

In its original location, the one-of-a-kind cross-gabled home had north-facing bay windows and an ocean-facing turret.

She said that Queen Anne architecture is always different and “If one gets demolished, it’s gone forever. There’s nothing like it anywhere else.”

In 1924 the hotel was sold, and a Senekoff & Son grocery opened on the ground floor while the upper floors were still used as housing.

In 1937 Irish immigrant Cornelius Ward bought the hotel, lived upstairs, and established the Shamrock Cafe. The Shamrock was actually a bar but it was called a cafe at the time because it was the prohibition era, explained Henry.

During the 1970s the bar became a popular spot for local bands to play and became a launching point for a lot of local musicians.

Henry described the Shamrock as having a laid back, old-schooled atmosphere where people went to have their first drink, make new friends and get engaged. While those memories and stories from the Shamrock may not be historically important, they are sentimentally important to people and will live on as will the Victorian home.

“That’s what preservation is about. Not only preserving architecture, but preserving places that matter to people,” she said.

Wildwood Mayor Pete Byron who frequented the Shamrock back in the ‘70s and ‘80s was happy that Gerace saved the structure but is disappointed the bar closed.

“If I had my choice I’d rather see the original Shamrock still in its original place and open for business.”

Byron said the bar was one of those iconic places where it’s not uncommon to see someone wearing a green Shamrock shirt anywhere in the country.

For now Gerace said he will relax and contemplate his next move and has not ruled out opening another bar in the near future.

“My old employees are bugging me already to open something else up.”

For people longing for those wild Shamrock days, they won’t have to walk far from the original location to stir up memories. Gerace said he may incorporate into the front of his house a steel beam that was in the building with “Welcome to the Shamrock” written on it.

They can also visit the historical society where a section of the bar and the brass rail were donated.

For now, and to the disappointment of some, the only bar business for Gerace will be for friends and family once his home is completed.

“The only bar they will see if they are drinking in my garage.”

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Tim Hawk may be reached at thawk@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Tim on Instagram @photog_hawk.