I love this place! Something about Ebby’s made me feel that way from the moment I walked in.

I turned forty nine years old this last Wednesday and my parents and their close friends asked my wife and I to join them for dinner at a place they thought I would really enjoy. I am not one for fancy restaurants so this one looked promising at first glance.

Ebby’s is a little delicatessen/ restaurant set back on a main road through a beach town here in New Jersey. You would never know from looking at the outside that such great food is being served on the inside. Walking in the front door you have to pass by the deli to get to the dining area but once inside the dining room you quickly forget that there is a deli attached to it. The dining room is dressed in crisp linen table clothes and comfortable lighting. I say comfortable because at forty nine its tough to read menus in most places these days. Ebby’s also dining al Fresco under the tent along side the building on the patio.

Ebby’s menu is filled with the usual items that one would find in a continental restaurant, but the taste is not so usual at all. We started with an order of fried calamari and an order of something that I haven’t seen before and quite frankly do not know the name of. It is a clam, spinach and  white bean appetizer that I believe is their version of steamed little necks. Whatever it is, it is fantastic. The broth is made for dipping your crusty bread into. The only problem was that there were too many of us for just that one dish. This is a must have if you visit Ebby’s.

Ebby’s menu has enough items to make you have to choose albeit agonizingly, between so many interesting twists on some regular expected dishes. And if that’s not difficult enough, Ebby’s serves up specials too. I had a very tough time deciding between the Pork Milanese and the Cowboy Steak. Both sounded great but I eventually opted for the Steak, being that it was a Rib-eye which happens to be a favorite of mine.

My choice turned out to be a good one as the Steak was done perfectly and accompanied with Broccoli Rabe and Roasted Potatoes, which set it off nicely. Every one’s meals must have been exceptional as our table got very quiet while dinner was being eaten. That’s not an easy thing to accomplish with our group.

I can’t tell you how much the dinner was but I can tell you that the pricing was very reasonable. Our server, Christi was knowledgable and very attentive. She did a great job with all our questions too, especially from me when I asked three times about the specials! I wasn’t allowed to partake in the paying of the bill because it was my birthday but I will tell you that I plan on returning to Ebby’s real soon. By the way, bring your own bottle. Another great reason to visit Ebby’s.

Regular Guy rating  * * * *

Ebby’s Cafe Alfresco

2013 Central Ave, Seaside Park

Toms River NJ

Running a business today is much harder than it was 20 years ago. Although I know more now than I did then, and experience saves me a lot of time and money, there are just too many changes that have taken place since I began my venture.

Probably the biggest difference that stands out most today is the lack of a labor pool, especially that of the young man. Times today have created a void for us in finding a young male between 16-21 who wants to work and learn a trade for his future. Too many young boys and teens grow up in a home where they need absolutely nothing. They are given things now that you and I didn’t have until we worked and earned the money to buy them. For instance, our first cars. I paid $700 for my first car in 1978, a 1969 Chevelle Malibu, with 49,000 miles. I thought I hit the jackpot when I found that car.  Today, if you told your son he would have to drive a car that cost less than $1000.00 he would laugh at you. Today, as he would have it, he would be driving a leased Honda or Nissan worth some $25,000.00.

The point is, that teenage boys do not have the need nor the sense of urgency to go out and work as we did when we were the same age. Teenage boys today ride $300 bicycles, wear $100 sneakers and listen to music on their $400 I-Touch phones. The only way a teenage boy gets these things is from his parents. So with all the toys you already possess, what gives you the reason to work?

I hear a lot of people complain that the Mexicans have stolen away all our jobs. I hear that the Indians and the Asians are taking over all the local businesses. I hear all this but what I see is that there aren’t any young American males even applying for these so called stolen jobs. Americans have become lazy. Most Americans today think everything is owed to them. That’s why no one wants that landscaping job, that dishwasher job or that line cook job. No young male wants to paint a home, wash a car or dig a hole. Oh yeah, he will come in for a job and demand a salary that was once reserved for a seasoned, experienced worker even without the training or knowledge of the work he will need to perform.

I have been running our business since I was 23 years old. Okay, I am one of the lucky ones in so much that my dad put up the money to open the business. But I am also the one who sacrificed my twenties and thirties to build this successful business. I have tried in vein for the last 15 years to find someone to take over this business. I have looked for a young man with the desire and passion I had at 23 years old to teach my trade to. I always believed that I would someday pass the torch to the next generation baker to carry on my work. That dream for me died a slow death. I no longer believe in the young American male with a passion for anything. If he is out there, he is a hidden gem among a bevy of stones.

It is sad to think that my generation has given so much to their children that they took away the thing that made us who we are. Was it that we felt we needed to give our kids more than we had growing up? How do you now tell your kid he has to get a job for minimum wage and earn the money for that phone? I think parents are more concerned with pacifying their kids than parenting them. It is rare today to see a parent reprimand their child, tell them “no” and mean it. “No” today means “not now but in five minutes or so.”  No used to mean no, and then it was followed by a back hand if you didn’t listen.

What used to be taught to kids was if you wanted something you had to work for it. Nothing was supposed to come easy to us. That was the American way. You worked hard, earned what you got and no one could take that away from you. Today, everything is to easy to attain.

Where have all the young men gone? They are home playing video games……..

Just one man’s opinion

The Regular Guy

Middle age has a way of creeping up on you. One day you’re this young guy and the next day your not. The crazy thing about it is I realize it every morning when I look into the bathroom mirror that the man I used to be is no more.

When we are young, we tend to think that everyone else is old. For instance, when I was a boy in fifth grade, I had this crush on my teacher, who I thought was so old. Not old in a grandma sense, but older, like my parents. Looking back on it now, she probably was my parents age, which would put her around twenty-five. When I was twenty five, I thought my dad was so old. He was only forty-nine then, which is of course what I will be in less than a months time.

So how does it happen that one day we wake up, look in the mirror and we see our dad? When he was forty-nine, I thought he was old, but now that I am the same age, I don’t feel like I am old. It truly is a crazy thing. I don’t feel any older now than I did when I was twenty-five, but when I see my reflection, I have to believe that I am forty-eight. Looking in that mirror every morning I see a guy I think is some one else. I see a guy with a gray hair, love handles (that used to go away at least once in a while), hair in places that I never had it and missing from places I did. Maybe the most convincing thing about aging is how our bodies don’t just respond so fast anymore. Getting out of bed each morning takes a series of steps to insure that I don’t twist something the wrong way and wind up out of work for a week with a bad back. What used to be a jump out of bed is now a deep breathe and push up on my elbow to take the stress off my lower back.

I watched my dad age but never heard him speak about it until he was in his fifties. Him and his friends would joke about things like getting out of bed every night two or three times to pee. I just thought he was being funny or something and never payed much attention to it, but now its my friends who are saying the same things. With all the talk about prostate problems, its something our generation needs to pay attention to, and could probably learn a lot about from our dads.

People, especially young girls, treat you differently at this age too. Most young girls stop noticing men at about age forty. You can go to a club now and twenty- somethings walk by you like you are invisible. Waitress’s call you “sir” which at first makes you look around like she must be talking to someone else.  This is not really good for your ego. I hear women get really pissed when people call them “ma’am”.

Although aging is a tough pill to swallow, it’s really not such a bad time for the Regular guy. A lot of good things happen to you when you reach this age. You find that there are more things in life to laugh about, even if it’s something that drives you crazy. Your relationship with a woman is easier because you both have done most of the stupid stuff already and hopefully won’t repeat the earlier mistakes. Your kids are probably grown and now you have time for yourself again to enjoy the things that you couldn’t do for years. Your friends are different too. They are around more now then they were when you were younger and they are better now too. There is a sense of oneness with each other that is unlike when you were younger. I think its a feeling that we all came so far in our lives and that it’s good to have friends to share those experiences with. When you were young it was every guy for himself, but now it’s more like a “band of brothers”.

In my mind I am still twenty-five. I say twenty-five because that is the age that I think we become men.You leave the boy behind and people notice that. You start to get the respect that you have earned from your family, friends and co-workers. You are probably in the early stages of your career and feeling good about how far you have come. Your starting to aquire things like your own place and a cool car. You are responsible for yourself now and thats okay with you. I liked being twenty-five. It’s just the right age. Not too young and definitely not old. Your whole life is out there waiting for you.

You know the only problem with being young?  It is that you don’t realize that you are and how fast time will go by. I don’t have many regrets in my life and probably wouldn’t change a too much, because if I did, I would not have met my wife. When I was young I didn’t do too much except work. Building a business will do that to you. Luckily when I turned thirty-six,  I woke up and realized I needed to balance my life better. Since then, I have made up for most of the lost years I had while building a successful business. Today I can say that the balance is pretty damn good.

We learn a lot as we age and hopefully with all that we learn, we can make aging a positive thing. People say that men age gracefully so that’s a positive thing to look forward to. And I hear ARPP isn’t such a bad thing either. They make a five minute hair dye for men that is probably one of the reasons a man can age gracefully. If this is middle age we still have a lot of time left, so get busy! Don’t let the second half of your life slip by like the first half might have.

Being my dad is not so bad after all.

Another New Year. Holidays get harder to enjoy as you get older. I still can’t figure out how to shop for my family. Man what do you get for your parents that 1) they don’t already have after some 40 years or so 2) they will actually USE  and 3) you won’t eventually wind up with someday. How about children? When I was a kid A/FX cars, Hot Wheels and Bicycles were pretty much it. Now most Regular Guys have to take loans on their credit cards just to pay for an IPOD or cell phone that texts. And if that isn’t bad enough, next year that IPOD just got updated and it isn’t good enough anymore. So it starts all over again.

I see friends of mine agonizing over buying for their kids and then they think they didn’t buy enough.  I stopped by Walmart 6 times in hopes of securing a Wii for my daughter, who by the way, told me she wanted it on Black Friday. Did you ever try buying a video console for Christmas? It’s madness. Luckily, my wife happened to be there when a delivery truck arrived on her ONE visit. Go figure.

What happened to the Holidays? Everything is all about what you get and even worse, what you have to buy for others. I miss the times when our whole family would meet at my Grandma’s, squeeze some 15 people around a table for 6, ate until all the men fell asleep watching football while the women sang songs doing the dishes. My daughter will never experience that. I have to say, I never realized just how nice it was while it was happening, but I sure do miss it now.

Everyone is so spread out now. Families no longer live in the same state let alone the same town. Used to be that everyone grew up, lived and worked in the same place their whole life. The family has changed and so with it did the old Holiday traditions. It always seems to be such a big deal now trying to get everyone in the same place. With kids and  traveling, and sometimes up to four families to visit due to divorces ( see Vince Vaughn/ Four Christmas’) its  always a nightmare. Then you get the guilt factor from your Mom. Oh its so subtle but you know it when it rears its ugly head. “Oh I guess you’ll be spending Christmas with ( fill in ) this year. Its okay. Your father and I are getting used to being alone”. Wow, that doesn’t sting!!

I like the way some of my Regular Guy friends and their families handle Holidays. They have a plan to be in the same place for the same Holiday every year, with one family taking turns to host. It’s so simple yet so elusive to most. I been trying to get my family to do this for years but always another excuse why we can’t make it happen.

And so the agony continues…Overall this years Holiday seemed to work out pretty good. I can’t wait until next year. NOT!!!

Just one man’s opinion…

The Regular Guy