A Real Family Restaurant: The Siblings Behind Son of a Sailor’s Success
The McCorristin siblings from left: Alice, Paul, Kelly, & John
By Jack Byrne
Each day begins at the crack of dawn for the team at Son of a Sailor, as Chef Paul McCorristin and his loyal staff prepare to serve up some of the freshest seafood on the Jersey Shore. A family business proudly serving Avalon since 2022, morning shifts at Son of a Sailor consist of accepting deliveries, peeling shrimp, shucking oysters, and breading fish, all by hand. The detail-oriented chef typically cuts each piece of fish that goes out the door himself. “We take pride in our product,” he says.
While McCorristin primarily leads the cooking efforts, his sister, Kelly McCorristin-Vandermark, operates the administrative side of the business. No stranger to the food industry, Kelly has worked at the Sea Grill, the Princeton, and the Whitebrier. Kelly’s also the librarian at Avalon and Stone Harbor Elementary Schools, but when school is out of session, she puts down the books and focuses on the restaurant all summer long.
“Paul runs the kitchen, and I’m either up front or making sure all the food goes from his station to the other stations and out the door correctly,” she says. “We both do everything. It’s basically the two of us running it, and then everybody else jumps in to help out … We take it all on.”
Though Kelly’s school year and Son of a Sailor’s summer calendar can sometimes clash in May and September, the McCorristins make it work. Conflict can be inevitable when working with siblings, but Paul and Kelly have become a dynamic duo.
“Paul and I are 6 feet apart every day, all summer,” Kelly says. “Most adult siblings aren’t that close together … It’s definitely a unique relationship.”
Working with his sister, Paul says he loves “being able to bounce ideas off each other and knowing how each other operates,” but he isn’t a huge fan of how “she keeps me in check.”
Assisting the family operation are two more McCorristin siblings, John and Alice. Older brother John helps prep and cook food with Paul, while younger sister Alice assists Kelly with front-of-house duties. The family contribution doesn’t stop there.
“We kind of had a natural staff form with a lot of our family,” says Kelly, like her siblings the children of Avalon Mayor John McCorristin and his wife Lisa. “That first summer we had our niece, our nephew, and a cousin working with us … It’s always a family affair at Son of a Sailor.”
In each of the restaurant’s five seasons of operation, the menu has always been Paul’s brainchild. From the open ocean to the kitchen counter, Chef McCorristin maintains all vendor relationships and orders all the right ingredients to keep their seafood top tier.
“He knows right away, the product and its quality,” Kelly says. “He’s got a knack for it … I hate to give him compliments, truly, but that’s definitely something he really is good at … He’s just so knowledgeable about what he’s getting and bringing in.”
Son of a Sailor’s menu is headlined by Paul’s signature dish: crab cakes, which are served packed full of fresh crab meat, cooked to a golden brown, and seasoned to perfection. One very satisfied customer gushed over their “exquisite” crab cakes in a Yelp review, and wrote: “I’ve grown accustomed to the usual grey, breading-filled patties that pass as crab cakes, but I decided to take a chance. I was rewarded with the freshest, most flavorful, crab cakes – done to a perfect crispness on the outside, nothing but sweet, flavorful crabmeat on the inside.”
Another wickedly popular dish is the New England-style lobster roll, which started off as a limited time special menu item, but became a permanent addition after extremely popular demand. Reviewers praise Son of a Sailor’s lobster roll with remarks such as “one of the best lobster rolls outside of New England,” and “the best in the Jersey Shore.” Another Yelper describes it as the “Best lobster roll ever … I will never eat another lobster roll at the Jersey shore unless it’s at Son of a Sailor’s!”
“It’s always nice to see the positive reviews that we get, or even when we see social media posts we get tagged in,” Kelly says. “It cements that we’re doing this right and we have a good thing here.”
Some of the most commonly ordered dishes at Son of a Sailor are the broiled combos, which allow guests to choose between entree combinations of crab cake, flounder, scallops, and shrimp, as well as a choice of two sides ranging from veggies, a baked potato, coleslaw, corn, french fries, or old bay fries. Other fan favorites include the lobster bisque soup, blackened mahi fish tacos, and flounder fish & chips.
The wide net that Son of a Sailor’s menu casts is drawn from Paul’s vast background in and around seafood. Growing up in Avalon, Paul’s mother first taught him how to cook, after Paul got done “catching crabs, clams, and flounder off the dock.” Paul learned the tricks of the trade at Sylvester’s Fish Market, and for many years he had been devising a seafood menu before he even had a restaurant to call his own.
“I wanted to use what local waterways provide,” Paul says. “There is trial and error with anything, but I knew what [ingredients] I wanted to use and recipes to try.” When Sylvester’s closed its doors in September 2021, Paul finally got the chance to make his dream menu a reality. The next spring, in May 2022, a property on the 2100 block of Dune Drive opened up, and Paul quickly alerted his sister.
“It happened really suddenly,” Kelly says. “[Paul] called me one day and said, ‘You need to come see something,’ ‘I need to come see what?’ ‘Just meet me on 21st Street.’”
“We have to take it,” Paul said, “We’re opening a restaurant.”
“We’re not opening a restaurant,” Kelly responded. But after meeting him there over her lunch break, and realizing the perfection of the location, she reconsidered. “Oh … I guess we are opening a restaurant,” Kelly decided.
“We had both always talked about opening a business in Avalon, with no set plan or idea,” Kelly says. “Once the spot became available, it was hard to pass up. That location was kind of already set up for a seafood restaurant. So, it just worked to Paul’s strength.”
When it came time to choose a name for the restaurant, many ideas were thrown around, but the McCorristins being loyal Parrotheads eventually landed on Son of a Sailor as a nod to the Jimmy Buffett song with that name.
Flying by the seats of their pants, the McCorristins signed the lease on June 1, 2022 and were open and ready for business on July 1. Ever since, the McCorristins have taken great pride in serving the highest quality of seafood to the community that they call home.
Paul’s favorite part of owning and operating his restaurant is “... seeing the same customers year after year, seeing families come in; we like seeing grandparents, parents, and kids coming in to enjoy Son of a Sailor and Avalon together.”
“It’s always really nice when we have repeat customers,” Kelly agrees. “A lot of our customers have been around since our first season. We’ve gotten to know them. We’ve catered parties, weddings … that’s just a really nice full-circle moment for us.”
Though no major menu changes are planned for this season, Chef McCorristin plans to incorporate a taste of New Orleans into their specials menu, with some Cajun-style cuisine available for a limited time.
Son of a Sailor Seafood is open for the season, and located at 2150 Dune Drive, Avalon. Guests can order takeout at the restaurant, or order over the phone at 609-796-5908.