Still Cookin’ At 40: Sylvester’s Keeps ‘Em Coming Back Year After Year
The line waiting to get into Sylvester’s, circa 1986.
Much has changed here at Seven Mile Beach since brothers Fred and Steve Sylvester opened a restaurant to accompany their seafood market in 1978. Forty years later, residents and visitors continue to find good food and fun at Sylvester’s Fish Market and Restaurant.
A chain of industrious people are linked together as keys to Sylvester’s success.
This popular place began as a porched bungalow store in 1944. Tom Shute built it to house Shute’s Seafood at 21st Street and Fifth Avenue. Shute was an accomplished commercial fisherman who owned and operated the Dolphin II, reports Avalon History Center Director, Nina Ranalli. The Dolphin II was the last commercial fishing boat in Avalon. A vintage photograph of the original store features a white, wooden “Shute’s Seafood” sign out front. The sign lists fluke, bluefish, mackerel, clams, weakfish, shedders and bass for sale.
Today, a sizable “Sylvester’s Fish Market & Restaurant” sign sits in the same spot outside of the renovated original Shute’s structure. When Fred and Steve Sylvester bought the business in the late 1970s, they expanded operations. The brothers added a kitchen and a raw bar to the store. In 1978, Fred and Steve opened Sylvester’s Restaurant.
Twenty years later, Bill Selgrath began to look for a local business investment after he and his wife Bernadette purchased residential property on the island. When the opportunity rose to buy Sylvester’s, the Horsham, Pa., couple went for it. Neither Bill nor Bern had backgrounds in the restaurant business, he says. Bill worked in business-to-business sales. Bern’s expertise was in business technical support.
With the help of loyal employees and supportive family members, the Selgraths opened their Sylvester’s Fish Market and Restaurant in May 2002. They saw no need to change Sylvester’s sentimentally valued name or alter signature seafood items on the menu. “There was no new wheel to reinvent,” Bill Selgrath says. “Core seafood, like our crab cakes, built us.”
Now in his 17th season as one of Sylvester’s owners, Selgrath muses over the ingredients – quality food, casual open-air dining, energetic young staffers and historic character – that make the place so appealing to people who return to Sylvester’s year after year.
“Just about everything is fresh,” Selgrath says of Sylvester’s seafood. “We put quality over cost for product and always try to source locally.”
So, Sylvester’s first choices in products they sell and serve are from New Jersey and Delaware. The New England states supply Sylvester’s oysters. Softshell crabs are brought in from North Carolina and Maryland.
Sylvester’s “core seafood” includes its signature crab cakes, flounder and scallops. Customers also enjoy snapper, grouper and halibut specials. Additions, like firecracker calamari and seared ahi tuna, were inspired by dishes that Bill and Bern tasted in their travels. The menu also includes fish tacos, burgers, chicken and pasta dishes and more.
Sylvester’s serves parties as small as two and groups as large as 40. It seats 150.
“I operate as if I’m feeding my own family,” Selgrath asserts. “If the [customers’] kids spill something, there’s no problem” because of Sylvester’s distinctive setting, he adds.
The restaurant’s open-air site en-hances Sylvester’s family-friendly feel. Handsome varnished-wood picnic tables with benches provide seating below ceiling fans and a dark emerald green canopy. A white privacy fence at the entrance and around the tables, a cement floor and a red brick walkway down Sylvester’s main aisle add to its outdoorsy appeal. Assorted large fish in shades of blue seem to swim around the tables from their perches on fence posts. Sea creatures, like an ominous hammerhead shark that eyeballs diners, swim below the surface of the sea in a mural that has decorated a long wall in Sylvester’s since 1991.
Meanwhile, integral parts of Sylvester’s operations buzz about the floor serving customers’ needs. The owner counts restaurant manager Paul McCorristin, along with first-time and veteran young staffers, to be among the reasons for Sylvester’s popularity. “Paul is a problem solver and a global thinker,” Selgrath says. “Plus, he’s good in the kitchen and out front.”
“Working at Sylvester’s is a good break away from construction work” in his family’s business, McCorristin, 32, says of the labor at McCorristin Construction LLC that keeps him busy during the offseasons. As McCorristin enters his 13th summer at Sylvester’s, he mentions aspects of the job that proved to be major benefits. “I’ve made lifelong friends at Sylvester’s,” he says of co-workers and the owners. “I consider Bill and Bern my friends, not my bosses.” McCorristin also appreciates Sylvester’s many return customers. “It’s always good to see the same faces year after year,” says this cheerful man of multiple talents.
Some former employees express similar feelings about their time there.
Penn State senior Holden Young, 21, worked at Sylvester’s for seven summers. Former co-workers became good friends, and he pals around with some of them at Penn State.
“Sylvester’s has an open, friendly environment,” Young says. “I looked forward to going in to work to be with my friends.” Even Sylvester’s customers were “very friendly,” he adds. “I never had a problem with customers!” Young remains grateful to the Selgraths for giving him the opportunity to work there. “It was almost like a family at Sylvester’s,” he says.
Actual family members, like Bill’s brother Matt, helped to open the restaurant. The Selgraths’ daughter, Mary Kate, 21, worked at Sylvester’s for nearly a decade. Their son, Bill, 17, is still a member of the eatery’s workforce.
Nicole McGovern, 24, spent five summers working at Sylvester’s. McGovern turned to waitressing in order to make money, she says. The job at “fun, friendly” Sylvester’s delivered so much more, she adds. Like McCorristin and Young, McGovern’s co-workers became her friends. Her current roommate in Philadelphia is a former Sylvester’s employee. McGovern credits Selgrath for rotating staffers so that they work in various aspects of the business.
“I learned a lot,” McGovern says. She also had thoughts about customers’ loyalty to Sylvester’s. “Avalon is now so modern. It’s wonderful. But people come to Sylvester’s for that familiar setting. Sylvester’s has been a constant for so long now. People like that.”
One of the biggest challenges in keeping Sylvester’s a constant was Superstorm Sandy, says Selgrath. “I was deeply concerned whether we could stay open” after Sandy clobbered Avalon in October 2012. Almost two feet of water flowed through Sylvester’s Fish Market and Restaurant. Selgrath did not know where to begin. He credits his wife Bern for taking the lead and following through in dealing with FEMA, flood insurance and contractors. “We put the place back together in a way that maintained its classic, casual beach dining style and charm,” Selgrath says. They were up and running in time for the spring of 2013.
There’s comfort in knowing that the more things in Avalon change, the more some things, like Sylvester’s, preserve their historic character and essentially remain the same.
