When I tell people that I live in New Jersey, they automatically picture all of the cool things about North Jersey, which I haven’t been able to experience as much because I’m way down south! South has cool stuff too but it’s just totally different. This last visit really sold me on how much I’m missing out on up there. With its close proximity to New York City, the area is bustling with a lot of really fun things to do with and without the kids. I’m excited to share some of what we did when we had the opportunity to stay up in Red Bank to see Pamela’s First Musical at the Two River Theater!
This press trip seemed like the perfect opportunity to spend some magical time with my mom and niece, plus a couple of my own brood. We headed up early in the morning so we would have the opportunity to see more of what the area has to offer. The Oyster Point Hotel where we stayed was located right on the water and within walking distance of a lot of nice shops and restaurants. Next to the marina there is a beautiful park where we ate our delicious cupcakes from the well-known Sugarush. My carrot cake cupcake topped with cream cheese and caramel was quite the sweet treat and the kids seemed pretty thrilled about theirs too! The shop is small but filled with flavor and cupcakes you can have customized right on the spot!
We loved being able to walk along the river. It’s such a beautiful view, particularly at sunset! I’m a sucker for sunsets. Just looking into the river, you can see a bunch of fish swimming and there were even people crabbing around us, which interested the kids. It was really relaxing to just sit by the water and see the boats pass with the sun just peeking over a nearby bridge.
In the morning, we took one more walk along the river and headed off to brunch at the Red Bank Bistro on Broad Street. Broad Street is a main road in Red Bank with a lot of adorable shops and restaurants. We sat outside with the cool breeze and I had a BLT with avocado and aoili, which turned out to be fantastic.
I was also pretty ecstatic to check out Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash comic book store with a lot of memorabilia from the NJ famous movies! I took the kids through it and let them pick out a couple of old school comic books while I gawked at some of the coolest collectibles of the geek empire. I really wanted to head over to Leonardo to see the Quick Stop filming location of the Kevin Smith classics but I’ll just have to add that to my list of reasons to head back up!
Another one on Broad Street in Red Bank was the Chocolate Works, which has tons of gourmet chocolate! They have other candy but chocolate is definitely the most important. They’ve got a machine with clear plexiglass on the side so you can watch some of the chocolate being made. There was a birthday party going on in the back where kids were making their own chocolate. Seriously, that would be my ideal birthday party. The Chocolate Works was really cool but let me also say that the chocolate was delicious. If it weren’t so hot out, I probably would have gotten an entire pound of the coconut chocolate snowballs. I’ll be back chocolate, wait for me right there.
After I ate my weight in chocolate, I took my fully belly over to the Two River Theater to watch Pamela’s First Musical with the kids. The theater itself is small but inviting, very fancy looking on the inside! You can see the space under the stage where the orchestra is and something about that was just really neat to all of us. They do a lot of plays throughout the year and seem to have a lot of really decent actors on cast. I would absolutely go there for more shows.
After the musical, we headed over to the Urban Coalhouse for dinner and it was pretty tasty! Everyone liked the coal fired pizza and I had some chicken fingers and salad. What I REALLY want to rave about though is their dessert pizza! (Can you tell I like dessert foods?) The dessert pizza is topped with nutella, bananas, strawberries, almonds, and a touch of white chocolate to make the most splendid dessert I’ve had in quite a while! When I’m feeling especially crave-y, I just stare at pictures of that pizza. True story.
Our visit to Red Bank was awesome but unfinished! These are just the highlights of some of what this area has to offer and with only being an hour plus away, I plan to check out more of this area to report back with more finds!