Pier Village

Shopping and eating and the beach and one big Gold’s Gym.
They definitely built this place for those coming down from NYC and the surrounding area as a tourist town to spend serious cash. Like trying to attract the Jersey City, Hamptons, Hoboken bridge and tunnel weekend vacationers.
Walking around and exploring the village there are great views right on the beach, a small variety of boutique and specialty shops, along with a few places to drink and dine at. Just the right size and adjacent to the Ocean Place resort and hotel so it offers some options for those staying there.
Most spots here are kind of pricey but there are some deals to be found if you hunt a bit. As we were here for a Unilocal Winter Staycation event I’d like to come back in Summer to see what it’s like.

It was OK. Just kinda OK. Not many stores really to speak of, and the ones there are are mostly driven to ladies. The wife got several things at the Molly something store. But options were slim for us dudes. I loved the Olive Oil store, the lady in there was fantastic and they had a great selection! The surf store reeked of pot, not that I particularly care but it was a little off putting.
We breezed through the whole thing in about 30 minutes. Now this was winter, so maybe it’s a bit better in the summer. Some of the restaurants around were very good, Indulge, Wine Loft, Wild Bamboo was decent.
Overall, once you kinda go thru it you’re done and that’s all there is to the area.

I could not put my finger about what was bothering me about this place. First word that comes to mind is contrived. Plastic, forced and phony follow that right up. We came down for what was supposed to be a 3 day getaway and left after one day. (Which was a shame because our hotel, The Bungalow, was amazing) Beyond eating at the extremely pricey restaurants, there are shops that are geared towards the very young with money to burn if that happens to be your thing. In short, one lap around «Stepford» Village is enough. In the future we will stick to the best and most authentic NJ shore experiences that LBI and Point Pleasant offer. Nothing authentic here.

BEWARE OF PARKING TICKETS !!
Pier Village is a great area, EXCEPT FOR THE RIP-​OFF PARKING. Both the local police and borough officials know that the parking signs are vague and are not handled like any other normal parking area with meters. They use this to fill their coffers with unsuspecting beach-​goers hard earned money. Even when you call the town to complain, they say they get calls all the time. It’s like a running joke on visitors. The signs clearly say «two hour parking.» However, like most places in the world that have meters and similar signage, if you go back to the meter after two hours, and pay for another two hours, you should be good, right???
NOT HERE. You get a $ 50 ticket. If you move your car to another spot after two hours, you don’t get a ticket. Their signs should clearly say «two hour parking per spot» if this is the way they wish to run their business. This would not make financial sense though, because people would move their cars and NOT get $ 50 tickets. If you REALLY don’t want people to park for more than two hours, THEN MAKE IT CLEAR. Have signs that say what you mean and have the same information posted CLEARLY BY THE METERS.

Undoubtedly, Pier Village is one of my favorite spots to visit in the summer. I even come here in the fall and spring time for the restaurants. I would describe Pier Village as 3-​in-​1 hot spot! First and most obviously, the beach. Who’s not at the beach, basking in the summer sun and soaking in some vitamin D and color? We all love it! Second, the restaurants! We may be laying out all afternoon, but we still be starved by laying down and soaking in the sun’s ray. A two minute walk up to the boardwalk greets with a strip of restaurants, bars, and shops! There are many options ranging from Greek to Tacos to American to Japanese! Having decisions is better than not!
After a delicious and fulfilling meal, I can easily hop back on the beach or stroll around for third, the shops! Shopping is always fun! It’s a good way to walk off your lunch too. There are many interesting boutiques, clothes, shoes, and accessories! Even if you don’t buy any, it’s fun to window shop and check out what they have to offer!
Pier Village can be rather pricey in terms of parking, eating, drinking, and clubbing, but the ambiance is worth it! Very clean, diverse, and organized!

It’s a beautiful place, but an unfortunate money-​scheme. Parking is VERY tough and there’s a 2 hour limit on spots, and yes, «cops» (more like low-​life parking attendants with fake police shirts) monitor those vigorously. I was walking down the beach and missed the meter by only 10 minutes, there was a ticket already waiting for me on my windshield by the time I got to the car. If you’re gonna park, park in the further open lots for $ 10 a day, which will prevent the parking snakes from trying to make extra unnecessary revenue. Also, don’t even think of drinking alcohol or bringing your own alcohol to a restaurant. The waitress at Stewart’s quickly came over and forced us to chug our beer quickly because she felt bad throwing them out.
Edit: IMPORTANT IF YOU GET A TICKET! The ticket was $ 50 for a spot that costs $ 2 an hour, so $ 0.33 for the 10 minutes overdue. I was searching for the ticket online according to the instructions and could not find it for a few weeks. I called the court and some nasty lady on the phone looked up the ticket for me. She then starts asking for the car make and license plate, at this point I get suspicious. I ask her to tell me the license plate and she insists that I tell her it to confirm that the ticket is mine. Now, I’m not an idiot but I also have no idea what she sees on her end. Maybe she does have the correct license plate and there was a system error which is why I couldn’t search for it. Or, what actually happened, she had the wrong license plate thereby making the ticket ineffective. I was worried about late fees so I caved in, and she admitted that they had the wrong license plate. If you’re in the same situation, give them a fake license plate that closely resembles your own (change a letter or two). Then, casually ask them «so you’re updating the ticket to my license plate [FAKE PLATE]?» just to make sure. Then give it 10 minutes and search for the ticket under the fake license plate to ensure that it has been entered incorrectly. If they put in the wrong license plate, you don’t have to pay the ticket. Learn from my mistake and, as mentioned above, park in the further lots for $ 10 a day. Don’t pay these crooks’ salaries!!!

Traveling from northern NJ, we’ve driven to Long Branch’s Pier Village for years. Unless you leave from home by 7AM, you may find that your unable to park your vehicle anywhere near Pier Village. For the purposes of this review, I will attempt to not have the parking issue cause me to limit the number of Stars given to Pier Village.
Recently, the main public multi-​level parking garage, located directly at Pier Village, has been restricted for residents only. A drive through revealed that every level of the garage was virtually empty. Clearly, the owner of this real estate has decided to lock-​out day-​trippers despite the $ 20 — $ 30 fee for all day parking per car. Yes, there were several large outdoor lots that were created south of Pier Village along Ocean Blvd yet all were «FULL» before 12 noon.
Other than driving around town looking for that one parking spot blocks from the beach, we decided to drive south along the coast into Allenhurst where several private beach clubs can be found ocean side. We finally found one (legal) parking spot some three blocks from the ocean, paid for a Day Pass ($ 10 ea) and enjoyed the rest of the day on the beach. After talking to a resident, learned that a local Deli delivers food and drink to the beach via a call from one’s cell phone. We did that and enjoyed a great Deli sandwich along with some Cokes. Delivery was made directly to the boardwalk overlooking the ocean.
Other than the parking issues at Pier Village, the restaurants are OK, yet crowded with wait times. Specialty shops exist yet going to the beach would be all I would be interested in. If staying for dinner, «Avenue» is always a good bet, both food and drink are top notch; bring a change of (casual neat) clothes if dining there. If interested in watching high-​end cars crawling around the circle at the entrance to Pier Village gazebo, then just stand on the boardwalk in front of «Avenue» and you will see the line of cars crawling by, going nowhere, if that interests you. As far as the beach is concerned, you may want to bring your earbuds and iPad or equivalent to drown out the boom box music which seems to be all around you including the continuous amplified music coming from the Tiki bar behind «Avenue».
After you have found where to park, claimed a spot on the sand, look at your watch, and then plan on heading home to beat the traffic if you can, or, head further south to another beach to enjoy a more relaxing afternoon.
(Visited July 2015)

This review is for the beach that is located by Pier Village Shopping. 4 stars for the shopping, restaurants. The Beach is horrible for the mere fact that every 3^rd blanket is a different radio blasting a different song/​radio station. The Wife and I had to move 3 times and left after an hour after driving 2 hours to get here and another 2 hours to drive back home. I don’t mind music at the beach at all (OK no rap please) but not everyone playing something different. Shame.

Came down with the family for the weekend. Love the beach nice atmosphere prefer this to Seaside Heights ANYTIME !! Only reason I didn’t give 5 stars parking is only problem !!!
But will be back !!!

Pier Village is such a cute place to visit. Tiny strip mall with a few stores and places to eat and the beautiful beach is just across the street. There is parking available in front of the strip but fills up very quickly, so most likely you will end up paying to park in a lot.
This was my first time to Per Village this summer and realized that Shaka was no longer there. What a disappointment! That was a great addition to the strip and it is missed. I’m not sure if it relocated? But a BBQ joint took its spot.
If I could offer one suggestion for Pier Village, it would be to extend it and make it larger! It could definitely use some more eatery options, especially on the boardwalk which is beach front and ideal for outside seating with a view.

We went to Pier Village today for the first time. Parking is very difficult so we kept going around in circles until we found a lady pulling out of a parking spot. As soon as we stopped and put our blinkers on, a cop came over to us and asked us to keep it moving because we were holding up the traffic. I believe it was completely rude the way we were treated because we waited for other people to park and when it was our turn, we ended up in this situation. So we ended up leaving the whole area. We really wanted to go to the restaurant called Avenue but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I am just really disappointed. If you are Hispanic like me, you’ll probably be discriminated as well by a wanna be cop. I’m sure those kids that look like cops directing traffic are not real cops but treat people like crap if they want to.

Hands down, the best.
Pier Village is a quaint outdoor strip mall located right on Long Branch with a fantastic selection of bars, restaurants and shopping. It’s a great way to spend the day really. Start out with some sunning on the sand, grab a refreshing lunch at an outdoor café, maybe peruse through a few of the boutiques, hit the beach again with drinks and ice cream to follow. No matter how ya slice it, there’s lots to do here.
There are a ton of casual and upscale eateries. Coffee and gelato, sushi, pizza, greek, seafood and even a fancy schmancy club for the nighttime patrons. The clothing boutiques are some of my favorites and you can find really rare and beautiful pieces scattered throughout the racks.
This is definitely an oasis on the Jersey Shore and no summer is complete without a visit (or maybe 5) here. Beaching, shopping and eating– I’ll take it!

I have been to Pier Village twice. It is beautiful. The beach is beautiful, the area is beautiful, the shops and restaurants are great. It is a nice place to spend a lovely day basking in the sun and you have the nice boutiques and restaurants at your fingertips. I loved Shaka, sad to see it closed. This visit I stopped into Rocky Mountain chocolate factory. Delicious candied apples and chocolate. As for shopping, there a lot of nice boutiques. Have yet to shop there but love there selection. Just fyi It is hard to find parking, so try the parking garage. Enjoy your day at Pier Village.

I was leaving a very disappointing event (Monmouth Food Truck Festival) and just wanted to get a beer outside. I Unilocaled Pier Village (2.5 Miles from Current Location) and headed over.
Oddly enough 2 out of the 3 of us in the car had never heard of the place. The best way to describe the 2.5 mile drive would be to say it was like swimming to the sandbar. You know what I mean? You start walking inward and the ocean gets deeper and deeper. Suddenly you might be a little worried you aren’t going the right way or it may not even be there. However, if you push through and just go a little further… there it is. I don’t know if we took a bad route, but we went through a shifty area. My wife kept saying «I’ve been here. Keep driving.» and the driver said «I don’t know about this.»
Next thing you know I see 40 year old men with loafers and no socks. I see a guy in Salmon colored shorts. I see 4 cops within 2 street corners. Ahhhhh Haaaaa. We’ve reached the little affluent Pearl in the Oyster.
Somehow we got a meter spot directly across from the boardwalk on our first spin around. Otherwise, I saw $ 20 parking signs everywhere.
There was a bumping beach party going on at some restaurant that had access to the beach. Everyone was in bathing suits, but in all honestly it was cold and windy. I guess when you’ve already spent the money to get in you might as well play it up.
I noticed that there are some presence of food chains, but they are the higher end ones like Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for example. You don’t see those at everywhere. Otherwise, there was more then a handful of Independent food establishments.
I wasn’t so much here for shopping or the beach as I was out of convenience and just wanting to take a stroll on Memorial Day weekend. I grabbed a beer at some hotel that had a beach bar area, and an other at a seafood restaurant that looked nice. Seems to be average price of a beer in the area is $ 6.
Next time I want to hit the beach I’ll give this one a shot. Probably grab dinner and make a night of it too.

Excellent service. Last night we went there with a couple of friends and even it was really late our server gave us the best service ever .we got a great experience that’s why we r coming back again

This is the true Jersey Shore experience, not that junk they show you on a fabricated show on MTV casted with people who aren’t even from NJ. This place has it all. A well kept beach at reasonable prices, seaside shops, restaurants and the fun of figuring out parking. There are no complaints about the overall experience of being in the area as a whole. Every shop is different and those are their own entities. If you’re looking for a nice, relaxing day at the beach, this is the spot to go to avoid the crowds and all those people who come from out of state and give the real Jersey Shore a bad rep.

**This review applies only to the Pier Village apartments
RENTER BEWARE!
I lived here one year and the management office did everything they could to make it miserable. Several examples include: the apartment being filthy when we moved in (and their refusal to clean it); the dishwasher leaked the entire time (and they would not fix it despite NUMEROUS maintenance requests); upon move out they charged us for «damages» which were clearly fabricated (ice trays, a microwave vent & a refrigerator rack they said were missing) also included a huge cleaning fee, a fee for «nail holes in the walls» (we had 4 or 5 pictures up).

I don’t know what all the negative reviews are whining about… you absolutely shouldn’t come here expecting it to be like the authentic Jersey Shore. In fact, I came here BECAUSE I wanted to avoid that experience.
While parking can be a little difficult to navigate to, the beach is clean and large enough to find a comfortable amount of space even on a busier beach day.
I didn’t have time to browse the shops or restaurants nearby but there seemed to be a large variety of local eateries and boutiques. I don’t doubt that most of these will fall at a higher price point than «the Jersey Shore» but, again, it’s all about managing your expectations.
As a California native who was implanted in Maryland, I only wish I could have a beach close to me that was as nice and simple as Pier Village has to offer. I would definitely come back again!

I have worked in Pier village between Michael angelos and Indulge Lounge, and I cannot say enough good things about this place. Great night life, a great chocolate shop, a very friendly bank, mcloons, Avenue, wine loft, and mant more spots with just the friendliest staff long branch has to offer. I really enjoy just spending a day off walking through getting a shake and walking the beach after doing some shopping!

We were on a very quick visit from UK at the end of July and had only one day to see a bit of NJ. Jumped on the train from near East Rutherford and made our way down.
Lovely clean beach and nice little shops and bars. Super friendly people around as well. Personally I loved it