The Long Beach Island Boardwalk, unlike most others at the Jersey Shore, does not provide a beachfront walkway lined with shops and eateries. But it does offer a some of the best things that money can buy, especially on summer vacation: rentable bicycles and ice cream!
Long Beach Island Boardwalk is not what you’d expect
If you’re looking for a Long Beach Island boardwalk, you won’t find anything along the lines of what Atlantic City and Ocean City’s famous beaches are best known for. The only Long Beach Island boardwalk comes in the form of a roadside bike shop that couples as an ice cream parlor. Despite the unexpected location and the lack of an actual boardwalk, The Boardwalk of Long Beach Island is rightly famous for its own reasons.
This unique shop has quite an unusual combination of products and services. The Long Beach Island Boardwalk offers two things that are rarely sold under one roof. Here you can shop for a bike or rent a surrey and enjoy an ice cream cone or a gourmet milkshake in the same visit!
Since 2005, this family-owned small business has specialized in repairing and selling bicycles and serving delicious, ice-cold treats. With or without an actual boardwalk, Long Beach Island is one of the best places to visit in the summer. Whether you’re pedaling around downtown or riding long distance in the bike loop, LBI is a beautiful, bike-friendly beach town that’s easy to get around– and who doesn’t love ice cream?!
Shopping at the Long Beach Island Boardwalk
Renting or buying bikes is a breeze at The Boardwalk in Long Beach Island. There are bike styles for every situation: kids bikes, adult bikes, tandem bikes, speeders and cruisers and cargo bikes, not to mention single and double surreys. They also have helmets and surfboards and beach chairs and rolling carts available. Delivery is an option if you prefer not to pick up your bikes at the shop. This shop has everything you’d need to get around town and enjoy fresh air and exercise under the sun. The Boardwalk also sells bikes. Many locals wait for the end-of-the-year sales to purchase bikes from The Boardwalk – usually the last week of August.
The repair shop is a valuable feature. Professional staff keep the bikes in great shape and they can pump up your tires or fix the brakes while you wait on the ice cream parlor side.
At The Boardwalk, there’s an ice cream bar stocked with 32 flavors and loads of toppings. A recent remodel of the place added some indoor seating. Besides Sundaes, Gelati, and Italian Ice, their ice cream menu lists nearly thirty gourmet milkshake varieties. There is an unbelievably cool story behind these award-winning milkshakes, and it’s offered up in pieces online. It sounds too fantastic to be true, but if the owners were really saving sea lions when they discovered an Italian immigrant who swam across the ocean and washed up on shore and taught them how to make better milkshakes, that’s a truly incredible story to share.
Long Beach Island Boardwalk’s great website
The Boardwalk’s award winning milkshakes are not the only thing worthy of accolades. The Long Beach Island Boardwalk website was named one of the top three websites on LBI according to a recent study published by DotCom Global Media. Artistically, LBI businesses are very strong but when it comes to technology, these small business are way behind as a rule. The Boardwalk of Long Beach Island (along with The Spray Beach Hotel and Kline Bros. Landscaping) is a good example of memorable branded website design.
On the scoring sheet, the Long Beach Island Boardwalk shop performed highest on design and content. The design is super fun, as you can see right from the homepage. The structure of the site isn’t especially great but the retro-style illustration of the ocean makes the site memorable and draws you in with the waves. The visual imagery is strong with a good selection of high-quality photos that match the site.
Content-wise there isn’t a ton of written information on the Long Beach Island Boardwalk website, but there’s plenty of personality coming across. Whoever wrote the copy for this site took a fun-loving, carefree approach- exactly the vibe that LBI is known for. A family-friendly fun destination with a decidedly casual setting, Long Beach Island is all about surfer culture and beach-loving rest and relaxation, and this website shows this local shop is no different.
Unfortunately, this website authority grade was the lowest according to the published report. Hopefully, this shop does enough in sales to keep everything in order during the off-season. The majority of LBI businesses are open for the summer only and they do a year’s worth of business in a small window of time. For this reason, it’s even more important that people visiting LBI and full-time residents are familiar with this business and intrigued enough to visit. There’s nothing worse than seeing the small businesses at the Jersey Shore struggling to make ends meet.
Check Out the Long Beach Island Boardwalk
Forget the boardwalks you’re used to further south at the Jersey Shore, and check out The Boardwalk of Long Beach Island. Dedicate an afternoon to renting bikes, having some ice cream, and taking a self-guided tour of the Island. Pedal through any of the six different LBI towns and enjoy the views and the ambiance. This is a great way to spend summer vacation and it’s something the whole family can enjoy. Get your bikes and ice cream at The Long Beach Island Boardwalk shop!
