Over 10 Businesses and Restaurants Have Closed in the Last 18 Months in Ocean County

So much changed in 2020 because of Covid. We had so many businesses close (small and big) in 2020.

I was hoping when 2021 would come, everything would go back to normal. Well, normal as we knew it. That didn't happen. I was waiting for the magical unicorn to swoosh on in and change things, nothing changed.

Some of these stores we grew up with. When Covid-19 hit, I had no clue the impact it would have all over the country, let alone Ocean County.

We are all about shopping "local" and helping out small businesses, the ma and pa's of local businesses need us now more than ever. How were local businesses supposed to make it through such a rough time? We have rebounded slightly but businesses and employees are still hurting.

Something else I noticed this year more than ever, empty strip malls. They just look horrible and it seems they've been empty forever. That's a blog for a different time. Kathy from Brick just wrote me, GNC closed, too. And, how could I forget about Social 37 closing? So sad.  I'm sure there are many more.

It became clear to too many local businesses that they would never financially recover from the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates that either forced them to close their doors for an extended period of time or radically change their business model to meet standards that were just too expensive to uphold.

This summer was an amazing summer for restaurants and hopefully, they were able to catch up from the year that everything shut down.

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