Indoor Dining To Return At Randazzo's Pizzeria In Ocean City

OCEAN CITY, NJ — Those who miss dining at Randazzo's Pizzeria will not have to wait much longer.

The restaurant at 34th Street and Asbury Avenue announced it will reopen its dining room on Oct. 19 for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

The longtime Italian restaurant has only offered takeout and outdoor dining after closing its dining room in March 2020. Due to a lack of kitchen staff this summer, Randazzo's Pizzeria was still not able to serve people in its dining room.

The restaurant, which currently has a full staff to run its kitchen, is now experiencing a shortage of servers. Despite this latest challenge, the owners of Randazzo's Pizzeria have decided to welcome people back for indoor dining this month.

“It’s time to open up,” said owner Marianna Randazzo, who runs the restaurant with her husband Joe, along with their three kids and two grandchildren. “We’re going to try to have waitresses to serve as much as we can, but on days where we’re short staffed, at least you can still sit inside."

This year, Randazzo’s Pizzeria celebrated its 30th summer in business. Over the past 19 months, the restaurant has received at least one call every day from customers, all asking the same question: “Is the dining room open?”

“There wasn’t one day where someone’s not calling, ‘Just checking if your dining room’s open?’ I mean every day from the beginning of the summer to spring last year,” Randazzo said.

People who made day trips to Ocean City were often disappointed upon learning the dining room was closed, Randazzo said. The restaurant’s outdoor tables sit under the sun for most of the day, with little shade available.

"If you’re in the sun all day, the last thing you want is to sit in the sun and eat, so I get it 100 hundred percent,” she said. “Ocean City is a vacation destination. People would understandably be upset. But unfortunately, we just didn’t have the staff to open the inside.”

The restaurant is open year-round, in large part thanks to locals who live in Ocean City full-time. Randazzo looks forward to serving that community once again starting Tuesday, Oct. 19.

“We’re busy during the summer, but if it wasn’t for the locals we wouldn’t be able to stay open all winter. We have the best of both worlds. We’re very appreciative of the community,” she said.

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