Shine’s a Beacon of Light Despite Post-Sandy Struggles

Story by Alycia Powers

Although it has been open for more than a century, Shine’s bar in Long Beach had never quite experienced anything like Hurricane Sandy.

Though located three blocks from the beach, at 55 California St., the West End establishment was battered by the storm’s force, sustaining four feet of floodwater that came through the old wooden floorboards, as well as knocking out the refrigeration and heating systems.

Owners Brent and Megan Wilson stayed in their apartment above the bar during the storm, and at one point they heard a noise at their back steps. A man, Frank, and his pug dog were climbing their stairs trying to escape the rage of the river-like deluge. The couple took them both in and rode out the storm together.

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In the aftermath, their floors were covered with beach sand and overturned beer and liquor bottles. Days later, neighbors and patrons arrived to help clean up the bar. One freezer, filled with hot dogs and hamburgers, were spared. The Wilson’s fired up a grill and started to provide food for the storm-ravaged community.

“They would come in here we had beer and candles on the bar to give a little sense of normalcy,” Brent said. “It was needed.”

After the Wilsons got a generator, they strung up some lights, put a power strip on their window ledge so that neighbors could charge their cell phones, and started to serve hot coffee. Later, the bar’s back room was turned into a donation center for food and basic necessities, and as more food donations came in the pool table was turned into a catering table.

“We operated as a soup kitchen; trying to keep a little sense of normalcy and feed people,” Brent said. “There was no power in this town; it was a war zone. People could only work on their house from sun up to sun down. They would come in here afterwards instead of staring at four dark walls.”

Since 1912 locals and tourists have enjoyed the laid-back atmosphere at Shine’s. Eugene Shine was the original owner and through the years the bar had survived Prohibition, the Great Depression and the hurricane of 1938.

Brent’s father and uncle, Joseph and Paul Wilson, purchased the historic bar in 2005, and three years later Brent bought out his uncle and took over the reins of management.

“From the first time I came into this place I fell in love with it,” Brent recalled. “It’s just your neighborhood place with a lot of history here.”

On purchasing the historic establishment, the Wilson family vowed to keep Shine’s long-time golden rules: 1) Always close on Good Friday; 2) No women behind the bar. Though the Wilsons admitted that after Sandy one rule was broken. Megan stepped up and tended bar, but they are treating the discretion as a new piece of Shine’s history.

Today, Shine’s is fighting for survival. Financial aid has been hard to come by, leaving them too strapped to repair most of the storm-related damages and keep the bar as it always has been. They have received some assistance.  

On April 24, Shine’s was one of four restaurants, from Long Island to New Jersey, to win a Facebook contest, “Rebuild Our Shore,” a foundation dedicated to helping rebuild communities after Sandy. And Project Pay It Forward, a Long Beach nonprofit dedicated to helping restore storm-battered businesses, held a fundraiser for the bar that will allow the Wilsons restore their tap lines and refrigeration in time for summer. Brent said the community has hugged them back after taking care of them after the storm.

“It’s one of those places that is not just a bar, it’s a community local landmark that everybody loves and everybody wants to keep little pieces to themselves,” Wilson said of Shine’s. “Not many places like this everywhere you go. It’s a dying breed, this type of place.”

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