A SOLD sign went up on the side of Surf City Bait and Tackle this spring, and before anyone got an official word, the rumors were already circulating up and down Long Beach Boulevard. Was it closing? Turning into something else? Getting torn down for condos? The shop's owners eventually had to post their own update just to get ahead of what they called a lot of misinformation floating around town.
The real story turned out to be quieter than the gossip, and more interesting. After 25 years running the shop, the Santaguida family sold both the business and the building to a family with deep local roots of their own, the Dumonts. The name on the door isn't changing. Neither is the bait in the cooler or, as it turns out, the shop's role every single fall as one of the few places on the island where an entire tournament season actually gets registered and weighed.
Ninety Years, Three Names, One Counter
Long before it was Surf City Bait and Tackle, the building at 317 Long Beach Boulevard was known by two other names. The shop itself describes its lineage plainly: it's the oldest continuously operating bait and tackle shop on Long Beach Island, and it has carried three different names over a run its own site puts at more than 80 years.
| Name | Rough Era |
|---|---|
| Sandy's Bait and Tackle | Earliest known era |
| Bruce and Pat's Bait and Tackle | Mid-run |
| Surf City Bait and Tackle | Santaguida family's 25 years, ending 2026 |
Three owners, three sets of shelves rearranged, three generations of anglers who learned to rig a bloodworm at that counter. What never moved was the address, and what never really changed was the function: walk in, get told what's biting, walk out with what you need to go find out yourself.
What the Santaguidas Handed Over in March
The transfer became official in March 2026, and Fred Dumont and family posted their own note introducing themselves to the shop's regulars. They didn't promise a reinvention.
"We're not here to reinvent we're here to continue it. To keep it local. To keep it welcoming."
The outgoing Santaguidas, for their part, described the shop as more than a storefront. It's where their sons learned how to talk to adults and shake a hand, they wrote, crediting Tom and Tommy Santaguida with making two generations of kids feel like they belonged behind that counter. The Dumonts bring their own next generation into the building too: Dominic, age 7, and Frederick and Dean, both 13, all photographed grinning at the handoff. The new owners have said they intend to run the store largely as is, same name, same line of business, and hopefully most of the same employees, while making whatever changes they see fit as time goes on.
It's a small, specific kind of continuity that doesn't show up in a for sale listing. The shop still carries its house line of Surf & Bay Rig Co. tackle, made right in Surf City, and the reopening in April 2026 came with no announced changes to hours, bait sourcing, or the shop's role in the one event that brings the whole island's surf casters through its door every fall.
The Shop Has a Second Job the Deed Doesn't Mention
That event is the LBI Surf Fishing Classic, and 2026 marks its 72nd season, a run that traces back to 1955, when it began as the Striped Bass Derby. This year's Classic kicked off August 29 and runs through November 29, covering striped bass, bluefish, kingfish, redfish, weakfish, summer flounder, and tautog along the jetty.
Only three shops on the entire island serve as official registration and weigh-in stations for the tournament:
- Surf City Bait and Tackle, Surf City
- Fisherman's Headquarters, Ship Bottom
- Jingles Bait & Tackle, Beach Haven
Anglers can register online for the first time this year at lbisfc.com, but reserved numbers still have to be picked up in person, and specifically at Surf City Bait and Tackle. Tsunami Tackle sponsors a weekly photo contest for registered participants, and the tournament's Surf Master division awards a full-size replica mount from Rinehart Taxidermy, valued at more than $700, to whoever lands and releases the largest striped bass of the season.
None of that is written into the deed for 317 Long Beach Boulevard. It's a role the shop has simply kept playing, tournament after tournament, regardless of who's ringing up the bloodworms that week. When the Santaguidas handed the keys to the Dumonts, they also handed over a job the island depends on for thirteen weeks every fall.
A Season That Doesn't Care Who's Behind the Register
That's the part of this story worth sitting with if you live here. Surf City's version of continuity was never about one family running one business forever. It's about a corner that keeps doing the same job no matter whose name is on the sign, a shop that's carried three names and changed hands more than once while somehow never losing its footing as the place where the season actually gets tracked. The Sold sign this spring looked, for a minute, like an ending. What it turned out to be was the fourth chapter of the same book.
If you're headed down to register for the Classic before it wraps up in late November, the counter will look the same, the fishing reports will still be posted, and the new owners will most likely tell you what's running in the surf that week just like the family before them did. That's not nothing. On an island where the calendar resets every Labor Day, it's one of the few things in Surf City that doesn't.
Whether you're already planning next season's rentals or just thinking about what makes this stretch of the island feel like home, Coastal Living Real Estate Group knows the corners, the counters, and the rhythms that make Surf City what it is. Request a Complimentary Coastal Market Evaluation when you're ready to talk about your own place in it.
