A longtime Atlantic County breakfast and lunch favorite is expanding.
Essl’s Family Restaurant, also known as Essl’s Dugout, the old-school, family-owned spot on the Black Horse Pike in Pleasantville, has announced plans to open a second location in Galloway Township.
For generations, Essl’s has been the kind of place that increasingly feels like a throwback — counter seating, tables, hearty breakfasts and lunches, familiar faces, and good food at reasonable prices. The family-owned restaurant has been serving the area since 1972, making it a true South Jersey institution.
The original Essl’s is especially known for breakfast, including pancakes, omelets, chipped beef, homemade corned beef hash, breakfast sandwiches and its signature Messl, made with a fried egg, breakfast meat, American cheese and home fries on a Kaiser roll. Lunch brings sandwiches, cheesesteaks, clubs, burgers and other diner-style favorites.
Now, more than five decades after the business began, Essl’s is getting ready to grow.
Essl’s Dugout Coming to Galloway
The second Essl’s Dugout will take over the former Reeds Bay Restaurant location in Galloway.
There had previously been plans for Sip a Latte to open in the space, but those plans ultimately did not move forward. The owners recently addressed the situation in a Facebook announcement explaining why the Galloway location wasn’t happening for them.
That change of plans has now opened the door for Essl’s Dugout.
For longtime Essl’s customers, the expansion is noteworthy. Restaurants with more than 50 years of history don’t come around every day, and Essl’s has maintained much of the neighborhood breakfast-and-lunch-counter character that has kept generations of customers coming back.
The Galloway restaurant will give the family a chance to introduce that same old-school Essl’s experience to another part of Atlantic County while keeping the original location going.
No opening date has been announced yet, so there are still more details to come.
But one thing is official: Essl’s Dugout #2 is coming to Galloway.
They are hoping to open on October 1st.
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