Days Ice Cream

For 138 years, Ocean Grovers have been flocking to Day's for ice cream. Talk about historic! It is the town's oldest continuously operating business. Day's opened at its original and current Pitman Avenue location in August 1876, according to an undated newspaper article in the archives of the Historical Society of Ocean Grove. At the time, Ocean Grove was a scrub pine area dotted with sand dunes, the Great Auditorium, and a Methodist tent colony. But the Ocean Grove ice cream parlor was not the first such establishment owned by brothers William F. and Pennington Day. The enterprising pair had already been selling ice cream at a popular restaurant, also called Day's, in Morristown. After opening the Ocean Grove business, they branched out and opened an ice cream garden in Asbury Park at 219 Asbury Avenue. At some point their ice cream empire included a Newark outlet. The two shore businesses had similar designs, with tables surrounding a grassy courtyard filled with flowers.