Danny's Restaurant
Known Name(s)
Danny's Restaurant
Address
Springwood Ave. Asbury Park, NJ
Establishment Type(s)
Restaurant
Physical Status
Extant
Description
While listed in The Green Book simply as on Springwood Avenue, Danny’s, variously identified in Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory and the Asbury Park Press as Danny’s Confectionery, Danny’s Fountain Luncheon, and Danny’s Luncheonette, was located at 1401 Springwood Avenue (https://tinyurl.com/SpringwoodAveHeritageWalk). 1401 Springwood Avenue, on the corner of DeWitt in Asbury Park’s West Side, is extant.
Sources: Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory, 1940; “Shop in Springwood Ave. Stores with Confidence. You are Guaranteed: QUALITY MERCHANDISE – LOW PRICES – FAIR DEALING,” Asbury Park Press, 31 May 1940.
Detailed History
Danny’s operated beyond the years it was listed in The Green Book, and closed in the late 1960s. The owner, Daniel D. DeVito, was born in Brooklyn, and moved to the shore town when he married his wife, Julia, an Asbury Park native. The DeVitos lived above the restaurant early on. They were the parents of movie and television actor Danny DeVito, who hung out in his father’s restaurant when he was growing up.
The European-American DeVitos joined other business owners on and around Springwood Avenue in a prominent 1940 advertisement in The Asbury Park Press that urged locals, and African Americans in particular, to patronize their “approved” West Side establishments, rather than be “fooled by downtown propaganda” into traveling east of the railroad tracks to spend their money.
Sources: Polk’s Asbury Park City Directory, 1940; “Shop in Springwood Ave. Stores with Confidence. You are Guaranteed: QUALITY MERCHANDISE – LOW PRICES – FAIR DEALING,” Asbury Park Press, 31 May 1940; Eleanor O’Sullivan, “Asbury Park premiere mostly for Family, Friends,” Asbury Park Press, 6 December 1987; Eleanor O’Sullivan, “Real life mother takes ‘taxi’ west for her TV debut,” Asbury Park Press, 21 March 1981.
J. Shaffer
