Walk north on Ventnor Avenue from the Margate line on a Friday morning in July and something has quietly shifted. The stretch between Fredericksburg and New Haven, which for years was a mix of hair salons, a shuttered bakery, and the old Jules of Margate space, is turning into the island's newest dining node. Two openings this summer landed within four blocks of each other. A third has already reshaped what people do with their Friday mornings. If you own a home here, this is the part of the food scene that changed while you were watching the concert calendar.
Ventnor has always had two poles. The Dorset Avenue business district in the Heights holds the coffee and casual anchors. Ventnor Avenue near 6500 holds the sit-down Italian tradition. What is new in 2026 is a third pole forming at the north end of Ventnor Avenue, closer to the Atlantic City border, filled in almost entirely by operators with big-name pedigrees.
The 5100 Block Got Two Anchors In One Season
Start at 5123 Ventnor Avenue. That address was Jules of Margate for years, a name most residents still use out of habit. Poppy's Bagels and More is opening a second location at 5123 Ventnor Avenue, taking over the former Jules of Margate space at the north end of Ventnor. The original Poppy's in Galloway at 80 West Jimmy Leeds Road has become known for flavors like jalapeño cheddar and whiskey maple cream cheese prepared fresh on-site every day, along with sandwiches, wraps, coffee and drinks for breakfast and lunch.
The context matters. Kismet Bagels announced it will not reopen its Ventnor location for 2026, which left a real bagel gap on the island for exactly the kind of resident who wants a walkable Saturday morning routine. Poppy's is filling it in a different form. It is not a Kismet replacement. It is a full-day breakfast and lunch operation moving into a bigger footprint at the top of the island.
Four blocks up, at 5217 Ventnor Avenue, is the other big arrival. Culina Mundi is a new upscale-casual restaurant in Ventnor opening later this summer 2026, bringing together eclectic global cuisine and a lush indoor-outdoor design inspired by Polynesian elegance, Mediterranean charm, and the warm, welcoming feel of a coastal neighborhood gathering place. The pedigree behind it is what will get locals talking. The vision for Culina Mundi draws on more than 25 years of hospitality experience, shaped by time with concepts including Buddakan and The Continental under Starr Restaurants, the opening of Golden Nugget Atlantic City for Landry's, and premier dining brands such as Kuro and Council Oak at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Atlantic City.
Guests will dine beneath copper string lights on a spacious patio or inside a dining room with rustic stucco walls, walnut wood, marble tabletops, and artwork inspired by international travel, and it will be a BYOB. That last detail is the one that matters for how residents actually use it. BYOB drops the friction on a Tuesday dinner in a way a liquor-licensed room does not.
Together, Poppy's and Culina Mundi turn a stretch of Ventnor Avenue that used to feel like a pass-through into a two-stop walking block.
Fridays At St. James Have Three New Reasons To Go
The Ventnor City Farmers Market is not new. What is new is who is standing there when you show up.
Co-manager Maria Gatta announced four new full-time vendors joining the market's lineup this season: Birdie Rolls serving handcrafted rolled ice cream made to order, Kismet Bagels selling kettle boiled bagels, schmears, and seasoning jars, and Obscura Brewing offering modern, expressive beers and root beer.
Read that carefully. Kismet is not gone from Ventnor. The brick-and-mortar shop is closed for 2026, but the bagels themselves show up in the St. James Church parking lot on Fridays. That is a real distinction and one worth mentioning to any neighbor who assumes the market is the same 70-vendor rotation as last year.
The rest of the operational details residents actually want:
- Location: St. James Church parking lot at Atlantic and Newport Avenues
- Hours: Fridays 8:30 a.m. to noon through September 4
- Anchor vendors from prior seasons still on the roster, including Grassia Italian Market Spice Co., River Kitchen Co., St. Nicholas Greek Church for pies and pastries, and the volunteer Old Coots Giving Advice table
If your Friday morning used to be a coffee at Ventnor Coffee on North Dorset and a boardwalk walk, the market is a reasonable pivot for the summer. It is three blocks off the boardwalk at Newport, which puts it inside a natural loop.
The Dorset Pole Is Still The Dorset Pole
None of this displaces the Heights. Ventnor Coffee at 108 N Dorset Ave has been open since 2013 as an open-air café with inside and outside seating and free WiFi, hosting local bands. The Red Room Café sits a few doors down at 141 N Dorset. Together they still form the neighborhood's morning-to-afternoon spine.
Where the food scene has actually shifted is in how residents pair dinner with the free summer concerts. The Summer Beach Jam runs Saturday nights at the S. Newport Avenue band stage on the boardwalk with music at 6:30 p.m., including Beatle Mania Again on August 1, East Coast Funk Band on August 8, Suns of Beaches Jimmy Buffett tribute on August 15, Time Travelers on August 22, and Plaid Salmon on August 29. Sunset at Ski Beach runs Wednesdays on the bayside.
For a Wednesday at Ski Beach, the play is dinner on the Heights side of the island first, then walk. Sapore Restaurant & Wood Fire Pizza at 6501 Ventnor Ave and The Red Room Café on N. Dorset are close enough that you can eat at a real table, walk to your chair, and still catch the sound check. For a Saturday on the boardwalk, Culina Mundi and Poppy's now give the north end its own pre-show pairing. That is genuinely new territory. Two summers ago, the walk from a boardwalk seat back to a north-end dinner was not worth making because there was nothing north to make it for.
The 6:30 downbeat is the anchor. What you do with the two hours on either side is where residents separate from day-trippers.
One Weekend Loop That Uses All Of It
For a resident who wants to run the full 2026 map in one weekend, the sequence writes itself:
- Friday 8:30 to 10 a.m. — Farmers market at St. James, bagel from Kismet, ice cream from Birdie Rolls for the walk home
- Friday evening — Dinner at Sapore or Rustico, then a walk on the finished section of boardwalk
- Saturday 6:15 p.m. — Chairs on the sand at Newport for Summer Beach Jam, dinner at Poppy's or Culina Mundi before or after
- Sunday morning — Coffee at Ventnor Coffee, boardwalk south toward Margate
The loop is deliberate. Every stop is inside the two-mile length of the island, and none of it requires driving off-island. That is the version of a Ventnor weekend that only exists in 2026.
What Is Still Coming
Two more things are worth watching before Labor Day.
Drift Seafood, a boutique BYOB seafood restaurant, is opening in Ventnor City with land and sea dishes, a grand opening event, and appearances by top chefs. The pattern is the same as Culina Mundi: BYOB, chef-driven, targeting residents rather than day-trippers.
The Downbeach Seafood Festival returns to Ventnor in September, which extends the food calendar into the shoulder season when the summer rentals empty out and the neighborhood belongs to owners again.
The boardwalk itself is the backdrop for all of this. The full replacement and renovation of the Boardwalk from Jackson Avenue to Somerset Avenue is slated for completion by October under a $7.1 million Boardwalk Restoration Grant, going beyond routine maintenance to completely replace the support system and decking, with new lighting, upgraded pavilions, and improved seating areas. By the time Culina Mundi's patio hits its stride in September, the boardwalk that residents walk after dinner will be a different structure than the one they walked in June.
The takeaway is not that Ventnor has more restaurants. It is that the map has re-centered. The north end of Ventnor Avenue has stopped being a place you drive through on the way to Margate and started being a place you walk to. That change happened in a single summer, and the people who catch it first are the ones who already live inside the two-mile stretch it covers.
If you own a home in Ventnor and are thinking about how any of this is showing up in the market, whether that is rental interest on the north end, resale demand near the boardwalk work, or timing on a listing decision, Eric Millstein Properties tracks it block by block. Reach out for a conversation about what your specific address is worth in the 2026 market.
