Bruno's Wine-Liquor and Food Market, Cliffwood, NJ

I stopped in on Saturday and chatted with the owners of Bruno's Wine-Liquor and Food Market. They told me the place has been owned and operated by the Bruno family for three generations. Their grandparents, Guisseppe (Joseph) and Assunta (Susie) Bruno, moved from Perth Amboy to Cliffwood in the early 1940s and purchased what was once the old Cliffwood Hotel (the building on the right with the Hershey Ice Cream sign in front) at 255 Cliffwood Avenue. Joseph had operated Bruno's Spaghetti House in Perth Amboy until that time.

The Brunos made their new property into a general store to serve its rural neighbors, selling hardware and farm supplies like chicken wire, some groceries, and homegrown vegetables. They kept farm animals -- pigs, goats, chickens, and horses. The current Bruno owners remember Smokey and Arnold and the other animals more as pets. They laughed as they pointed out that some of their neighbors probably still recall participating in a merry chase to capture the occasional stray animal from their property.

The family might have had tenants for a while, but the hotel portion of the property was soon occupied by members of the second generation and their growing families. At least two additions were made to the left side of the building, the most recent being what is now the main store but used to be a garage and storage area.

Here's the results of some research I did on the original owners:

• According to the Social Security Death Index, Guissepe Bruno was born 19 March 1893 and died February 1973. His last residence was in Cliffwood. The same source says Assunta Bruno was born 2 September 1899 and died in October 1986.

• According to the 1930 Federal Census for New Jersey, Joseph Bruno was a 37 year old restaurant proprietor living at 35 Smith Street in Perth Amboy in 1930. He had immigrated from Italy to the US in 1903 and was a permanent resident alien. Living with him were a 2 year old daughter Anna and a 3 month old son Joseph, both born in New Jersey to Italian parents. Living with the Brunos was a housekeeper named Assunta Benenato, a 30 year old woman married at age 17, and the housekeeper's 6 year old daughter Lucie. Assunta arrived in the US from Italy in 1910 and was still an alien. Her daughter was born in New York to Italian parents.

• Assunta may be the woman in the 1920 Federal Census for New York listed as the wife of Quiemo Benenato with sons Frankie (2 yrs old, born in Connecticut) and Louis (6 months old, born in New York). They were living at 26 West End Avenue in Manhattan at the time. Quiemo was a dock laborer.

•  Joseph Bruno's obituary in the 1 March 1973 Matawan Journal says Joseph was born in Calabria, Italy and was 79 years old when he died at Bayshore Hospital on 25 February 1973. Joseph ran Bruno's Spaghetti House in Perth Amboy before moving from that town to Cliffwood thirty years ago. His obituary says Joseph was the former owner of Bruno's General Store of Matawan Township. He was a communicant of St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Keyport. He is interred at St Joseph's Cemetery.

• Joseph's widow was Susie Spinata Bruno, according to her husband's 1973 obituary. Their four sons were Joseph A and Rudy Bruno, both of Matawan Township; Frank Benanito and Louis (Bruno) Benanito, both of Perth Amboy. Their three daughters were Mrs Ann Grant of Middletown; Mrs Mary Lembo of Union Beach; and Mrs Lucy Brown of Woodbridge.

Cliffwood Hotel

I couldn't find much evidence of the Cliffwood Hotel. An advertisement in The New York Times dated 27 July 1865 read: AT CLIFFWOOD HOTEL, ON SEASHORE, an hour and a half from New York by steamboats; fine groves; safe sea bathing, fishing, sailing; beautiful scenery; good table; $8 - $12. Apply at No 176 Bleecker st. And a 1911 photograph of the old hotel appears on page 82 of Around Matawan and Aberdeen, by Helen Henderson (Dover, New Hampshire: Arcadia, 1996). Written on the photo was the following note: Cliffwood Hotel, some place for a good time, crowded house, some fellows. The 1910 Federal Census, however, showed no signs of a hotel proprietor in the township.

There was a 3-story hotel called The Cliffwood House on or near West Concourse in what is now called Cliffwood Beach, according to a memoir in Township of Matawan (1857-1957). The memoir says the place burned to the ground between 1875 and 1880, but the 1880 Census listed a Benjamin F Dobson as proprietor of Cliffwood House. Patrick J Sullivan and Edward Mulcahy each ran saloons in town, per the 1880 census. Twenty years earlier, William H Applegate was the proprietor of a hotel in the township valued at $4,000, per the 1860 Federal Census. He had a large family plus 5 tenants. A John Cottrell was listed as a local barkeeper in that same census.