I love the work that Ronald and Julie Aspell do in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Not only do they own and operate great, local, iconic restaurants… they do it with a lot of heart.

I love her passion.

I learned today about an exterior wall at Tony’s Baltimore Grill dedicated to the late Anthony Bourdain.

I learned about this from Bert Estlow, who posted the following on the Facebook page “I Grow Up Or Lived In Atlantic City, NJ”:

Nice homage to the old pub. – at Tony’s Baltimore Grill, wrote Estow.

Back on July 9, 2024, Tony’s Baltimore Grill wrote the following on its (much-appreciated by me) Facebook page, which Bourdain would surely have appreciated during his shortened life.

Not only is this a reminder of the wild shit we deal with, but it’s also a reminder that there are a lot of people out there who are sad and suffering. Being kind costs absolutely nothing. You just don’t know what burden someone is carrying around. It’s very easy to dismiss Dine & Dasher or people who leave reviews like this as “asshole customers.” But that’s not really what’s going on here. These behaviors are symptoms of something else. I can only see things this way now because my spouse has filled my heart with so much empathetic love that when these things happen, I have no choice but to step back and ask myself how many times MY bad behavior toward others was a symptom of something I was struggling with. You can add this to an encyclopedic list of reasons why Baltimore Grill continues to fill my belly and feed my soul.

We are very fortunate that during the current recession in Atlantic City, there are good people like Ronald and Julie Aspell and Bart Blatstein … who are willing to invest millions of dollars in Atlantic City.

Atlantic City, New Jersey always has another comeback ready in “her”.

Atlantic City will also recover from this downturn.