A photo of Frances Rooney, left, earlier this summer dishing out dogs at her Sea Bright mainstay to a family from Michigan. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
For decades it’s been a warm-weather certainty that, if the sun is out in Sea Bright, its beams are hitting Frances Rooney’s stainless steel hot dog cart.
She’s made a seasonal home at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Surf Street stuffing buns with franks and slathering them with all the fixings to generations of customers.
It may not be such a sure thing for long.
Rooney, 77, has put her gravel lot up for sale, readying herself for an eventual end to a distinct run serving beach visitors and hungry locals with boiled Americana. Along with two other lots, Homes of Distinction real estate agency is asking for $2.4 million for the 75-foot by 75-foot property.
Rooney hasn’t paid much attention to who, if anybody, is looking to buy. She said she’s just interested in selling the space and, one day, hanging up the tongs.
“I don’t want to work there until my dying day,” she said.
