Add Us As A Trusted Google Source Cape May, New Jersey, is rightfully celebrated as one of America’s most charming Victorian seaside destinations, drawing visitors with its pastel-painted bed and breakfasts, sweeping beaches, amazing birdwatching opportunities, and legendary sunsets. But tucked along the shoreline and scattered across the surrounding region are a handful of delightfully strange, historically peculiar, and downright unexpected attractions that most tourists never discover.
Here’s a quick look at seven unusual attractions worth adding to your Cape May itinerary:
- Battery 223 is a crumbling WWII bunker slowly being swallowed by the sea at Cape May Point State Park
- The Ghost Train Tracks are century-old rails that surface from the sand only when the tides decide to reveal them
- S.S. Atlantus is the rusting hull of a concrete ship stranded just offshore at Sunset Beach
- Menz Restaurant and Bar is a taxidermy-filled Italian restaurant with a “sculpture garden”
- Fort Miles Museum is an underground WWII bunker
- The Doo Wop Experience brings the 1950s and 1960s back to life
- A 25-Foot Fire Hydrant stands guard over Wildwood’s dog beach
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Battery 223: The Bunker the Ocean Is Slowly Claiming
Visitors strolling along the beach at Cape May Point State Park often stop dead in their tracks when they spot a massive slab of concrete rising from the sand like a half-buried relic from another era. Built between September 1942 and June 1943 as part of America’s coastal defense program, Battery 223 is a reinforced bunker that features six-foot-thick walls. It once housed two six-inch rapid-fire guns capable of hitting targets nine to twelve miles offshore.
What makes Battery 223 particularly striking today is its precarious relationship with the sea. Originally standing 900 feet from the ocean and camouflaged with sod, the bunker has been slowly encroached upon by decades of beach erosion. A beach replenishment project in 2004-2005 saved it from disappearing entirely into the surf. The structure is open for visitors to approach on foot though climbing on it is prohibited.
The Ghost Train Tracks: Now You See Them, Now You Don’t
One of the most unpredictable attractions near Cape May is a pair of iron rails that appear and disappear at the mercy of the tides. Stretching along the beach between Sunset Beach and Higbee Beach, these narrow-gauge tracks date back to 1905 and were once used by the Cape May Sand Company to haul thousands of tons of fine quartz sand from the shoreline to be shipped off for glassmaking and construction.
The tracks had not been seen for roughly eight decades until they resurfaced in 2014, drawing photographers, railroad enthusiasts, and curious beachgoers. They’ve made appearances since, including a sighting in 2023, though there’s no predicting when they’ll emerge again.
S.S. Atlantus: The Concrete Ship That Never Sailed Away
Just a few hundred feet beyond the breaking surf at Sunset Beach is a concrete ship that has been slowly deteriorating in the shallows since 1926. The S.S. Atlantus was built during World War I when steel was in short supply. The vessel was part of an experimental fleet of concrete-hulled ships. When steel became plentiful again after the war, the concrete ships were decommissioned and largely forgotten.
There were grand plans to tow the Atlantus to Cape May and use it as a ferry landing for a new service between New Jersey and Lewes, Delaware. Those plans collapsed when the ship broke free of its moorings during a storm and ran aground. Every attempt to free her has failed. Sunset Beach is free to visit year-round, and the ghostly outline of the Atlantus is visible from shore.
Menz Restaurant and Bar: Dinner and a Two-Headed Calf
Cape May is known for fantastic restaurants. However, about twenty minutes away there is a restaurant that defies easy description. Menz Restaurant and Bar is a beloved family Italian restaurant serving fresh fish, scratch-made soups, and homemade desserts. On another level, it is a wonderfully eccentric roadside attraction. Outside, a landlocked sailboat sits inexplicably far from any water, accompanied by a sculpture garden featuring a shark’s head and a one-legged man. Inside, the walls are lined with taxidermied animals of every variety, the centerpiece being a two-headed calf. There’s also a gift shop and an arcade, making this a destination that rewards a leisurely visit rather than a quick meal.
Fort Miles Museum: History Beneath the Dunes
Take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry across Delaware Bay and you’ll find one of the most surprising museums on the East Coast hiding beneath the sand dunes of Fort Miles Museum and Historical Area. Fort Miles was a massive WWII coastal defense installation, home to more than 2,300 soldiers whose job was to protect the vital trade centers of Wilmington and Philadelphia from German naval attack. Today, visitors can explore Battery 519, a 15,000-square-foot fortified underground bunker that houses museum exhibits and artifacts bringing the fort’s wartime history vividly to life.
The Doo Wop Experience: Neon Dreams in Wildwood
Ten minutes up the coast in Wildwood, a former space-age restaurant has been reborn as a museum dedicated to the golden age of American pop culture. The Doo Wop Experience is built around the steel bones of the Surfside Restaurant that first opened in 1960 and became one of the most distinctive buildings on the Jersey Shore. When its original site was threatened with demolition in 2002, it was carefully dismantled and saved for another day.
That day came in 2007, when the Surfside’s futuristic skeleton rose again at its current location in Fox Park, filled with artifacts, memorabilia, and neon signs rescued from Wildwood’s demolished landmarks. The museum celebrates the architecture, music, and pop culture that defined the Wildwoods in the 1950s and ’60s.
The 25-Foot Fire Hydrant: A Monument to Good Boys Everywhere
And finally, for anyone who has ever wanted to pose for a photograph next to an enormous red fire hydrant built from salvaged amusement park rides, Wildwood has you covered. Standing 25 feet tall near the Wildwood Dog Park and Beach this gloriously absurd structure is decorated with dog bones, paw prints, and a cheeky squirrel perched on top. It was built as a tribute to the canine visitors who flock to the adjacent dog beach, where pups can run off-leash on the sand from dawn to dusk.
