South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
HEY, ISN’T HE FROM ‘JERSEY SHORE?’
Danny from Shore Store is in South Florida selling Halloween costumes
You may have spotted him, standing along North Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale, holding up a yellow sign pleading for customers to come inside the Halloween Megastore.
But he’s not just any human billboard. That’s Danny Merk, the T-shirt shop owner and beloved boss/landlord of the cast of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” in the show’s early seasons in Seaside Heights, New Jersey.
“I hope nobody finds out I do this. They would bust my chops‚” Merk joked inside the Fort Lauderdale store (1201 N. Federal Hwy) on a recent Friday afternoon as he greeted a mother and son and directed them to the aisle filled with boys’ costumes.
Merk, 40, still runs the infamous Shore Store on the Seaside boardwalk, but each fall he heads down to South Florida to help his brother Paul run popup Halloween stores. Customers looking for a zombie mask or an Avengers outfit occa
sionally recognize Merk as the “Jersey Shore” boss.
“Yeah, they give me this odd look like, ‘What are you doing in a Halloween store?’ ” Merk said as shoppers strolled amid the towering aisles of clown makeup, pharaoh outfits and killer masks. “Or if I’m on an airplane, ‘Oh, I know this guy from somewhere.’ It’s very cool.”
Merk’s family has been running these Halloween stores for about 15 years. They have 12 of them across the state, including locations in Miami, Boca Raton and Pembroke Pines.
Merk, who is married and has two sons (ages 6 and five months), stays in touch with the “Jersey Shore” cast, as well as the show’s producers and crew.
“We all are still very tight. Everyone thinks it’s just the cast, but there are 100 people behind the scenes that are so cool and nice,” said Merk, who was like an unofficial cast member during the show’s original run from 2009 to 2012.
MTV cameras chronicled the hookups, fights and friendships of the mostly Italian-American cast that always seemed far less interested in working at Merk’s store.
Merk still owns the house in Seaside where the cast members lived. In fact, he said Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is using it this week for media interviews. “It’s a nice place to have as a backdrop now that’s he back on top,” Merk said of Sorrentino, who last month was released from prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion.
Merk also briefly appeared in the reboot “Jersey Shore: Family Vacation,” which began with the cast reuniting last year in Miami Beach and has continued into this year with filming back in New Jersey and in Las Vegas.
“We always see each other,” Merk said. “Like I said, we’re all good friends still.”
So, were the “Jersey” cast members his worst employees ever?
“Noooo,” Merk replied. “They only showed [the] bad on TV. Mike sucked, and Nicole [“Snooki” Polizzi] was rough, but the rest were great.”
He said working at his store gave the cast members something to do when they weren’t partying and creating drama in the Seaside beach house.
“You stay in a beach town for so many days, months. There’s nothing much else to do besides work or drink or party. It gets old,” Merk said. “If you look at Vinny [Guadagnino]’s interviews, he says that the best times were at the Shore Store.”
Merk added, “It gives you purpose, you talk to people. You’re doing something. Your mind’s not just sitting on a couch. They had no cellphones, no TV, no books, no magazines. They don’t allow any of that stuff.”
Merk credits the realness of the cast for the enduring popularity of the show, now in its third season of the reboot.
“It’s fantastic because it’s real life. You’re young, you’re stupid, you’re drunk, trying to get laid all the time. You’re old, you’re married, you’re having kids, you’re fighting, you’re divorced. It touches on all that,” he said. “They’ve grown as we’ve grown. That’s why it’s honest. It’s real.”
He added, “now they’ve also gotten a little bit richer because it shows them from beat-up cars now to big mansions. It’s still real, the truth.”