Jason Kelce fits in at Mike’s Seafood and Sea Isle City. Just don’t expect Kylie to order his Buffalo shrimp by its name.

The caller rattled off her takeout order last summer from Mike’s Seafood, the longtime restaurant and market tucked along the bay in Sea Isle City. She wanted fried platters, crab cakes, crab balls, steamed platters, and finally an order of Buffalo shrimp.

“You mean Kelce’s Buffalo Shrimp,” the employee asked.

The Buffalo shrimp was renamed last summer since it was Jason Kelce’s favorite. No, the customer said.

“I refuse to use that name,” she said.

OK. The worker was a little startled. Maybe she misunderstood him. He asked again if she wanted “Kelce’s Buffalo Shrimp.”

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“No,” she said again. “I refuse to use that name.”

The guy wrapped up the order and then told Mike Monichetti — the third-generation owner of the business his grandfather started after coming to the shore town more than 100 years ago from Italy — about how the woman refused to call the Buffalo shrimp by its new name.

“I said, ‘What was her name?’” Monichetti said. “He said, ‘Kylie.’ And I laughed like hell.”

The Kelces are regulars and soon Kylie Kelce was walking into the shop on Seafood Alley to pick up her order. She told Monichetti she’ll never order the shrimp he renamed after her husband.

“This is going to sound crazy, but he and her are some of my best customers,” Monichetti said. “They’re just loyal. Now, don’t take the word ‘loyal’ too lightly. Some people think it’s just another word in the dictionary. Not with them. They are just so loyal. There’s not enough words I could find to describe either of them. You could go on and on and it almost sounds like you’re making up stuff.”

Jason Kelce fell in love with Sea Isle City years ago after visiting during the winter for the Polar Bear Plunge while rehabbing a knee injury that derailed his second season with the Eagles. He jumped into the water that February as an anonymous Eagle and now sits on the beach as a bona fide celebrity. Yet the five-mile beach town still fits.

He owns a shore house, walks his children on the promenade, hangs at the Ocean Drive, and has his own menu item at Mike’s Seafood. A few years ago, Monichetti was on his usual stool in the corner of the shop when he looked out the window and saw Kelce.

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“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” Monichetti said.

Kelce kept coming back and the two soon found out they shared more than a passion for football and Buffalo shrimp. Two of Monichetti’s children — 21-year-old Mike and 23-year-old Cara — are on the autism spectrum. Kelce and his wife have long been active in supporting autism research as Kylie worked for the Eagles Autism Foundation while her husband played for the Birds.

Monichetti has organized a run-and-walk in Sea Isle every February for 18 years to raise money for autism research. And now Kelce has his own event: Wednesday’s fourth annual Team 62 Fundraiser at the Ocean Drive to support the Eagles Autism Foundation.

“I’m not preaching, but the Lord does things,” Monichetti said. “You can’t put your finger on it. The Lord brings people into each other’s lives. Somehow, Jason made his way into Mike’s Seafood. The guy is amazing. He talks to every single person when he comes in. By the time he gets to eating his dinner, I can tell you flat out that the food is cold. I feel so friggin’ bad. I would do anything for the guy.”

Monichetti noticed that the large tent outside the old La Costa Lounge was filled on Saturday with revelers from the Polar Bear Plunge but sat empty on Sunday before it was taken down on Monday.

“There were still people in town and I thought, ‘What a waste,’” Monichetti said. “I started thinking ‘What can I do?’”

Monichetti had an idea: a run-and-walk fundraiser for autism research. He asked if he could use the tent and got approval from Sea Isle officials. Everyone thought he was crazy, Monichetti said. His first 5K had 200 people and raised a few thousand dollars. It was a success.

Last February, Year No. 18 raised more than $200,000 with over 5,000 people attending. Kelce even ran the race.

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“Not bad for a little run-and-walk put on by a bunch of guys who sell fish for a living,” Monichetti said. “I had no friggin’ idea about run-and-walks back then, but I can tell you right now that people love it.”

Kelce’s event at The OD raised more than $375,000 last summer. The event started in 2021 on a whim after Ryan Hammond — the executive director of the Eagles Autism Foundation — watched Kelce take photo after photo at Sea Isle’s arcade and told him that it could have been a good fundraiser. Five days later, he was celebrity bartending at the Ocean Drive. The event, which now receives more planning, has grown every year.

“You see firsthand the lives that it’s affected and the amount of money given to research and providing support for families,” Kelce said before the 2023 event.

Monichetti’s event raises money, but he really started it to raise awareness. He left Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with a pamphlet in his pocket more than 20 years ago when a doctor diagnosed his daughter Cara with autism.

“Getting on the elevator, I had to ask my wife, ‘What is autism?’” Monichetti said. “That’s pretty embarrassing. I had to ask my wife. I didn’t even know what the frig autism was.”

Monichetti read the pamphlet in his pocket and everything else he could find. He drove every Tuesday night for five years to Brick Township, N.J. — “Mile marker 90 on the Parkway,” Monichetti said — for seminars about autism.

“That’s what you have to do for your kids,” Monichetti said. “You have to do whatever you have to do. You have to run through a brick wall.”

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So Monichetti made sure that his first event had tables of information, hoping to connect with someone like the guy who walked into the elevator and asked his wife what autism was. He learned how to receive government funding to help with his children’s care and about programs offered. It was his chance to help another lost parent.

“There’s a lot of Mike Monichettis out there like me just pulling a pamphlet off a rack,” Monichetti said. “So I tried to help people and help them navigate through this. You have to stay on top of it from Day One. That has become your life mission. If it’s not your life mission, then you’re going to have a lot of hardships in your life. That’s a cold, hard fact. Your life mission is to make their lives better. There’s a lot of things out there, but you have to do the work. If you’re lazy, you’re really hurting your child.”

Monichetti’s restaurant is the type of place where kids eat free on Tuesday nights, the mussels are free on Mondays, and a regular special often makes the crab legs half-price.

“The same bills that come to your house come to Mike Monichetti’s house and every one of my customers’ houses,” Monichetti said. “If you can give them a break, do it. That’s what I do.”

His grandparents came to Sea Isle in 1911 via train after arriving on Ellis Island from Ischia, Italy. They purchased a plot of land by the bay for $500. It was everything they had as Dewey and Rosina Monichetti ripped open their pillowcases to empty the $5 bills they stuffed away while traveling to the U.S.

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Dewey worked as a commercial fisherman and the Monichettis soon opened their Sea Isle fish market. It’s been a staple ever since and the fig tree Dewey planted — his grandson said he packed two branches in his suitcase from Italy — still grows across the street from the current market.

“Three people came in last summer and said, ‘I remember buying fish from your grandfather when I was a little girl,’” Monichetti said. “I just shake my head like, ‘These people are still alive.’ It’s almost like finding a guy who was in D-Day. People come in and say, ‘Who owns those old buildings? You think they want to sell them?’ I laugh. As long as that fig tree is there, it’s not going anywhere.”

The market has been a staple for decades, a place where a Super Bowl champion wandered in one day and became a regular. Now, Monichetti and Kelce both tap into the shore town to raise money for the same cause. And if Kelce needs a meal on Wednesday, the people at Mike’s already know what he’ll order. Just don’t expect his wife to call the shrimp by its proper name.

“I had to tell him because I felt bad. Our sales skyrocketed. Three-frickin’-fold,” Monichetti said. “You know what he said to me? ‘We’re going to have to talk royalties, Mike. My lawyer will be in touch.’ I almost died. My knees froze. He turned around as he was leaving and gave me a smirk like ,‘Yeah, right.’

“You see him joking around and that’s his shtick. But when it comes to just sitting down and talking to you, he looks at you straight in the eye and thinks about what he’s going to say. He doesn’t just talk to hear himself talk. That’s a good quality in a person. He’s concentrating on you. It’s impressive. He’s just so down-to-earth.”