WEST LONG BRANCH — An undetermined amount of cash was taken during an armed robbery at the Branding Iron BBQ restaurant in the Consumer Centre on Route 36 on Sunday.

According to police, a gun was reportedly put to the head of an employee of the restaurant during the incident.

Police Chief John Demaree said the holdup occurred at approximately 9:30 p.m. Sunday as a female employee was preparing to close the restaurant. He said the employee was at the cash register and her husband was waiting inside the restaurant to take her home when two black males entered through the front door.

Demaree said one of the robbers reportedly grabbed the man by the neck from behind, put him on the floor in the restaurant and tied his hands with what appeared to be electrical cord. He said the second robber jumped over the counter, pointed a gun at the woman’s head and demanded money as he forced the woman to open the safe.

After the robber took money from the safe, Demaree said, he put a bag over the woman’s head and used what appeared to be electrical cord to tie her wrists and legs together. The two men then bolted out the back door, he said.

The chief said the woman’s husband managed to free himself and called 911 at 9:33 p.m. to report the robbery and what he thought was the abduction of his wife. He said the man did not realize his wife had been taken to the back room.

Neither the woman nor her husband was injured, although both were visibly shaken from their experience, Demaree said.

Police from Eatontown and Oceanport joined West Long Branch police in responding to the report of the robbery, according to Demaree. He said Eatontown’s K-9 dog, Xena, was brought in in an attempt to determine the direction the robbers took when they fled, but the dog was unable to pick up their trail.

Demaree said the victims reported the robbers were wearing hooded sweatshirts with the hoods pulled down over their faces. He said the only description police had, other than that they were black, is that one was about 6 feet tall and the other was about 6-foot-2.

Patrolwoman Theresa Healy, Patrolman Bill Lynch and Sgt. Arthur Cosentino were the initial responders on the call. Detectives Ed Doherty and Paul Habermann were called in to process the crime scene and conduct the follow-up investigation.