we went yesterday and had a blast.

-loved the no music - easy to have conversations...

-it was crowded but not packed.

-dont care about the light rail noise. i'm sure we'll appreciate the stop being right there for convenience's sake.

-the bartendars were all super nice and super helpful.

-didnt try the food.

-prices were great.

-hopefully the fact that the people upstairs will now complain every night about noise does not get the place shut down.....

I was one of those drunk people and was politely approached by security to not do it anymore and I completely agree. Granted I wasn't quite as drunk as some of the louder ones, but still, polite requests do work a fair amount of the time.

And yes, the drivers need to do their part and not incite the crowd. If you know any of the drivers, please ask them politely to not do so and to spread the word. I know a couple of them and plan on doing so when I see them next.

Also yes, the tenants can move out. They can also call the cops and make noise complaints and cause trouble. Calling the cops is a lot less effort than moving, so guess what people will do. Yea we're a bunch of drunks having a good time, but if people complain enough, bad sh** will happen to Zep. Let's take care of a new, awesome addition to our city by working with people so everyone's happy.

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Yes, and each time the light rail goes by, it sounds its air horn as it approaches an at grade crossing. The beer garden is creating some noise. But these people weren't living in a sound proof booth. Also, its a rental building, they can always move out.

One thing I want to point out on Saturday night was that most of us there would cheer each time a Light Rail went by. Kind of mocking, silliness I guess, but apparently some of the people in the building called the cops to complain about the noise. Also on Friday they complained about the noise as well. To my fellow Zep patrons, PLEASE lets not piss off the people in that building. This place is too good to have it closed up because of repeated noise violations.

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+3 for smart, correct and some well deserved enthusiasm

I also went tonight. Had a great time. I loved it that there was no music. It was so great to sit among hundreds of people and just hear laughter and discussion. I'll go back weekly.

This place is awesome. Plenty of seating, the staff know their stuff, food is great and inexpensive. This place is HUGE and it will be just as sweet in the winter with the fireplace running. It's amazing how people find mundane reasons to bitch about one of the best facilities that ever came our way. Ooooh, there's smoking outside! Big freaking deal. There is smoking outside of Lucky 7's and LITM too, sit inside and quit your bitchin. So what that they ran out of some sausages, what a great sign - means they were busier then expected on opening day. Be happy that a decent business may thrive in your town!

I went this evening and this place was very good. AMAZINGLY large space for JC and very nice outdoors in today's weather

They could do with twice the number of staff...on a really busy night 1 bartender per bar is not going to be enough (but that's hard to judge for an opening weekend, i guess).

I really hope this place does well...they have so much space i could really see them having live bands ...with 2-3 bar areas, they could still have family-friendly and more hard core drinkers at the same time.

good luck to them..

I had a blast at the beer garden on Friday. A total blast. I do NOT see this place taking a turn for the worse. Everybody I talked to there was really excited about this place.

I went there for dinner around 7pm tonight. They were out of all sausage but the Kielbasa. And they were not in the least apologetic about it. I nicely asked the woman at the register if they planned to order more food in the future as I heard they had been running out all weekend and she said flatly "no". WTF?? Did she not understand me?? Wrong answer to give. How about "Oh we know its a problem, and they are working on it. So sorry."

The people putting the food out once it was made were not in the least in sync - 1 guy called out your ticket number clearly for his orders, while the woman quietly said what the food was for the ones she put out and if you didn't hear her she set it on the shelf by the counter until you inquired about it. The forks and napkins were out and the counter by the condiments was a mess. Yeah, the food service personnel need A LOT of work. When I got my food, it was ok, though a bit cold.

The bartender at the outdoor bar, on the other hand, ROCKED. He gave me great advice on what beer to order to best compliment my kielbasa and was very knowledgeable. I did not have to wait at all for a drink. And when I realized I couldn't carry all the drinks to our table myself, a bus person was right there offering me help. So thumbs up on the beer, bar service and bus staff - they are attentive and working hard. I also loved the atmosphere and the space.

I'll go back , but most likely will just stick to drinking. Hope they are serious about getting the food service in shape.

Wow, an outdoor non-smoking section... This board never fails to surprise. If I owned a beer garden and someone asked where the OUTDOOR non-smoking section is, I would ban them on principle. If you can't deal with cigarette smoke, perhaps a beer garden is not the best place for you to spend your time. Full disclosure - I'm not a smoker, and I hate cigarette smoke.

I went today, early when there was nobody there. The space is really nice, and they have Staropramen on tap for $5 per half-liter. Can't really complain.

Went there on Sat. and was hugely disappointed. First, the kitchen area where you have to order from is TOO small in comparison to the bar. Also, there is no awning over the counter where you have to pay, so the steel counter was scorching hot when they gave me the credit card receipt to sign. Almost burned my hand.

The place wasn't too busy, but they screwed up my order and forgot to make it. After waiting for over 20 min. + I asked for my order update and the staffs were pretty dismissive at first. Only when I got firm and asked them to recheck, they realized they lost the order and apologized and begun making it.

There is no food tray for you to transport the food if you have more than one order. Also, pretty stingy with condiments, had to ask for mustard twice, and got it the third time asking for it. Bit of an hassle when you are ordering sausages. Also had no hard cider on tap.

I think they need to iron out a lot of issues. Would I go back? Not on my own accord.

absolutely agree, full pint. unless there's a designated space, a random smoker could easily sit right next to you in an open seating situation like a beer garden. it happened to you.

smelling cigarette smoke ruins my eating and drinking experience.

i don't care what people do in their own homes. i was a smoker. i understand. i also know that since i don't smoke, my taste is more sensitive and affected by smoke.

it doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing situation. with enough space, there's no reason not to designate a clean zone. i hope zeppelinhall is reading this list and agrees.

There were about 10 empty benches on the left hand side nowhere near any smokers. Go sit over there and find something else to complain about. Maybe something such as the quality of the pebbles used outside on the ground or possibly the wood type the benches were made out of. Some people just look for things to complain about and most of them seem to congregate on this forum...

A big negative for me is that there is not a non-smoking area outside. I went on Friday and Saturday. Inside on Friday, it was hot and stuffy, and the place is so cavernous that it is really loud. It was pleasant outside, but impossible to get away from the cigarette and cigar smoke. The outside area is big enough that they should designate a non-smoking area.

I didn't try any food.

The beer selection is great. Most (maybe all?) of the beers are $5 for a 1/2 liter, $10 for a liter, and $15 for a pitcher. We had a pitcher - it filled 3 of the 1/2 liter mugs, with maybe a couple of ounces to spare. Valuewise, there's not much incentive for getting the liter or pitcher, though it did look like fun to drink from one of those giant glasses.
The beer glasses are all very nice and heavy. We found it funny that the pitcher was a cheapo plastic one with the Bud Lite logo on it.

Friday night they were playing some hard rock inside, but not too loud. On Saturday there was no music. There was no music outside either day.

With regards to the parking lot questions, their parking lot is open M-F after 4 PM, and all day Saturday and Sunday.

It is located West of the Hall (and Liberty Harbor) across the street from Jersey City Liberty Medical Center (Wilzig Hospital) and directly North of the Jersey Avenue Hudson-Bergen Light rail station.

Went there Saturday night, as opposed to Opening Night on Friday, and my experience was not at all like what is being described in this thread. Here is my take:

The layout is just great. The beers were great (some were colder than others) and business was flowing nicely. They had three main "bars" open for serving beer, which included the indoor bar, the indoor/outdoor bar and the outdoor bar. The outdoor bar is cash only. No lines at the kitchen this evening and things were moving along nicely for those that were ordering food. Went to the Hall with the wife expecting to get a couple of beers and kill a couple of hours enjoying the nice weather outside. We ran into some friends and joined their group after a while.

About the clientele, it was remarkably orderly given the amount of alcohol that was flowing. Not particularly rowdy, or loud. We left by midnight, so I can't really say how loud it got after that time. One thing that really struck all of us was the ratio of women to men: I had assumed (and so did my friend) that the place would be packed mostly with men, given the nature of the business (beer!!) but it is quite the opposite. It seems like men were outnumbered by women, and not by a little! Another great thing that I thought was very neat was the fact that the beer garden is "family friendly" and welcomes patrons with kids. I even saw some security type dude joking around with a kid making her laugh about something. All in all, a very positive experience.

About the food, I didn't have any, but the sausages looked great. Our friend ordered a sausage sampler that looked really good.

About the beers, we were REALLY happy about finding a Carlsberg tap in our area. We both love that beer, and it is impossible to find in this area. Even bottles are hard to come by, sometimes. Anyway, the Carlberg pour was a bit of a disappointment in that it wasn't icy cold. My second and third mugs were Spaten. My wife's were Leffe Blonde. All great beers, to our individual tastes, and no complaints about those pours.

My overall impression is that this place is awesome. Very good addition to the area. The Liberty Harbor residents probably feel differently, though. I will likely conitnue to patroninze Zeppelin Hall on a regular basis and look forward to it.

There is a parking lot, ... basically you drive down Jersey Ave, cross Grand and over on the left is a lot with a sign for Zeppelin Hall. It's just a very short walk from there to the restaurant, but parts are still under construction and there aren't exactly sidewalks around getting out of the lot.

Got a chance to go to the opening as well and had a good time. I think I got there around 8 and walked around the place before getting on line for some grub. We were probably 20th in line and it took almost 30 minutes before we got to place our order and another 10 minutes to get our food. Granted, when we got on line, they had just opened the kitchen so it was understandable. As far as the food, it was good. The Andouille was my favorite of their sausage offerings. I wanted to try the cheese brat, but they'd run out of it. One the workers told us that tonight was supposed to be a soft opening and they weren't expecting such a big turnout. Not sure if he was misinformed, but they did seem severely understaffed. The wait for drinks was about 15 minutes. I saw 2 bartenders working the main bar and I saw at least another 2 working the other one. Drink pricing was fair. I only had Abita's Purple Haze all night so I was paying $5 for a pint and $10 for a liter. Not sure how much the pitchers were. For its first night, I think they did pretty well and would definitely come back in the future. I took some flicks and uploaded them so feel free to browse through them. For those driving in, there is no parking lot so your going to have to find street parking. You can view the rest of my pics here. Zeppelin Hall

We went to the Zeppelin Hall Beer Garden last night - opening night. The place has potential but it was a bit chaotic.

It started raining heavily just after we arrived, so no one was outside in the garden. Inside was crowded and noisy. When we arrived the bars were having intermittant problems with their computer/cash registers so it took a while to get a beer.

The small kitchen had real problems. It took us 45 minutes to get two under-cooked cheeseburgers and some wings. We are told that they are planning a full menu. They have a ways to go yet.

Would I go back? Possibly though not necessailry anytime real soon.