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and let's cap it off with the most tired cliche of them all. never change, JSQ!

This thread is a wonderful advert for organizing conversations by topic. In this case, we have three:

1. Folks opening restaurant.
2. People visiting the new restaurant or commenting on their excitement.
3. Morons running their mouths.

I missed the kickstartr for 30 Acres and was disappointed; can't think of a better setup for success. I've been watching the shockingly fast build-out and am looking forward to checking it out later this week.

PS: for readers not in JC, any neighborhood other than the towers of Newport is damn dangerous. Thugs, hoodlums and trouble abound everywhere!! You should move to Park Slope, Williamsburg or Bushwick if you'd like to be hip, safe and in NYC. (that's what I tell my landlord, anyway..)

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baby boy loves his baby back baby back ribz

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when I saw "area around Newport PATH station," I immediately thought "Chilis" and stopped reading.

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honestly, did anyone take this guy seriously after reading that intro? It just screams "I have no f'in clue what JC is about, I am a scenester".

Anyway, hard to kill the service in the first month. surely that will shake out eventually.

Was happy to see some actual food reviews, took long enough!

Ok, made good on my word and tried the place out.

Pros: Well lit, very open/modern feel. Dishes were nicely plated. Ingredients were very fresh and the food was tasty. Staff was friendly and welcoming. They have a nice bar set up for once their liquor license comes through and for now the BYOB option is pretty sweet.

Cons: Limited menu, small portions. No hearty or classic dishes, no red meat on the menu except beef tartare. Not a place to take a beer and burger or a red wine and steak type of crowd. Staff could be more attentive - like parkman's experience, the staff did not keep track of who ordered what in our party, and it took quite a while to get the check and for them to pick it up.

If they rotate the menu regularly based on what is in season and the staff ups their game this has potential to be a solid neighbourhood spot. I will try back in a few weeks and look forward to my next experience there.

Quote:Each of us had an appetizer, entr?e?, and we shared two desserts? hope that clarifies.

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Am I understanding this right, you paid $34 pp and got an app, an entree and shared a dessert?

Fifty-eight posts with assumptions, innuendo, and attitude, without one person having dined at the restaurant?aint JClist great?

Four of us had dinner there this last Friday and for a first week, we were very pleased to be there. Right now the menu is limited but varied enough that most will find something to choose from. The feel of the restaurant is comfortable, well-lit, good music level, and with a welcoming staff.

The flavors of each dish was unique, with combinations of spices and sauces that were new to me but pleasurable. The food portions were small but filling. Not inexpensive, $68 per couple for an appetizer, entree?, and one dessert. It?s BYOB for now, which offsets the relatively costly food.

Minor complaints are a lack bread for the table and our wait-staff did not know who ordered what, when the food was presented. All in all, this is a great addition to Jersey City and continues to increase the choices of quality dinning?we will be back.

Don't let one poorly formed and articulated opinion dull your entrepreneurial spirit, 30 acres! Buzz is good. In a weird way you've made it once people think you're over hyped because that means you have hype in the first place, instead of being the hole in the wall that four people love and no one else knows. We all love our secret hole in the walls, and even more we love mourning them when they die (and talking about how great they were), but for things to live they must be known. Shit, that almost sounded deep for a minute. Anyhow I'll be in to check out your food soon.

omg, i swear this message board can be totally infuriating--we want nice things and then when we get them, someone always has to have something negative to say!!

welcome to the neighborhood thirty acres, there are many of us that are THRILLED to have you here and we will show our support with our $$$.

Have they even been open a week? Is this a record for getting flamed on the JC list?

Give them a break. I'm looking forward to having (hopefully) great food a block from my house.

theres a difference between "carrying a plate" and being a professional server. its insulting to equate the two. you can't teach the ability to handle stress and have a great personality and have a passion for the food you serve.

stop whining and just stick to that culinary bastian of creativity that is Pavonia Newport.

oh and 30 Acres - can you hit us with a vegetarian dish? pretty please?

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sounds like someone is unable to come up with good references.

Yes, if anyone tried please post! We are eager to hear about how this place is and so excited for this restaurant.

JSQ: I think you should sign up for the message board in whatever town you currently live in. No one cares about your opinion on JC/restaurants/businesses if you're no longer a resident and when you visit you only go to Newport?

Miss Otis- I second that.

I can't honestly think of one restaurant in JC that has great service in addition to great food. In so many places it seems like the servers can barely be bothered to refill your coffee cup let alone know the ingredients in the dishes. If i wanted to spend $100 for some hipster waiter to give me attitude with my entree, I'd go to Brooklyn. Hopefully Thirty Acres will set the bar a little higher. It seems to me that they're taking JC cuisine to the next level and are not underestimating the residents.

Now if we can only get some good restaurants up in the Heights...

JSQ You sound like someone with a grudge. I don't understand why anyone would have such a problem with a new restaurant bringing business and buzz to Jersey City and hiring all JC people to work there. I think we need to support any and all new JC business and not anonymously hide in a forum.

I haven't eaten at Thirty Acres yet but I'm a huge Momofuku fan so I'm beyond excited to welcome them to our neighborhood.

Rule #6: Never say "You're Sorry." It's a sign of weakness.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs

JSQ - we're really sorry if we came off that way in the interview! we assure you that we did NOT mean any offense to jersey city or its residents in any way. in fact, our entire staff is from jersey city, and they're AWESOME. we love jersey city.

we haven't heard the interview, but knowing that it was done after weeks of little sleep (they say opening a restaurant is like birth), we don't find it hard to believe that we may have said some stupid things by mistake. to be fair, we did have a lot of applicants with very little experience. we believe that serving is a skilled and difficult position, and we knew what we were looking for and were willing to wait. the team we've compiled is better than we ever could have hoped for, so in our eyes the waiting has paid off.

we invite you to please come in and try our food and experience our service and let us know if your opinion still stands.

again, we definitely apologize for any remarks we might have made that offended you in any way. we only mean the best for jersey city. it's our home too and we love it here.

thanks,

kevin & alex

Anyone care to post a review? I stopped in last night and the place was hopping! The place looks great and the menu looks very intriguing!

Surely they can do whatever they want. But it's rarely possible to start with almost no money, and still to be able to build a refined restaurant. It is impossible to offer low payments and to hire experienced waiters. Maybe in Kentucky you would trick them, but not 5 minutes away from Manhattan.
And if you still think it is possible, stop whining on the BBC World Service to the whole planet that it is difficult. I could have told you earlier.

JSQ - don't get me wrong, I'd still love to have the mega ethnic mart where target is but I still don't understand the qualms with Thirty Acres menu and pricing. The menu might not be a long as other places but the prices are no different than what a large number of the places opening up in JC now charge. Why not complain about the prices at Satis, White Horse, Brightside Tavern. Long time institution Casa Dante is even more expensive. The benefit I saw with the menu was that it was a rotating menu depending on the source ingredient availability, which I have rarely seen in JC before.

I'm also not sure how their method of fundraising should cause problems either. Why would you not make the attempt to raise funds from outside sources versus drown yourself in debt and saddle your restaurant with a troubled balance sheet from the start. Cocoa bakery is trying the same thing, does that make them somehow less credible a bakey in your eyes? From what i understand Cocoa is JC based and run by the former head pasty chef at Nobu.

We can argue all we want but at the end of the day it's their restaurant and they can do what they want. Whether they survive or not will be mostly on them. I just choose to say good luck.

Seagull, I worked in top universities for many years. Idid nt try to be a waiter when I was a student, let alone the time I spent in JC. In truth, I tested the job market for low paid work when I arrived in JC, to cover the rent while my papers were sorted out, and I found it easy to find work. Luckily, I never had to work for people with such a great impression about themselves who lack the amount of money to support their claims. But I recall the shock of being asked to give resume and references for the sort of work that I could get next door just by showing for 10 minutes that I can do it.

Mdips, my nickname is JSQ for a reason. And indeed, JC is not NY, and does not have to be. This is what the 30 acres people did not understand. Jersey Ave does not cut it, and it will never be Little Italy. It is not Saddle River, nor Princeton. No need to defend those who didn't understand where they are setting up their business.

People who dine in JC appreciate the variety and the low price. I miss the ethnic grocery stores A LOT. But variety and cheapness are both lacking in this place, judging by the menu. It only corroborates with their inability to understand how hundreds or thousands of Manhattan cooks living in walking distance would not bother to work for them.

Btw, I googled them, and I found them fund-raising 10K dollars. I have more than that on a few credit cards. It sounds like somebody has a very bad credit problem.

I've been in JC for over 10 years between JSQ and PH and reading this forum almost daily that whole time. I don't post much but sometimes I just feel a need to reply. It might not have been your intent but as a JC resident your post insulted me more than the any apparent slight from Thirty Acres during the interview. How can you in one breath both denegrate JC while deriding the owners of Thirty Acres for supposedly doing the same? "Worse than Grove St"? From everything I've seen they have done well to include the community in establishing the business and promote us as a worthy destination. Why disparage someone with a culinary pedigree that brings a little extra cache to our gastronomic reputation. It might not be to your tastes but the great thing about JC is that it doesn't have to be, there are plenty of other options.

Next time you visit, possibly try expanding your range beyond Hoboken and Newport. As you said yourself it has been 4 years since you've lived here. Hopefully you can get a chance to see everything else JC has to offer besides commuter living in Newport. Ask for some recommendations on JClist, most of us actually live here and have left the confines of newport and downtown to see what it can offer.

Are we NY, no. But do we really need or want to be anyway?

So you're bitter that your application to wait tables was denied, and now you're on a public forum ranting like a maniac about it? It's not your business that's on the line, and it's up to the owners who they deem an appropriate fit for their newly ventured business. Going on a public forum to talk poorly about the owners because of your personal difficulties with them makes you look like a horses ass.

Hi all,
I don't think this will bring the right tone to the discussion, but I'll give my two cents.
I have been out of JC for 4 years now, still visiting friends a few times a year. My friends are decently well paid, so we usually spend nights in Manhattan, Hoboken, or, when really tired, in the area around Newport PATH station. I am still on the opinion that JC is a dormitory town, that very few people can hold jobs or have fun in the town, and that one must live in Newport if one wants to get home safely.
Today, I have heard the owners of 30 acres on BBC radio. There must be some bitterness in a demotion from Manhattan to Jersey Ave, so I was ready to listen to a series of platitudes that would try to half-hide the bitterness. But the two owners made some affirmations that itched me so much that I had to return to this website after 3 years. They think that the workers of JC are not good enough for them. But I think that they are not good enough for JC, and I will detail.
First, they complained that the applications for jobs were weak, because some candidates only had experience in grocery stores. Well, d'oh! JC is the new Ellis Island. This is the calling port for many new arrivals to US, including me, and extending into the hundreds of thousands. We, the hundreds of thousands, have no American experience of any kind, but we are a majority, and the Manhattan dropouts are the minority. You either learn to live with us in JC, or sod off.
And then, there are the others, who were born Americans, the other hundreds of thousands who work in the very competitive New York City. There are thousands of people carrying plates in Manhattan, who come to sleep in JC. Were they offered the right money for them to switch jobs? Think about how much you need to offer to somebody to put in their resume " I used to work in Manhattan, but now I moved to worse-than-Grove-Street". I noticed the owners try to put a positive spin on it, but it is a demotion, and peeople should be paid more than in Manhattan to make the switch from Manhattan. Otherwise, you live with what you have.
Second and worse, the owners complained that the people of JC have no skills in carrying a plate to the table and that they have no time to teach anybody. Sure, I never carried a plate to a table, so I may be wrong. But this restaurant is announced since November. That is 5 months ago. Something is telling me that, in 5 months, you can teach a JC grocery store guy or girl to carry a bloody plate. It's not the time that lacked, it's again the cheapness. There were no money to bring people in to learn. And because the owners are who they are, nobody would come to them as unpaid interns.
An alternative theory holds that the owners don't really know how to carry a plate, and this is why they can't teach others. Had anyone checked their past?
I think these people started on the wrong foot. I have seen Americans treating new comers like shit just because they had an accent, or because they lacked "American work experience", but the great thing about NYC/JC area is that these chauvinists are scarce. If you want to have something in JC, you have to have it JC way. I see no market for a 20 dollars-a-course restaurant with only 4 sorts of food. I see no way to thrive if you are not ready to to take the local people on. What do you expect to recruit, Monte Carlo waiters?
PS. I am amused that, 4 years later, Fulop is still trying.

sorry for any confusion! in the excitement and haste of opening we realize that we didn't make ourselves totally clear: we're not actually accepting reservations for opening night. we want to make sure to have tables for everyone who's been so patient and supportive during our development!

thanks,

k&a

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That they do. They even carry Stroh's, the undisputed king of cheap & tasty beers.

As for Victory Lager, it's very hard to find in bottles outside of Philly, but I do know that it's a bit easier to get a hold of kegs. Victory has a loyal following and if you're able to get your hands on the Lager, that alone will attract patrons to your business.

Victory+Dogfish Head

we hear you! as soon as we have a liquor license, recommendations are totally welcome! in the meantime, jersey wine & spirits has an awesome selection.