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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
 
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No wonder you're miserable in the Heights if you're so locked down you can't get yourself to Downtown by bus, jitney, light rail, bike, Uber or by foot. No tears for the place from us, went once before the change and the fish or veg menu was very limited for my pescatarian wife.
Posted on: 2015/10/7 0:36
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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Wow! 245 posts for one restaurant! I wish I could say I had been there, but live in the Heights without a car so DTJC is mostly inaccessible. Foodie friends of mine from NYC had heard of it and urged me to go, so I'm sorry to hear it closed although it sounds like the owners struggled with a variety of business models so perhaps that was not unexpected.
The idea of opening a restaurant is daunting yet tantalizing - if there are any prospective restaurateurs following this post who are eager to try their hands I would be curious what you would consider the "sweet spot" for long-term success to be?
Posted on: 2015/10/7 0:20
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Your hopes are dashed. They have already stated that they are closing precisely because of a lack of support and business. The owners even point to their switch from BYOB to a liquor licensed establishment as the beginning of the end, as they immediately saw a drop in traffic. And, to say they were pioneers before other restaurants moved in is just plain inaccurate. How long have you lived in JC? We had creative, inventive places before 30 Acres: Ox (short lived, but very popular while it lasted - great food and cocktails) and Satis (also a pioneer in upscale fare - similar to 30 Acres, they started BYOB, switched to a liquor license, raised their prices, and it just doesn't seem to pull the same amount of people anymore, but they are still at it) and you could possibly throw in the oft overlooked Maritime Parc (also upscale, very, very good food, and probably equally expensive).
Posted on: 2015/10/6 23:53
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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And parking!
Posted on: 2015/10/6 23:48
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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Renato's is great !
Posted on: 2015/10/6 22:51
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Renato's: Good food, ample amount, cheap in price...basically good value that's edible for the money.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 22:17
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Get on your bikes and ride !
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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Also sad to see them leave. As with most things, you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone. 30 Acres was an ambitious and spirited addition to the community. They will be missed.
Best of luck to them in all future endeavors.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 20:24
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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I'm sad to see them leave. They were pioneers before most other restaurants moved in. They really helped spearhead the food scene in JC. I hope their move to the pacific northwest wasn't the lack for business and more for personal reasons.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 19:44
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Quite a regular
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I loved brunch there. Definitely turned off by the tasting menu concept.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 18:45
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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As for BYOB (cheap date night) options, Pasta dal Cuore is a solid Italian meal and Rustique Pizza is nice for their homemade lobster ravioli.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 18:45
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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We were probably there three times for dinner and twice for brunch when it was ala carte. It was always good and a few dishes on the table were always great, but overall it was never fantastic. We appreciated the creative ingredients and combinations, but there was always something over salted or over cooked or bland or just not very tasty.
When they switched to the tasting menu, we weren't about to plunk down the cash for that. We go into the city for special dinners.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 18:40
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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I think this quote sums up why they went to the tasting menu:
"Bloomberg: What are the Thirty Acres-type classics that you want to bring to the tasting menu? Kevin: Not any dishes, specifically, but we?ve always had an affinity for raw fish and it?s always been a tougher sell. I don?t know why. I guess just not everyone likes crudo dishes. If we don?t sell them in a night, we?re fucked. We could have one night where we sell twenty raw scallops and I buy them tomorrow and we sell none, what do I do? Those are the types of things that we feel we can incorporate and they don?t have to necessarily be a committed [to a] huge dish. That can be an amuse-bouche or a canap?. A bite of food that someone can be excited about without having to commit to a whole plate." Source
Posted on: 2015/10/6 18:28
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Newbie
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I feel like two things happened here.
1. Like someone said they knew they were leaving and wanted to leave doing their menu. That being said they should have realized their mistake and switched back. Even if on the weekends they did the tasting menu and during the week al carte. Also not having brunch on Saturday and Sunday hurt too. They were always packed at night and on the weekends with the other menu. They could've made it work. 2. I wonder if they were trying to do the old Mel Brooks movie The Producers. Try to lose money and gain somewhere else. Not sure where but a thought.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 18:04
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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As for BYOB, I think it just depends on the place. More Sushi is always busy and has always been BYO. Madame Claude is the same way (though they'll have a license at the new spot). Tacqueria was fine as BYO (with some under the counter beer sales) for years.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 17:49
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Not too shy to talk
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30 Acres came up in conversation during one of our recent building meetings and everyone was critical of the switch and couldn't understand the logic behind the decision to only offer the tasting menu. It's a shame to see them go but it's totally their own fault for getting too cute with the concept. Though maybe they intended to move all along and decided to do their own thing for awhile before packing it in- who knows.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 17:45
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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"Technically?", Tommy?? It's called JERSEY City! There are people here who live on JERSEY Avenue, JERSEY City, New JERSEY - how much more Jersey does it get? 
Posted on: 2015/10/6 17:32
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Not too shy to talk
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I agree - I was also turned off. They didn't blame themselves for not being financially viable - they blamed the city. Good riddance.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 17:21
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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Dismissing Jersey City as being not ready for fine dining is inaccurate I think. I (optimistically) think DTJC is ready, in moderate doses. Thirty Acres thrived for the first two years. It was literally always jam packed. But the tasting menu is kind of a step of alienation because as somebody else said, a lot of people look at places like that as a special night out kind of place, if not only because of price points but also just the magnitude of it, all these rich, multiple courses.
It's surprising that they didn't quickly see this and revert back to the original format. I can't imagine how they wouldn't have a sustained level of success with that format. A little turned off by the Eater article that has quotes from them almost blaming JC. The community really embraced them at the onset. I hope we continue to get interesting restaurants to open here. For a while it seemed like JC was hot in the realm of interesting, creative menus, but with Thirty Acres closing, Carrino completely changing formats to a sports(ish) bar of all things, and Talde getting some pretty bad reviews compared to the Brooklyn outpost, I think there are questions to be raised. My biggest fear is that what happened with Carrino ("look, here's a cool concept ... oh wait nobody's really interested....OK this is technically still NJ, so...here's some massive TVs -- come watch football, yeah!!") will continue to happen until we actually do have a food/drink culture that spirals into something akin to Hoboken. This is a notion that I've vehemently rejected over the years, but if you look at some of the crowds in certain bars nowadays, it's a little ... scary.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 17:17
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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I think they had a few growing pains to sort early on, but they really turned things around. I haven't been in a while, but the last few times were really great. Their pizza is well executed, and a really good value. Their pastas are a bit too heavy for my taste (excessive use of cream or oil in some of them) but the taste is often good. I definitely think it is worth the occasional visit.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 16:55
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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I continue to be amazed that Abbondanza remains in business. The two times I was there the food was subpar and the service uneven - one of the times I'd describe my service experience as more of an argument. Whatever we asked for/about was answered in a hostile, sarcastic manner. Maybe it's gotten better - this was probably within six months of their opening.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 16:37
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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...and this is why Jersey City can't have nice things. Until you get a customer base that moves away from this attitude, there is no way Jersey City is going to be able to support a fine dining culture.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 16:29
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
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The restaurant's last night will be November 28th.
By Ryan Sutton Alex and Kevin Pemoulie's Thirty Acres, the Kickstarter-funded, Momofuku alum-powered restaurant that brought creative small plates and long tasting menus to a somewhat unlikely locale ? Jersey City ? will close. The restaurant "just sort of ran its course," Mr. Pemoulie, the chef, told Eater. The final dinner service will take place on Saturday, November 28th. Afterwards, the couple will move to Alex's native Seattle, where they "eventually" hope to open something up. "We've been planning this for about a year," Pemoulie said on Monday, adding that he and Alex had initially considered finding a chef to keep the 32-seat venue running while they moved out west. "But honestly, it wasn't really working out. It wasn't financially stable, or the type of thing where we could sustain our family life with our new daughter. That's probably for a lot of reasons. Maybe the timing wasn't right. Maybe Jersey City didn't want us, or we didn't want them at the right time. There's no negative here whatsoever. We're really, really happy to move on." More
Posted on: 2015/10/6 16:01
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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It would seem facts are your enemy... Many, many restaurants survive, even thrive, by embracing BYOB. There are at least three places in JC that are still BYOB and doing just fine (Abbondanza continues to get packed, as is the case with Madame Claude) and there are many such places in NYC, including some that have been around for a LONG time. The excellent Tartine comes to mind, well over 20 years, still going strong, with people usually lined up outside for dinner and brunch, and you also have the very good Lucali in BK still getting TONS of foot traffic, with ridiculously long waits on some nights.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 11:53
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Kevin had been planning to leave J.C for the last two years and move to Seattle. He was ready to go. Also, I am sick of these people with there BYOB . You can't survive on BYOB. You don't have a license your F'd for the most part.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 10:57
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Just can't stay away
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Presto's in Paulus Hook is BYOB. Its been around as long as I've been in JC and that is at least 20 years. Good food at a reasonable price.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 10:50
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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just wondering what byobs are left? abbondonza, madame claude. what else? plenty seems like a big word, most of my favs went the way of the license. (still upset about honshu's move)
Posted on: 2015/10/6 6:34
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Home away from home
Joined:
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This makes me sad. Thirty Acres put JC on the map. The first couple of years they were open they were wildly successful, the change to tasting menu seemed to change things. I wonder if it was lack of success, or just that they really wanted to move to the west coast - anybody know?
Posted on: 2015/10/6 4:09
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Darn those pesky customers.... they fell for the over priced food when they could bring their own wine, but we lost them when we started to sell our overpriced wine selections with $75 per seat pairings. They recognized the problems, did nothing to adjust their pretentious attitudes and they are out of business. There are plenty of byob restaurants still in business after many years in JC and Hoboken... sad truth is they lost their heart and desire to keep the business going. Nothing wrong with that, but blaming customer tastes and the cost of labor when you have a culinary school in J Sq seem slightly self serving, if you excuse the pun.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 4:08
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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I guess being an outstanding chef does not make one an outstanding business owner.
By all accounts, seems like it was the switch to the tasting menu that did them in.
Posted on: 2015/10/6 2:35
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Re: Thirty Acres Restaurant- Jersey Avenue
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Very, very unlikely...
Posted on: 2015/10/6 2:32
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