Lola's European Cafe — Restaurant in Asbury Park

My kind of place. I wandered over here on the 4th of July with my top-tier chum as we waited patiently for some parking spots to open up in Ocean Grove next door (on us entirely - if you want parking on one of the heavy hitter beach days in the summer, you get down here before the sun comes up). We were able to find parking over here though relatively easily, since Asbury basically has multiple business districts and this one is a 10-minute walk from the boardwalk chaos. We saw numerous high quality pooches on our journey from the car to the entrance of Lola's, which was a holiday delight.

It's hard to describe the vibe in here. Yes, very European but also with a whiff of hipster. The interior is pretty dark and we didn't spend a ton of time in there, opting instead to take advantage of the pleasant weather outside, but it had a lot of cool Old Hollywood shizzle on the walls - I'm always down for that iconic pic of Rita Moreno giving Jayne Mansfield stink eye (leave Mariska's mother alone). Very edgy, spacious bathroom as well.

I was thrilled to see a familiar cocktail chum on the menu, the Gold Rush, which is a bourbon/honey concoction that I first enjoyed at the Vault in Sedona - an all-timer for me. This one wasn't quite as good as that one; I thought it was a little bland and had too much of the lemon. which drowned out the sweeter, honey aspects. (I just checked the Vault menu to see what additional ingredients that drink had, and it looks like it's bitters. They should get that or something similar here.)

A lot of people are shouting out the paninis, and rightfully so. They use a rosemary bread for it that's delicious, and turkey, brie and fig just hit no matter what. I accidentally ate three slices of Domino's earlier in the morning so I didn't have a fully appreciative palate for it, otherwise that item would have been 100% devoured. My chum, who's a notable grazer in this day and age, ate everything on her plate - another testament to how tasty this item was.

The biggest area for constructive feedback is the management and logistics of the outside drinking/dining area. It's SUPER narrow out there, and it really looks like they could widen it by another five or 10 feet, which would help out tremendously. Any time one of us had to go back inside to use the restroom, order an additional drink, etc., we had to basically have a strategy session to maneuver past people to get into the restaurant again. Additionally (and it WAS a Friday afternoon, so probably not their fully-staffed crew), they only had one bartender inside and a server/runner that I could see, so you had to order everything through the bartender, wait for the drinks yourself to bring outside, and if you wanted anything else, go back in. The server wasn't an assigned waiter, if that makes sense. Again, that might be a moot issue later in the day but I'd argue for the 4th of July, you have an extra person working. Minor quibble and something that's likely easily fixable.

The bartender was very nice, especially given that she was in charge of literally everyone's drinks and processing the food orders. Impressive stuff. One of the better establishments I've been to in Asbury, which is...

I have been coming to Lola's for years now and it is definitely one of my favorite spots in Asbury! If you haven't tried their espresso martini yet, you don't know what you're missing. However, I am leaving 4 stars because of an experience my friends and I had last Sunday 10/13. A small group of us went out to celebrate my friend's birthday. We entered, had our ID's checked by the bouncer, and got a table for ourselves. At first, we were ordering drinks with the male bartender whom we have had many times and is always amazing. As any good bartender should, he would always offer us vodka or gin for our dirty martinis. So when it was our one friends turn to go up and order a round for the table (Our 3rd round), we told her specifically what kind of dirty martini to order (with vodka, and 3 olives since they usually only give one). She ordered with the female bartender, whose name I will leave out, and was abruptly cut off mid order and said she needed to see all of our ID's. Weird to ask after we have already ordered 2 rounds of drinks, but OK. When we gave them all to her, she then proceeded to belittle our friend and say the way that she ordered the martini is why she asked for our id's ... since "that is how martinis are made". Which, since we are all in the service industry, know that isn't the case (They are traditionally made with gin, for the record). She then said "well there are four of you so are you getting a fourth drink", with a degrading attitude, and my friend would have told her all of the drinks right away if she wasn't so rudely cut off. She then made the drinks and could not have seemed more miserable. My one friend got the pistachio martini, which has a graham cracker garnish, and it wasn't on it. So we went back up and asked if it could be garnished and she just stared at us, made a nasty comment, and then threw the garnish on top and walked away. For an $18 martini, you would at least want it made right especially since the one we had previously from the other bartender was perfect. As I said, we are all in the industry, so we are the first people to be understanding about having a bad night or an annoying table or whatever it may be. But this was so uncalled for and really just made for an uncomfortable evening. Hopefully this was just a fluke, because this is our favorite go-to...

Went here yesterday to show a visiting friend some of my favorite places in Asbury. I have previously had wonderful experiences here and it was a place I recommended for good gelato. We tried a cocktail each when we first walked in and the bartender who made the drinks was friendly and she made the drinks really well.

Fast forward to a few hours later when the shift had changed. I had developed a migraine and walked back into Lola's just to have some tea and relax. I put my head down on the table and one of the servers rudely rapped the table right next to my ear and loudly said "no head on the table" to my great surprise. Of course, several eyes turned toward me and it made me extremely uncomfortable. I collected myself and asked the server why she did that and she said "it's illegal to put your head down at a bar. It's unsanitary and we don't want dander and hair on the table." As an immigrant and a person of color who has lived in New Jersey for a few years now, I felt that that retort was not only extremely inconsiderate but also racially motivated.

Basic empathy should be part of the requirements if you work in hospitality, and when putting my head down on the table as I waited for a coffee being treated as if I was being rude and disruptive left a bad taste in my mouth. I simply walked out after this encounter so I do not know the name of the female server. Only her expression of disgust and...