The Robinson Ale House — Restaurant in Asbury Park

TLDR; Terrible. Poor service, mediocre food, do not give them your business or money.

We placed our name on the outdoor list around 7:30PM on Sunday. It was provided it would be a 20 minute wait, and although there was no wait inside we figured it was a nice night outside. Thirty-five minutes later we still had not received a text update on our table, so we went back to the host who said we were next. After 45 minute wait, we were finally seated in the back, outside corner next to the bussing station. In the 10-15 minutes we had to wait for our server to come take our order, the waiters in the bussing area dropped several cups and plates spilling at our feet. Then the bus boy proceeded to put the busing bin on the ground next to us and started tossing silverware into it. We finally put our order in and waited. Our buffalo shrimp appetizer came out quickly and was very good. After we finished that, we waited a good 15-20 minutes for our entrees to come out. There were lots of empty tables, so not very busy at this point. My dad's burger came out, with chips instead of the onion rings he ordered, which were brought later. His burger was not the medium he ordered, instead a very crisp well done. I snagged one of the chips they had mistakenly brought and they were rubbery and disgusting. Gordon Ramsey would have flipped the table over. I turned to my seafood risotto, which was described as a creamy risotto with shrimp, clams and crab. To my surprise as I started eating... there was no crab! Now this was a $33 dish, and the crab was a key factor in that pricing, I'm sure. When we grabbed a hostess walking past and explained to her, she said she would go get someone, but never did. Eventually our waitress came back, (I was now halfway done with my meal) and we explained to her there was no crab. She asked me if I wanted her to go get me some crab, but no I was not going to wait to finish the little bit that was left for 10 minutes while she went to fetch some crab. I declined. We finished our meal and asked for the check, expecting a manager to come over and apologize, but none did. The waitress finally brought over the check and started to point out a compensation on the bill, which we rightfully expected to be comping my meal. To our shock, they took off a whopping $6.48 from my $32.95 meal. The waitress said "we took this off the bill because the meal was not what you expected." Not what I expected? How about you messed up the dish. Whoever came up with this $6.48 should not be in charge of anything in the restaurant. It was quite frankly insulting. Will...

Everything is fine. Just fine or less. They don’t have enough people to control this summer crowd, or not good management there. Seems like they took advantage of the location to me. You just shouldn’t go there when it very busy. Food quality is worse than usual.

Our oyster was served 4/10 quality. Just food it is, cracked shell comes with oyster, some of the oysters smells weird but ok. When runner served the food, it’s too rough so sauce spread on the plate and oysters. Margarita was too sweet too much simple simple syrup so asked for exchange with less syrup and next one they brought us was literally no syrup. Other foods were good by the way you can see from other people’s reviews.

It’s pouring when we dined in. Runneres kept serving food without cover and just telling customers that it might get rain but should be fine or saying nothing and served them. It just seems weird to me to not cover any food under the rain. Reminds me of when I was at the local market in Thailand which is fine for me when I was there.

Manager’s decision was a little slow when the storm came. He told servers that take down the umbrellas after they fell by strong wind and hit customers. He even told us to take them down if we can. I mean, our safety is not the priority??

Also gave us a check with saying that it might be poring but there’s no seat inside so they can pack the food and gave us a full check even though we’re in the middle of the dinner and drinks was more than half left. It doesn’t matter if we can still stand and drink and snack inside. Does it??

I understand that that’s a place by the beach and sometimes there might be not right visitors or crazy ones. But you really have to think twice that that’s how you manage the restaurant and take care of the customers. Our server was very nice but being nice is not the only service you provide. One of the customers next to us was waiting for her food for almost like more than 30 min (only one of their food wasn’t arrived) and she had to ask for they more than 3 times and each times for other staffs. Where was the server in charge?? Don’t hide if you can’t deal with it and get them a manager quickly. They eventually got large dessert plate on the house but…

Lack of professionality to me for many thing. I’m not a hater. Just reviewing...

We were craving oysters and we put our name on the wait list at 6:15pm for an outside table for 3 people, she said about 45 minutes and texted us the link for our reservation. We go walk to the end of the boardwalk and came back about 45 minutes later, and checked in and the hostess said about another 15-20 minutes. Okay no problem. 30 minutes go by and now they tell us it's going to be ANOTHER 45 min and tell us they feel bad that we are waiting. She basically tells us don't wait anymore since its been 1 hr and 30 min already. The hostess says we have 11 groups in front of us. BUT the app shows us as the 5th group in line but it hasn't budged for over a hour now.

What is going on??? And why are there so many open tables outside too? Look at the pictures. I just don't understand. Now we have waited 1 hr and 45 min… and they want us to wait another 45 min??

Maybe there’s something else going on. I wasn’t treated like this at their LBI location but maybe it’s just this location. Maybe we were getting profiled by the hostess? Don’t want to speculate but when there is no rationale logical explanation provided one starts to think of other possible reasons. Maybe they have a policy against 3 medical professionals co-workers in their 40s?

Usually I would ask for the manager and ask for an explanation for why there are so many outdoor open tables, the discrepancy of the app list and the hostess list, the 45 min, then 20min wait, then another 45 min wait…. but didn’t want to escalate it while we were all starving and now struggling to find a restaurant without another 45 min wait.

So after checking 3 neighboring restaurants, we end up driving away and eating somewhere off the boardwalk. Sometimes the most feared explanation is probably the correct one. Some sort of prejudicial discrimination?

The owner should know about this. It’s just horrible customer service.

This is definitely not Mr. Robinson’s...