Lefty's Tavern — Restaurant in Barnegat Township

Have been going this restaurant for the last nine years and it doesn't get much better for South Jersey shore area. Having lived in North Jersey all my life I have experienced the best in restaurants . Lefty's offers great food and atmosphere plus reasonable prices. I consider it to be closer to a higher end restaurant which is hard to find in Ocean county. The food is well prepared with generous amounts .Salads are always fresh and 5 stars for their French onion soup! The only food complaint I have is their desert menu selection does not have a great variety of choices and never changes . The other observation is that their waitress should be more friendly and professional plus there should be more of them.The great thing is that they take reservations which works most of the time except last New Years Eve I waited an hour to be seated even with a reservation.Sundays they have specials all day which is similar to their standard menu with less choices and food. Dining room is the best place to sit and is much quieter and usually is a much older crowd. Haven't had a bad meal in 9 years and highly recommend it above any other restaurant in the area.

Re-Review after Covid We have been a regular customer of Leftys for the last 11 years . We use to go for dinner or for there Sunday specials at least 3 to 4 times a month.We just were told that the Sunday all day specials were no longer which was a attraction for us and many of the Senior Citizens living in Barnegat.Today was our first time returning since Covid 19. Made a reservation in a advance like we always have done. We arrived and a sign at the door said "use hand sanitizer before entering" well it was empty. I told the Host and she said I think I have some down here if you like to use it which really didn't sound like it was a requirement before entering. We had a reservation and had to wait 20 min before we were seated which has happened before bot not on a Sunday when the parking lot was only half filled. We were finally seated and eventually greeted by a waitress who we remembered from pre covid which we though was a good thing. She took our drink order and it took a exceptionally long time before our drinks arrive. We also never got our table bread till after the drinks were served. We now are given this laminated menu with all there selections of food , like you would find in a diner or fast food establishment, not a fancy booklet of dinners like we use to get. We were also given a paper "Specials" menu which had seen better days. To our disappointment there was no longer one of our favorites " prime rib" no where to be found. Then we noticed that soup or salad are now extra charge which they were not in the past. We placed our order and saw this seasoned waitress fumbling with this new had held device to enter our order and definitely did not look happy and actually took longer to place our order. Dinner finally arrived and everything was fine till I cut into my baked potato and found it to be bad on the inside which is something you can't tell till its cut into and i wasn't upset . We couldn't find our waitress so we asked another person walking around if they could get us another baked potato and she was happy to assist us. She came back 2 minutes later and told us the kitchen is very business and we would have to wait!! Now I'm upset because my streak is getting cold and I have to wait while other people are getting their food. My wife finally got out of her chair and track down our waitress who said she would look into it! It took about five minutes and I finally got my hot baked potato that I could eat with my cold steak, you would think the waitress would offer to warm up my meal but again she was nowhere to be found so I had my hot potato within my cold $26.00 steak, No longer the great place for us Senior Citizens to eat, Expensive, poor service and no longer has a...

I had a very pleasant experience on my first visit, so decided to return. I was with a large party and left embarrassed. We arrived around 6ish and did not get served dinner until almost 9pm. Although our server was nice, she disappeared for an entire 30 minutes leaving us nothing to drink. We had to ask for bread two times before they ever put any on the table. The only reason why we asked for bread was because the wait for our food was so long. After our food was served, we were never offered anything else to drink. A few people asked if we could have a pitcher of a soft drink (which we were willing to pay for) and the server told us that we could only have water. Now, the large party that was sitting at the table next to us clearly had a PITCHER full of a soft drink. I'm not really sure what that was about! By the time we finally got our checks to pay and leave, it was almost 11pm. Maybe the server could not handle a large group of people by herself, but it was at our expense. I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else in the future.

This post is at a later date and after the owner replied to my message. I have seen other negative reviews that we're similar to my same complaints and the owner was understanding and apologetic. That is the way an owner is supposed to conduct business. Although I got an apology, it was followed by a bunch of faults that we're not irrelevant to my situation. I never said that it took a long time to order and I'm sure we're not the first party that came into your establishment not exactly on time. The guest were coming from different distances and others were coming from work. I don't feel like I should have to explain this, especially because I was only a guest in the group. I did not make the reservation. I clearly stated that AFTER all the orders were put in, it took an extremely long time for everyone to get their food. Also, I never made a negative comment about the accuracy of our server. I saw exactly how long it took for her to put in everyone's order into the computer. That was my reason for suggesting that she needed help. After she finished at the computer, she then disappeared for 30 minutes period. So, I refuse to go back in forward with this. I just want to say that this is what happens in restaurants and you prepare for the worst. Our server was nice, but she still needed help. This is not my first rodeo and I have been to many, many different restaurants with parties even larger than ours and the service was still prompt. And yes, there restaurants were full too. I was leaving a review so that this would not happen to your future customers with a large party. It wasn't malicious in any way, just stated the facts. P.S. I still did not get an explanation about purchasing a pitcher of a...

My mother insisted that I shouldn’t cook myself dinner on my birthday. So I googled places to eat that had steak. Preferably a ribeye. Living in Long Beach Island area and not feeling like driving to AC, we decided to go to Lefty’s. Our waiter was under trained and nervous, to be nice. He didn’t know if they had Johnny walker and studdered thru the specials. We got 2 appetizers the calamari which was Really good. Light, crispy, no chew delicious!!! The claim casino were small and dull. My fiancée got lobster soup with her dinner which she claimed to be burnt, with no lobster, and served in a “greek coffee mug”. The rest of my party got salad which could have been chopped up a bit more. Huge chucks of lettuce. Now when I ordered the Ribeye I told the waiter that I wanted it cooked Medium Rare more on the rare side. “Definitely bloody”. Let me not forget the bread they gave us!! which looked like half a kaiser roll sliced up, servered with cold unspreadable butter packets yippie!! Back to the steak.. when it hits the table everyone’s looks at me with their mouths wide open and I start laughing. Knowing that it was over cooked I cut into it anyways. Med well very lightly pink. 😭😭. After chewing my teeth off on the one piece of steak, I go for a bite of mashed potatoes. Really you can’t even make decent mashed potatoes!!! After telling the waiter that it’s over cooked and that I didn’t want a new one, my mother still had to pay for it. I would NOT return to...