Allen's Clam Bar — Restaurant in Bass River Township

Allen's has always been one of our all time favorites over the years. We simply loved the atmosphere, the heavy duty cardboard plates, the unique menus on placemats (pre Covid), the fast friendly service, very reasonable prices, and more than ample portions of absolutely delicious seafood especially their broiled scallops which we both crave for. They always gave us at least 10-12 nice ones. I'm not kidding. For special occasions, we knew that we could always count on Allen's to come thru with flying colors and justify the extended drive down from Toms River. That said, we recently were returning home one afternoon from a trip to South Jersey. Since we would be driving right past Allen's on the way back and we hadn't been there in quite some time because they had been closed, it was decided that a late lunch early dinner was definitely in order. That is if hopefully it was open now and hooray it was! We were so happy. You can't miss it on Rt. 9. It's in New Gretna which is a nice little old time town with a lot of Jersey history. The big shark hanging out of the front exterior wall was there as always but as we walked in we immediately noticed that things were somehow different. Instead of the usual greeting and wave from the back and find your own table process as we knew in the past, we were met by a hostess at a station who seated us. Additionally we saw a heck of a lot more tables that were not there before (which generated a much higher conversational noise level than we remembered). After we were given menus we noticed that the prices had gone thru the roof. Not just a little....a lot! For the record, this always was just a small little hole in the wall restaurant in a working neighborhood with reasonably priced amazing seafood that we had frequented and referred our friends to for years. Quite unlike the overpriced full of themselves establishments over on LBI that only a wealthy percentage can afford to go to anymore. A waitress came and took our orders but it took forever for our selections to arrive. There were no more horseradish and crackers on the table to munch on while waiting and no more squeeze bottles of ketchup. tarter sauce, and cocktail sauce. The portions on our dinners when they finally did arrive were noticibly smaller than what we were expecting. Ok, so the meals are very pricy now and smaller....somebody has to help pay for the renovations and the new still unused yet bar that were recently installed while they were closed. This I can live with up to a point. The straw that finally broke the camel's back for us tho was the $4.00 surcharge for the extra spoon when we shared an $8 large cup of shrimp corn chowder which made it $12. Wow! We have always shared this part of our meal here because a bowl portion used to come in an actual large bowl. All in all the final late lunch tab for two people came to $78 which we felt was a bit much for what we had received in return. To say that we were greatly disappointed this time around is an understatement. There's an old saying that states 'if it ain't broke it don't need no fixin'..... At the end our waitress must have forgotten that we were still sitting there so we had to flag her down finally to be able to pay and leave. Because we were a tad taken back by this changed version of Allen's we asked her if new owners had taken over. She replied no, it's the same family. Really? I could be wrong but reading between the lines that certainly sounds like the original owners finally retired and left the business to the kids. Sadly I feel that our once seafood go to place is no longer the same old Allen's anymore and frankly we don't particularly care for the new version. It appears that other reviewers are saying similar. Hopefully whoever is running the place these days will take notice to what their long time customers who supported them all these years are saying and restore this once memorable gem to it's well deserved original glory. Until they do and I'm not holding my breath waiting, I guess that's going to be it for us. We'll miss...

Story Time! Where shall I begin. It was a special occasion the other week and a family member saw this restaurant on our path. From the outside, it appeared quite rustic with old wooden features, so we thought that it was worth a try. Upon entering, the receiving host/server seemed pleasant – inviting with a smile, so we sat to review the menu.

The menu pricing was a medium-high and the options were enough, although we learned that they were out of all desserts except two.

When a separate blonde server in her late 30s or early 40s appeared to take our drink orders, her demeanor was quite rushed and irritable. For the lives of us we could not understand why.

We ordered our appetizers, which were the clams casino, clams on the half-shell, and bacon-wrapped scallops on skewers, and later followed by our main course selections.

When the appetizers were brought out, we were surprised by the presentations. Visually, both types of the clams were tiny – barely any meat so that we needed to scrape at the adductor muscles just to receive a tiny bit more. This was not to be complained about since we did not inquire about their sizes prior to ordering them. Some were also gritty with sand. We did, however, inquire about the scallops and the server confirmed that they would be large [sea] scallops.

One of the skewers held the scallops of our expectations. On the second skewer the cook had obviously halved the portions and my family member had the best view of this from their seat as they expressed to me the obvious size difference. I concurred and we called the server over to address it. Again, her rushed demeanor drove through our complaint, so she picked up the plate and said, "Then you don't want this, right?" We told her that we did want the skewer that was the size of our expectations, but that the other should match it. She put the plate back down and picked up the tiny skewer by hand from within the plate and carried it back to the kitchen after, with much expressed irritation, advising that she would tell the kitchen. She returned with another skewer being held in her hand (unsanitary means) with the proper size.

Time for the entrées: nine sea scallops with two sides. A good portion, proper texture, but they were poached in butter and not seasoned well, otherwise. I had hoped for a nice crust by broil or pan-sear, but I suppose this was easier for the kitchen? They did the same to my squash medley on the side. Overcooked and disappointing.

Every incident of the attitude received from the server was not listed here, but enough to never return. The food was decent in its natural quality, but poorly prepared without...

Following their recent renovation, not only did the interior change, but so did the food. The person I went with today has been a constant customer for 40 years. What used to be a locals seafood restaurant for decades is trying to be something they are not. There's a lot more tables, food quality and quantity have gone down while prices have skyrocketed. I started off with a bowl of clam chowder. It was so small, I'd hate to see the cup size. Followed up with a bucket of steamed clams that were served on a plate, rather the bucket. Again, portion sizes were reduced. Then the double order of scallops, eight in total that were each the size of a quarter. When we asked the waitress about how many came in a single order, she said five in a single and ten in a double. We told her we each had eight. She went into the kitchen to check where the rest of our main course was and came back to let us know the kitchen told her the portion was by weight. The double portion at $28 with two small sides was disappointing and flavorless. Make sure you get the cocktail sauce or tatar sauce, because the scallops had no taste of their own. For two people coming in for a late lunch, excited that Allen's was reopened, and spending over $115 plus tip, this was not the experience we were used to. To top it off, when they remodeled, they added a large bar area. They are working on getting their liquor license. If the quality of the food already declined, I won't be around to see it when they make more profit from alcohol sales than the food. They should have never messed with their mother's and father's restaurant. The one positive was our waitress. She was very pleasant and took care of us. You just can't...