The Ainsworth Hoboken — Restaurant in Hoboken

The Ainsworth is a tale of two restaurants: the front of the house and the back of the house.

The front of the house has really pleasant, helpful servers, staff, and managers. They address issues as quickly as possible, often without prompting as in the case of wobbly tables or kitchen delays. The view from outside is as good as any with a NYC skyline and if you go in teh late afternoon or early evening, a good breeze will make you feel like you are getting away with something.

Ultimately though, you are here to eat and drink, and this is where the front of the house saves the back of the house.

The fries are unworthy of your time, and they are the most common pairing with your meals. The Garlic Parm Fries were especially heinous, and should be avoided as the cheap and garlic-free option they are. The Yucca Fries, on the other hand, were an absolute revelation to one diner, and a turn-off to the other. Since the diner who loved them is writing this review, I will categorically state these are wonderful. The Sweet Potato Fries were sweet, enough to make me schedule a dentist appointment, and not recommended unless you have issues.

The sandwiches were, for the prices charged, very good. The crab cake sandwich could have been (should have been) a little bigger, and it was delicious. The Mahi-Mahi sandwich was, on the whole, either slightly better than the crab cake or slightly inferior, depending on your tastes. Both were well-executed.

Drinks. I'll not rate the beer except to say that in Hoboken, you should never run out of Hoboken Brewery options, like, ever. Guinness is perfectly fine.

Whre it gets interesting are the flights. Yes, you can get a bowling ball sized drink but skip that unless you are 22. Get a flight of the frozen margaritas and I dare anyone to say the passionfruit and blueberry margaritas have an equal in Hoboken. They were marvelous. Less so were the Tequila Sunrise-ish flight of choices. All were varying levels of trash -- I couldn't say what tequila was used but it wasn't very smooth -- and the variations of tastes never seemed to overcome the rough tequila tastes.

Finally, we expected the interior to be air conditioned, and it was not, and this may be a conscious decision, but in July, it woul be a poor one indeed.

Overall this is a good stop, and if you choose well, you can leave feeling very satisfied, even after you look...

The ONLY reason this gets one star is because it is a beautiful location. With that being said, do NOT waste your money. Go elsewhere. My friend and I went there on our lunch break and we were there for almost 2 hours because the service was horrendous. 40 minutes go by and we have yet to receive our drinks. We gave our order and then didn’t see the person again. No one ever brought us drinks so we actually had to go to their bar to get our sodas ourselves. When we asked for a manager, she said that she apologized but they were backed up because there was only one server. I ordered a Cobb salad and my friend ordered a rotisserie sandwich that the waitress said came with fries. When we got our food (an hour of waiting), my salad was plain- not a Cobb salad. My friend’s sandwich didn’t have a rotisserie chicken, it was grilled. Which was fine but the sandwich didn’t come with fries like it was supposed to, it came with a side salad. When we told the waiter our orders were wrong, he came back with my Cobb salad (egg painfully under cooked) and she got a plate of fries. Because of the food quality, we didn’t even finish it so we left hungry. When it was time to pay, the waiter had no problem rushing us to pay. When it comes to service, they throw that out the window but when it comes to money- they all of a sudden pay attention. They also charged us for the salad my friend didn’t want and was given. She didn’t even eat it. Do not go here. TERRIBLE...

THE WORST DINING EXPERIENCE I’VE EVER HAD! I went to the Hoboken location, for a dinner date last night. I was informed by another couple that there were MICE running under our seat, midway through our appetizer. We changed tables, as they did as well. Next thing you know, our entrees come out and a mouse LITERALLY CAME OUT… WHILE WE WERE SITTING THERE! We informed the waitress, she was extremely casual about it, as if it was a regular thing. So why would they even have us sit in that particular? Once they noticed me trying to record, everyone was sent to disturb the area, to keep the mice from reappearing. We spoke with a manager and he could careless. He blamed it on construction “outside” that was not happening, or in sight. DISGUSTING! We didn’t even eat our entrees due to the sighting. We weren’t compensated for them. We were compensated for the drinks that were still half full because the night barely started before this happened. We suggested they close down for a bit, just to at least try and assess the problem. The manager didn’t even entertain the suggestion. That place has a SERIOUS infestation and needs to be closed for a bit to fix it. I was beyond EMBARRASSED bringing someone here for a date. They didn’t even have the slightest bit of empathy about the situation because it was more than clear, that this wasn’t news to them. They were well aware, and just didn’t care because it was either such a frequent occurrence , or...