Hudson Hall — Restaurant in Jersey City

Great food, great atmosphere, and decent prices come together to keep me thinking about Hudson Hall. My girlfriend and I stopped in for our second time, this time for their Happy Hour last night. It's a huge space, and beautifully done in terms of decoration and atmosphere - for the most part (I'll talk about that later).

I got a beer (most drafts are $5 on Happy Hour) and we split the wings, a large pretzel, and the pastrami sliders. The pretzel is large without being overly huge and comes with a spicy mustard and a cheese dip. The outside is nicely crispy, it's well salted, and warm on the inside. The wings are pretty spicy, not crazy. They're fried and they've got a smoky taste to them similar to all of the meats here since, well, they smoke them. Last and in my opinion the best, the pastrami sliders. The Hudson Hall pastrami is smoky, melt in your mouth goodness. I almost can't believe myself that I thought this, but I like this pastrami even better than the heavy hitters that everyone is always raving about - Katz's Delicatessen included. It's got a great smoky taste that's lacking from a lot of other pastrami. Added bonus - it's really close to home. All of these dishes cost $6 each during Happy Hour, and we enjoyed every one of them.

As for atmosphere - despite this place being relatively new, they really did a nice job with making it look like it's been here forever. Looking around, you'll see old wood, old brick, faded signs, and a general old industrial beer hall feel. They've got two bars, one in the main room and one in a side room that's also beautiful. In the main room, they've also got lots of long wooden tables for seating.

My ONE complaint about the atmosphere, and it's a pretty big one because in my opinion it brings down the whole feel of the place, is the music. This place has all the makings to transport you across the world to feeling like you're in a real Eastern European beer hall - until you realize that they're playing something like Bob Marley. I don't get it. I love Bob Marley and there's a lot of other music I love, but I come here because it's an Eastern European beer hall / smokehouse, and I would enjoy it so much more if the music matched the rest of the atmosphere.

I'll say that one more thing I like is their live music. I feel like Jersey City has so much potential to be a live music destination, but so many bars aren't taking advantage. In my opinion, the more live music that's around, the better.

Overall, I really like the place and I'm pumped that it's opened near me. I'll definitely come here on a regular basis, whether it's for happy hour, trivia night, live music, or just for a random...

Pro's: Great decor / Vibe Great Beer Selection / Great Mixology Menue (only if you like Bourbons and Rye's)

Con's: it seems this place does not really know what it wants to be. The decor and vibe make you think German Beer Haus - making me think I wanted to eat some Brats/Wursts. As I scan the Menu - there is nearly none of that - however there are other quintessential German items, like the "Munich-Style Pretzel", Peierogi's, Pilsner Mussels, but that's it. I then realized that they label themselves as a "smokehouse" - ok...but then again...items that you would normally associate with a smokehouse are not on the menu. Get some ass kicking brats like that beer garden on the north end of Hoboken - and this would be a good thing.

The Food - We had the Hickory Smoked wings. They were not very smokey, but were very salty. Meh.

We had the Petite Charcuterie Board ($18) - it had 5 slices of Salami, and 5 slice/chuncks of what I think was thier smoked bacon. The rest was an assortment of jam/mustard/some unidentifiable spread, some chard bread "slivers" and some Giardiniera (pickled vegtables - italian style -likely out of a jar). So...we paid 18 bucks for each of us to get two slices of meat. The cost to the Hudson hall for this was likely no more than 3 bucks. This should have been no more than $10 at retail.

We Had the Pork Duo (Braised pork belly, house smoked bacon, Potato Gratin) - The pork belly was meh. Bacon was good, and the Potato Gratin seemed to be the bulk of the dish

We had the one and only Brat on the Menu - a Smallish Chedder Brat with pickled cabbage/mustard on a hot dog roll. The brat was very dry/overcooked. Disappointing.

I would come here for a beer - but not much else.

It seems to meet that nothing "major" needs to take place in order to get this place from "meh" to GREAT. You just need to tweak a few things - and possibly taste the food more often to...

came here for drinks at the bar once and the bar tenders were nice. came here another time on a friday night to try their food in the beer hall area. it was quite busy around 6:20pm but there were still plenty of seats and my friend and i got seated right away at one of the long benches. i took advantage of the happy hour $6 beer ($1 off of the regular price) before 7pm and ordered a Hamilton pilsner. it was pretty good.

we ordered a pretzel to share, as well as half a rack of smoked ribs, and a Reuben sandwich. the pretzel was fresh and the cheese dip was very good, but i wish i also had some honey mustard to go with it. it was also just a bit dry for me. the smoked ribs were good. my Reuben sandwich had maybe homemade sauerkraut which were not pickled enough for my usual liking, as well as not enough 1000 island :(

after our server took our order, only the food runners came and delivered our food. we never saw our server again till the end of our meal. we had no water refills and i couldn't order another beer or ask for more 1000 island dressing to go with my sandwich.

we did get more water eventually when she came back with my second beer order of Guinness. unfortunately it was the most watered down Guinness i've ever had....

overall average food, good vibe, and a nice selection of draft beers. not great service when they're busy, but we had a good experience at the bar during our...