Maritime Parc — Restaurant in Jersey City

Where to begin. I'll start by passing along the word on the street about this place: you're paying for the view, not the food. After attending a wedding at Maritime Parc last weekend, I fully concur with that statement — though I would add that in addition to terrible food, you're paying for equally terrible service.

I arrived just 20 minutes before cocktail hour and learned that our room still not ready to receive our party. While we waited, we were packed into the corner a dining room next to a small bar. I asked the bartender for a drink and to quote directly, he said, "You have to pay for them. If you wait 10 minutes, they're part of the cocktail hour." This was the first event I've been to where this happened. It came across as rude and frugal, especially because we were sitting around in a room that wasn't ours.

We arrived in the wedding hall which was beautiful. True to its reputation, the view at Maritime is awesome. However, the spectacular vista is situated directly behind the head table, which only a fraction of the guests can see. Cocktail hour was set to take place outside, where inclement weather was rapidly becoming a problem. Since I was "too early" for the cocktail hour before, I made my way over to the only bar in the room, which was a small table set-up complete with one whole bartender. This is how our conversation went.

"Hi. can I have a glass of Rosé, please?" "Oh, sorry. We don't have any Rosé back here." "Ok, champagne then." "Sorry, no champagne. There's champagne in the Bride's cocktail listed right here. It's a peach bellini." "Nice, I'll have one of those." "I don't have them here. They are walking around with them on trays."

At this point I'm frustrated because 1) what kind of bar at a wedding doesn't have champagne? 2) Not just one, but three of my requests were rejected for no reason and 3) I had planned to pace myself alcoholically this evening. I was now forced to drink hard liquor out of the gate because there was simply nothing else behind the bar aside from 18-year-old tequila and Remy Martin.

Now it gets interesting. I made my way around the buffet with a appetizer dish and immediately found myself confused by the other little plates sitting under each portion of food. Every individual appetizer had a plate, every clam, every shrimp risotto, every oyster, crab, scallop, whatever. So now my tiny plate has 2 other little plates balancing on it, and it's full after just two clams.

I look for my seat, start getting settled, and immediately get attacked by a waitress who shouts, "THE COCKTAIL HOUR IS OUTSIDE." At this time, many of the guests have made the same mistake, so the staff starts roping off the tables. They were literally shooing people out of their seats. Outside was lovely, even with the crappy weather, but there were only 3 tables. Those tables were constantly covered in dirty appetizer plates (as I said, small plates are in surplus at this venue, unlike champagne). Even if the sun was shining on this wedding, there would've been no where to sit and eat.

Now, the food. I'll start by saying that I am not a picky eater, especially when I'm drinking. The red flag for me came when I bit a piece of prosciutto and tasted nothing. The saltiest, most flavorful meat in Italy, tasted like a piece of paper. Everything I put it my mouth was like that. At one point I even wondered if there was something wrong with my palette. I made the mistake of choosing the worse of the two meager dinner options: the sea bass. Even at 23-years-old, I know that there is usually a chicken dish. It was steak or fish or starve in this case. Bone-dry salad. No pasta. Couldn't tell you how dessert was because I never saw it.

The most disturbing part for me was the fact that there was no bathroom on our floor. There were elderly people — as well as drunk girls in heels and gowns — that had to go downstairs every time they needed a toliet.

In closing, we took shots out of wine glasses. There was nothing else...

My wedding day was the happiest day of my life, and to be honest this review was difficult for me to write, but if I am being honest with myself and anyone about to spend a significant amount of money on their special day, it needed to be said. When I first entered Maritime Parc, I knew I would get married there. We had looked at 12 venues between NYC and NJ, and this was the only one that felt right. The first person we met was Priscila and working with her from start to finish was amazing. She is very professional, and most importantly responsive. My experience with Priscila was great and I have no complaints here. My issues with Maritime started about 2 weeks out from my wedding with the Event Coordinator Alexis. Considering this time is already super stressful for any bride, you would assume someone working with you would be accommodating and eager to find solutions for you. Unfortunately, my experience with the coordinator was anything but smooth. I found myself very aggravated with her communication style. The way she would respond to me in e-mails came across aggressive at times, and she had a “my way or the highway approach” to dealing with specific things I had asked for. To be frank she was rude, and I refused to work with her after one specific telephone conversation. Luckily, I was able to contact the VP of Operations Jette who took over per my request. The night before the wedding we scheduled our walk-through rehearsal, and shortly after arrival we were informed that their AC unit went down earlier that day during a wedding, and they were not sure when it would be working again. This news put me into a full panic. Now I realize things like this are out of anyone’s control, but you would expect a high-end venue like Maritime Parc would have a back up plan for something like this. Maybe some industrial fans, multiple portable AC units, or a repair man on stand-by? But no, we were told they were not sure when the problem would be fixed, but that the 3rd floor room would feel like an ice box by tomorrow, and we were highly encouraged to change our floor plan last minute to have the reception on the 3rd floor. So, the set up was moved to the 3rd floor and everything was beautiful. The staff working on our wedding day were phenomenal, but it was still extremely hot. It ended up being 91 degrees that day, so the inside of our wedding was far from an ice box. They had 2 portable AC units in the bridal suites, but they were not even working very well, so it was hot there too. Thankfully, we still made the best of our day, and our guests did not seem to mind the heat. The dance floor was packed, and people could still go outside for some air and great views when they needed. After all the formalities were completed, I went to the bar and asked for my signature cocktail, which was supposed to be made with Mezcal, (details I had gone over with Alexis), and I was told by the bartender there was no Mezcal, only Tequila. My husband had also requested Jack Daniels Honey to be at the bar, but that never made it there either. These things were not the end of the world, but again you spend months planning out small details and weddings are not cheap, so you expect what you have asked for to be there. All in all, we had an amazing night and I do not regret booking this venue, I just wish my experience would have been flawless so I could have written Maritime Parc a...

I had my wedding here in August this year. The venue itself is beautiful and despite some initial issues with the food(severely under-cooked meat, see picture) , the food ended up being very good during the actual wedding. The issue with the venue is the service. This happened during our "tasting", which I included a picture below only includes passed horderves, the martime punch drink, and a 20% discount on full menu items. This is also where you do your cake tasting. The tasting was a mess and as you can see from the picture with the meat, they had issues with everything(feel free to reach out if you have more questions about what happened). Our details person left early and we had to email our sales person to discuss what happened the next day. The owner called and said, "while he isn't in the business of apologizing" this level of service and food issue wouldn't happen at the wedding. We eventually got a new details person and they brought us back again and this was much better, but they weren't very organized after all the details were laid out. First, you will not meet your maitre d', operations captain, and head server until day of. They aren't all over you trying to get everything done and make the process smooth for you. They unfortunately messed up 5 separate tables where they either had not enough chairs or place settings. This is something that is confirmed weeks in advance and reconfirmed days before. (Side note we double checked everything and they just didn't execute the plan they had confirmed with us with the tables). Second, the reception started 30 minutes late because they only asked guests to start going down to the reception 10 minutes before it began and then didn't follow-up. I had to yell out to my guests(160+ people) to head downstairs. I had to bring my wife's bouquets and flowers to our sweetheart table as they forgot. We saw our 3 staff members a total 3 times the entire night. This included them getting us a drink once. They didn't fix any issues with the tables until my parents handled it. They also on the rectangle tables(we had both round and rectangle) they put 6 people to each side on a 12 person table instead of 5 and 5 on each side and two people at the separate heads of the table as the originally showed us. This made is very uncomfortable for some guests as they were smushed together. I could keep going and this review is long enough, but I will finish with this, we had a great wedding and all of our non-martime parc vendors were fantastic and made the night truly special for guests and ourselves(would be happy to give recommendations). The venue like I said is beautiful(especially the views) and the food was very good, but I also know how much weddings cost and if service is a big concern then I would avoid this place. We were on top of them and they still couldn't execute things properly, which is unfortunate because the venue could...