Hailey's Harp & Pub — Restaurant in Metuchen

My husband and I have been going to this place since we moved to the area back in 2021 never had a bad experience until last week Friday (5.24.24). I ran in to pick up lunch for my husband the guy behind the bar was a tall Caucasian man, who we’ve seen before but never got serviced by him. I approached the bar since I was going to order food to go, I had to wave him down for me to place an order, which is fine he seemed overwhelmed and mentioned to another customer that he was by himself. I ordered the food, paid and left (I knew I was coming back so I thought I’ll tip him when I came back since I was going to dine in). When I got back I sat by the bar, after 7-10 minutes I waved him so I could order a beer. He brought the beer to me and walked away not saying a word. He walked to the other side of the bar to continue his conversation with other customers. I wanted to order food, so when he finally made eye contact (after almost 15 minutes) I waved him so I could place my order, he took my order and walked away. He then brought my food, again no eye contact and no communication, and went back to continue talking with the people from before. He NOT once checked on me to see if my food came out ok, or if I needed anything else. I finished eating and it wasn’t until other people walked in and sat next to me that he approached. Once he finished taking the other woman’s order I asked for the check. He brought it and I gave him my card. I paid and left, his service was HORRIBLE I did not tip him. He ran after me outside as if I didn’t pay my bill to ask me why I didn’t tip him, EMBARRASSING!!!! People around were watching! I explained to him that he wasn’t attentive and not once he checked on me and tips are EARNED. I was a server once when I was younger and the restaurant managers always told us in order to get tip you have to provide great service to EVERY customer that sits at your tables. I was actually disappointed because I never had an issue before with any other server, every time we go and Brandon takes care of us it’s always a great experience. A lot of the servers know me and my husband we are great with tips if we receive good service. I will be taking a long break from going to this place because I shouldn’t feel forced to tip your staff if your staff is not...

The owner was extremely rude to my friend and I. My friend is Chinese and here on business. I'm from out of state, but was in NJ for unrelated matters. We found Hailey's Harp & Pub on the internet and decided to give it a try for the one night we would both be in Edison, NJ. We walked in, I gave the owner my driver's license, but friend only had his Chinese ID card. The owner became upset as soon as my friend handed him the card, and as my friend tried to say "Look, you can see my birthday there," he was cut off mid-sentence and we were asked to leave. The owner told us to "get out" and "don't be rude to the owner." Rude? For showing a foreign ID card in a bar? We weren't even pushy about it.

I know he's busy, and I completely understand that bars cannot take foreign ID cards. My friend should have brought his passport, and that was our fault. But if the owner had waited 2 more seconds, I was going to tell him that we don't mind going back to my friend's hotel, grabbing his passport, and coming back for some drinks. But nope -- he kicked us out. Instead of patience, he chose hostility. What an awful experience.

"Response from the owner - 3 weeks ago I asked nicely if he had secondary ID, based on the fact that the only english language on the ID was the DOB of 1989, I asked him for secondary ID in apolite manner and his was response was "what you cant read". So if your going to tell a story, pls have some facts correct. Thanks Haileys"

It's too bad I only just saw this now. You're wrong about his response. He is not a native English speaker, so it might have sounded odd to you, but he was only trying to show you where his DOB was written. He was not saying "What, you can't read?" He was saying "Look, you can read my dob here." I don't know why you were so defensive about that. Again, if you had given me 2 seconds to explain instead of throwing us out, I would have told you we were more than happy to go back to the hotel and get his passport. I suppose it doesn't matter to you since you seemed to have plenty of customers and we don't even live in that area, but it was extremely rude and...

As a restaurant this place is simply fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The food here is great, stick to your ribs fare. Dinners, which are large enough that I often get two meals out of, come with soup or salad. I recommend the soup, either potato leek or butternut squash (which is a sweet soup) when they have it (fall/winter). The Guinness chicken is an amazing dish which I have never been dissatisfied with. If you have mashed potatoes with your meal make sure to ask for their Jameson whiskey sauce if it's not listed with your meal already. It's a splendid gravy. They also have authentic Irish dishes which are quite good as well, though I prefer their other food.

As a bar, I know they have a great variety of beers particularly, with boards listing varieties. They have alcoholic ginger beer (which I tried and turned out to like quite a bit) and wine, and hard liquors as well of course. The bar itself is very busy in the evenings, but if you can get a stool you can stay there from what I can tell.

Now there are two drawbacks to Hailey's: it's a smaller establishment so the bar can get very crowded very fast, and it can get very loud, especially when they have a band playing, which is often. If those things bother you they do have a side room near the kitchen, ask to be seated there if you can. It's out of the way of the bar so it's both quieter and much less crowded. It also has a game table (though the name eludes me it plays similar to shuffle board, but with your hands).

They do have wifi available, but I've found it to be on the spottier side, still, it works...