Prime 13 — Restaurant in Point Pleasant Beach

Took my Texas employee here after 2 weeks of training to celebrate. The staff was nice enough but nothing to write home about. The decor doesn’t really exist and everything seems to blend together. It is not exactly a bad thing, but it doesn’t give off a high end or steakhouse vibe. It’s similar to what you will find in the meat packing district in NYC but without the hidden Gem entrees. The food was nothing to rave about however, I will say the stuff scallops were cooked to perfection and carried a ton of flavor. That dish and the 13bacon appetizer were the highlights and quite frankly, the saviors of the night. We both got the special aged bone in steak for entree. Very basic potato and well cooked/steamed broccoli. The steak itself was $87.00 and not worth it at all. It had decent flavor and char depth but almost to much, acting as a filet. We both requested medium, however it came out medium rare at best, some portions more rare than others. For me, it matters very little with a good piece of meat, but the meat although aged for I believe 53 days, was overly dry even when under cooked. How? I couldn’t tell you! Possibly a poor brining process? I was not impressed with the steak at all and have had better $40.00 primes at a basic steakhouse. The ahi tuna was an absolute disaster. Dry to the bone and brutally overcooked. It was listed as “pan seared” but was more so breaded and fried. I have never had a Tuna prepared this way and I never with to have it again. The spicy aholi lacked luster as well so made for a very poor dish overall. I had heard a lot of mixed reviews about this spot but unfortunately I have to agree more so with the negative reviews. Travis was our main POC/waiter. It does seem they split tips based on how they operate, which I think is great for a standard restaurant with high churn, but to apply it here just simply didn’t work. You lose the exclusivity feel when you apply a pool wait staff in this way, in my honest opinion. It’s also very difficult to build a rapport with the wait staff which could lead to a poor tip. I personally almost always tip above rate, and did so on this day but not because I had a great experience. I would not revisit this place for the experience or the food. There is very little to be desired here. Side note: the staff asked me how everything is. Me being me, I always provide honest feedback in hopes it’s received and improved upon. I was honest about the experience after he upsold the “special” and he claimed he would report it to the chef. We didn’t hear anything about it after that conversation. One more side bar: restaurants should not add a service charge on bills for CC use. Do yourself and everyone visiting a favor and raise your prices to reflect the 3% and let us customers think your doing the right thing. With such a limited menu and hope to be in the “high end” category, you would not expect a service charge on the bill. You’ll be better received and increase the likelihood of a well rounded experience. My 2 C! To end on a positive note: I got my wife the herbed salmon in a go bag. I asked for her review and she absolutely loved it. Also, I did enjoy the pretzels. Best of luck to...

The expectation far exceeded the experience and the price was exorbitant compared to the quality.

Everyone has raved about this restaurant and we were excited to be there celebrating a Birthday with a party of ten.

Initially the server was attentive and did a good job capturing our orders. It was a Saturday night, early and we / she could be heard.

Start the clock. Appetizers and salads a little slow. Room volume quickly increasing.

My wife and I had the "House", a $100 Porterhouse for 2, including 2 sides and a salad that we upgraded for $6 each to a wedge w blue cheese. I added a French onion soup.

We were all enjoying the company so the length of time from order to apps and salads passed quickly.

The French onion soup was amazing, one of the best I've had. The wedge salad on par for a steak house standard, with a healthy portion of blue cheese, wish there had been a bit more dressing. This was a big salad and with my wife and i unable to finish, had hoped to bring home the balance. Unfortunately the bus team cleared and we missed that chance.

By that time we were ready for the beef. We waited, and waited until finally a couple dishes showed up. Then a couple more, then a couple more. All toll i think it took 8 minutes or so from the time the first of our ten to the last l received meals.

Two folks served earlier had to send their food for a rewarm. My sons and wife had the NY strip, upgraded it with Oscar at ordering and received it with oscar on top of the mushroom and onion sautee instead of replacing it. Not the Experience or flavors they expected.

Our Porterhouse came on a sizzling platter and when i say sizzling, i mean grease flying, cooking temp hot. The Porterhouse was presliced, a common upper end steakhouse presentation I'm not fond of. In this case we had ordered the steak medium rare. It arrived with the filet side medium and the NY strip side rare. The platter was so hot it continued cooking the filet side to well done, we pulled the strip side off at medium rare.

What a waste of meat. The filet was tasteless at well done, the NY strip sinewy, tough and really inedible. We mentioned it to our server but no one seemed to care.

All in all the atmosphere is noisy pub. The menu, well overpriced for the experience. The food missed the mark. Save yourself some time and money, there's better elsewhere in town and nearby. These folks have forgotten the customer and think...

For context: this is the first time I’m leaving a review critiquing a business or restaurant. We went to prime 13 for my boyfriends birthday dinner. Upon arriving the waiter, not host, because there wasn’t one (This isn’t a critique because I know how hard it is for businesses to find a full staff) tried to sit us at a table directly in front of the door. We asked to be seated at a different table because there was over 20 open tables, and the waiter made it seem like it was virtually impossible. After offering us a seat at the “chefs table” (seats with a view of cleaning supplies), we politely declined and pointed to an empty table and asked if we could be seated there, the waiter reluctantly agreed, and acted like he did us a major favor by accommodating our request. I was a little thrown off by our starter of pretzel sticks with a mustard sauce, considering this is a steakhouse. We moved on to our appetizer, which was scallops over a bed of risotto, which were sparse, but tasty. Next we moved onto our salad (we declined upgrading our house salad into a Caesar salad for six more dollars each) and that was fine as well. For main course, we decided to go all out since we were celebrating, we ordered the steak special topped with a lobster tail, filet mignon and some side dishes. The side dishes were all pretty good although the potato au gratin was served with very thick potato slices. Both of our steaks were seared to almost a char. They had no flavor other than the burnt outside. Although we were extremely disappointed with the meal, we did not complain at all to the wait staff as we know it’s not particularly their fault. The reason I’m writing this review is because when we received the check, our waiter stopped at our table and scribbled something on the top of it. Upon further investigation he scribbled the number 52 on the top of the check, which was 20% of our check total. I have been to many dining establishments from fine dining to bars to diners and anything in between, and I have never had an experience like that. To assume that I couldn’t figure out what the tip was or it should be 20% and to be so blatant as to write on the top of our check completely rubbed me the wrong way. It’s safe to say we will never be going back and I’m leaving this review so other unsuspecting customers know what they’re getting...