2012 Jersey Choice: The Best of NJ

From world-class food purveyors to quality retailers to wonderful places to relax and play, New Jersey has it all. Here’s the best of the best, as chosen by our readers.

Posted March 12, 2012

The rest of the country might not believe it, but we know New Jersey has the best of everything. From world-class food purveyors to quality retailers to wonderful places to relax and play, the Garden State has it all. On these pages, we bring you the best of the best, as chosen by our readers.

Click on the links below to find out about the Best of New Jersey:

Food and Drink
We asked our readers to list their favorite places to eat and drink, and they responded. Read on to find out which places our readers feel are the best in the state.

Shopping
We sure do love to shop here in the Garden State. Find out which boutiques, clothing stores, flea markets, and arts and crafts supply stores our readers most enjoy.

Health and Beauty
New Jersey is replete with day spas, salons, health and beauty shops, exercise studios, fitness clubs, and biking trails. But which ones do our readers favor? You'll find the answers here.

Recreations and Attractions
In the warmer months, there are no shortage of recreation activities offered in NJ. Our readers have a few unique choices of their own...along with some staple favorites.



Methodology:

HOW YOU PICKED JERSEY’S BEST

The listings on these pages are based on the Best of New Jersey online readers’ poll. A total of 8,272 eligible ballots were counted for the poll, which ran at njmonthly.com from November 21 through January 15. That’s an increase of 11.1 percent from the 7,442 voters last year. Voters were asked to pick their favorites in 80 categories. Only one vote per e-mail or IP address was allowed. The ballots were tabulated by J.H. Cohn LLP, the Roseland-based accounting and consulting firm with offices in Edison, Eatontown and Princeton, as well as New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and California (jhcohn.com).

We have listed the winner in each of the 80 categories, plus at least two runners-up. In the interest of honoring “bests” from throughout the state, in most categories we also have listed among the runners-up the top vote-getters in the north, central or south regions when a representative of any of those regions did not finish in the top three. New winners (that is, those that did not win last year) are marked with [NEW]  icons.

For chains, votes for individual stores are aggregated into a single entry. Local and regional chains are listed as winners or runners-up if they earned enough aggregated votes to finish in the top three. National chains are not included in this year’s rankings.