Beers on the Pier

While there are plenty of bars with great food and brew in Hoboken, they don’t have what Pier 13, the city’s newest watering hole, has—lawn chairs, crab-crate tables and drinks in plastic cups.

Pier 13’s beer truck serves beer, wine and cocktails from a location more reminiscent of a state fair than its waterfront setting. With Manhattan as a backdrop, the truck is parked between a boathouse and a stretch of grass, where patrons stretch out on striped canvas chairs and rest their cold ones on multicolored traps traditionally used for catching crustaceans. (For a bite to go with the drink, food trucks park on the other side of the boathouse.)

I went to Pier 13 with a longtime friend, Jenn, and her sister, Melissa, after the three of us had dinner one recent Thursday night. We wanted more time to chat, and we thought it might be the perfect spot. After making our selection of light and dark beers for our first round, we made our way toward the crowd on the grass.

Couples, groups of friends and some families with small kids shared the pier with us. A father keeping a close watch on his tottering infant passed us a few times. Some other guy came over to say hello and wound up dropping his beer and splashing Melissa. Someone else we thought we recognized ended up being a former soccer coach from the town where we grew up. We chatted with him for a few minutes but strained to hear anything over the hip hop and dance music blaring from the DJ’s stand next to the truck. Then we meandered back to the line at the truck for another round.

The beer truck’s owner was quoted in a local news article saying he would like patrons to feel like they are in someone’s backyard while hanging out on the pier. I think he nailed it.

It was a fun night, and it took this young mom right back to her college years, when every so often, I would leave Pennsylvania and come back home to Ramsey to visit with friends and get another dose of Jersey.

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