Vesper Tavern

Hey this place is great.
I felt welcomed and they’ve left me alone to slowly dine. The food is actually quite good for airport food! I opted for a side salad (very fresh, beautiful leaves and veggies, interesting dressing) and some duck confit mini Peking duck appetizer. Those were delicious!
The wine selection here is pretty fab, far better than many airport selections.
A little spendy but comfortable, relaxed, clean with superb service.
This place is at least 4 stars– I’m giving it 5 for the taste of a $ 45 glass wine brought to me without a blink of an eye (I didn’t get it).
Try this place if you like quiet, cosy, atmospheric, non-​chain restaurants without gimmicks. Good good!

My husband and I were early for our flight so had plenty of time for a meal at the airport. We were impressed at the service and food at this place. The restaurant is really bright and kept clean. Breakfast was delicious and fresh. Our waiter was very attentive and nice, and everything came out pretty fast. Will definitely return next time, great spot!

Food was not bad, the mushroom penne pasta and chicken tempura sandwich was great. We ordered the grilled peppers and they basically we’re just that… no flavor. We also ordered the burger special with 2 beers but never got the second beer and ordered a salad and never received that as well. The iPad thing is cool in concept but the service sucks and not all the iPad’s were working to order from. You have to ask for everything… water, lemon, ketchup, and to follow up on orders. Even the cocktails took a long time. Sad day.

I really hate this new ipad thing at the airport. Maybe its okay at the tables but at the bar you want to talk to someone. Just freaken tell them what drink you want lol. Anyway I have been through this before so I knew the drill.
Food here was actually really good for an airport. To bad I got a drink and sandwich (Ipad swipe for $ 41 and he got a drink and a sandwich (Ipad Swipe $ 44)
Shoulda just grabbed an overpriced wrap, magazine and water… I said to myself.
whatayagonnado its vacation and we were so excited we go to the airport hella early.

This is one of those order by tablet place at the Newark airport. It was pretty self explanatory on how to place an order. The server was also quite responsive especially given that I had no control over the tip. I ordered the meatball appetizers which were delicious. However, the aged steak was a different matter. It was a think piece of meat and not at all what I had expected for a $ 40+ entrée. The meat itself was cooked reasonably well (I asked for medium rare and it was medium rare for the most part) but the quality of to meat was disappointing. A little on the expensive side for the end product.

DO NOT EAT HERE!!! THEY ARE THIEVES
Our waiter used the card reader, had to enter it 3 times and eventually added $ 25. onto our bill. Mistake???
I think not. After asking several times for a paper receipt and Not getting one, I had to run to catch a flight.
Buyers beware

It looks nice from the outside but the food was marginal, the staff was helpful but the iPad based ordering system was nearly unusable.

I have not sampled the wares, because 3 (three!) iPads in a row have failed to process the payment due to card reader failures. What’s worse, I had to manually re-​enter my order for 3 people into another iPad twice — staff kept bringing me new ones to try. Staff were nice, though, so my problem is with the hardware they use and management that tolerates this situation. I saw other people at adjacent tables having issues with the wretched things, too. Wasted 40 minutes of my time.
So, no more Vesper Tavern for me.

I’m not going to talk about $$$, your in the airport and choices are limited. I get it. However, the food and service was horrible.
To start: You have to order via Ipad. No server to take your order. I guess I could’ve flagged my food delivery person and ask questions. Order process looks pretty straight forward. No sweat.
Food: Bacon Cheese burger with fries. I ordered medium rare, however the burger came out well done. Cook staff was in the back fighting with the food delivery staff. No way I was going to return this burger… didn’t want any extra condiment in my burger. Fries… cold and greasy.
Drink: ordered what I thought was a German Wheat beer on draft, per the picture on the ipad. Food delivery person brought out a pilsner in a bottle. I told the server that is not what is shown in the ipad menu. She just shrug it off and said…“pics on the menu never gets updated”…nice.
Also, after you order via the Ipad you get a nice little advertisement popup before you can swipe your card to pay. Tacky…
Finished my beer and left. Wanted to warn other travelers.

Just hate your family?
Vacation and ignore them.
Dine like you’re at work.

Slow service, iPad for ordering and paying that didn’t work until the waiter held it just right — this was the start of my dining experience. The tablets are hokey, the photos with the menu obviously have little relationship to the food.
I ordered a burger well done; it came medium rare. Fries come with the burger but for an almost $ 4 more you can get Parmesan Fries which turn out to be regular fries with a tablespoon of grated cheese dumped on top. I know this because I got regular fries and had to send them back to get what I ordered.
All in all, a poor experience even for airport dining.

Ehhhh. Dining experience was not pleasant at all. My opinion is that the restaurant’s attempt to streamline the inundation of heavy patrons failed miserably. Each table (with 2 – 4 iPads) and bar are equipped with digital devices (iPads) to take your order and to receive payment as well. What this results in is no human interaction with any of the staff unless you have a special drink up your sleeves. I will say that the patrons I met were all in agreement that this new venture was «no bueno.» With that said, the staff were readily available to assist anyone who had issues with their technology; i.e., the «deer in the headlights look.» My thoughts, everyone wants human interaction. Especially if they’r dining alone.

With everything turning into automatic service except that the waiter brings in the food, the last part has become essential in judging the whole service line. It did a good job here with fast delivery speed and attentive service. Very spacious inside hence I did not find it too difficult to locate a corner spot with charger. Food was ordinary and pricy but you cannot ask for more in the airport anyway.

Consistently bad service with the same annoying iPad ordering system as other OTG offerings.
Despite the menu being clearly marked food often comes out different or missing components listed in the description.

We were two adults and two kids for dinner. Excellent service which I was not expecting as they have IPad ordering system.
Food was delivered quick and it was hot. Not the airport standard. We travel through Newark 4 times a year vesper is a major improvement over previous eatery
Thumbs up, would recommend a call

I honestly think a huge part of whether you like Vesper is how you feel about technology.
When I saw the tablets on the table, I wondered what they were for — actually didn’t think they were anything more than for ordering. Nope — you can also surf the web and keep up to date on your flight status. What I appreciate about that is I didn’t have to worry about whether I had time to charge my phone because I didn’t use it/​my battery.
There are a few clunky things about ordering in this way; for example, as some folks have mentioned, it’s a little weird to add a tip before you actually see what service is like (although I thought the service was excellent — from greeting to service). Also, I wish there were an option for adding a note like
does — for example, I don’t eat bread, but there wasn’t an option for saying no to any kind of bread. I feel guilty when it comes to the table and I know it needs to be thrown out because I can’t have it.
Someone mentioned they didn’t like how it affected conversation by being the centerpiece; they may have responded to that, because you can take the tablet off its stand (this also allows for using your debit/​credit card).
Now, it’s taken me this long to get to the food part — I went for breakfast, and I think the food was EXCELLENT. I did love the Garden State Diner, but the quality of this food was far higher. The coffee was excellent; eggs cooked perfectly, and I even had turkey bacon (who has turkey bacon, seriously) and it was delicious.
I definitely plan to return for breakfast and am hoping I’ll have reason to try it for another meal as well.

Terminal C restaurant by the 80’s. The food is comparable in price to that of airport food, but the quality really is surprising good for Newark airport.
My fiancé and I go there every time we travel for lunch because we know we can get a fast, healthy, and well made meal before we get on the plane. He usually eats his there and I get mine to go and they’re always willing to accommodate. It’s never too packed so finding a quick seat is always possible.
I get their salad with grilled chicken and the salad dressing on the side and it’s always very good. The chicken isn’t overly seasoned or greasy (which it shouldn’t because it’s grilled!). Danny is a waiter there, he is very nice and remembered us! It’s always nice when a waiter remembers you and is attentive.

Prices are on the high side even for airport establishments. Aren’t they saving staff and management cost by using iPads to order and pay?
The cauliflower soup was excellent. The spinach and mushroom salad was okay. Both the mushrooms and the pancetta should have been grilled longer, but the spinach leaves were fresh and had a generous amount of blue cheese crumbles.
Although I found them distracting, I’d be okay with the order and pay by iPad if they allowed a tab to be opened and then pay at the end like a normal restaurant. Having to swipe a card for every new drink order was annoying.
Service was good. The server talked me through ordering by iPad and the food was brought quickly.
Bottom line: I doubt the place would survive without the captive audience of an airport.

Layover in Newark brought us to vesper tavern. I personally didn’t mind the iPad ordering system and found it rather convenient. It even allows you to enter your flight info so it can warn you when you’re getting close to boarding time.
Our bartender was awesome and extremely personable. Shame on me for forgetting his name but I had been traveling and it was a long day. He took our order personally instead of using the iPad system and chatted with us throughout. Good beers on tap, decent wines, awesome food — all in all a great experience.
We ordered the cauliflower soup which was delicious. Had the feel of a cream soup without the heaviness. The lobster roll was also delicious. Made with a very good coleslaw and the right amount of celery with an abundance of lobster. Also came with fries which were perfectly crispy served with a mini bottle of Heinz ketchup.
The bar automatically calculates tip and tax into the bill. Definitely on the pricier side but expected from an airport.

Where to start? The impersonal touch of ordering via iPad or perhaps the credit card or miles payments only? The strange retro/​modern music playing overhead? No, no… Let me start with my very expensive yet entirely memorable meal (memorable for all the wrong reasons)
As I ate my food I imagined that this is what is served to troublesome maximum security prisoners being punished in a third world country somewhere. A thought of one of them begging for gruel or a swift death after the third or fourth meal.
Or perhaps used as an instrument of torture. Force fed to an enemy captive just to have him beg for water because it was so salty that he would reveal the most sacred secrets of his mother land for just one sip of water.
I only came here because it was right across from my gate and my flight was delayed. I did not want to risk missing my flight. A mistake I will never repeat again.