The Shore Thing

The place looked ok and I figured you couldn’t mess up a hot dog!!! I was wrong… I wanted to like this place but the food is just below less than average… sorry! It was probably one of my top 3 «worst meals ever».

Last year, I stayed at a house where you could see The Shore Thing from the back porch. Spending part of my vacation alone with 2 kids, I went frequently for decently priced food and good service. Plus the prize box that they offer kids was good enough to bribe my daughters into eating. That may have been reason #1, frankly.
So this year, despite staying somewhere different, our family trekked down to the Shore Thing for dinner because of earlier positive experiences.
First off– the place was dead. This was July 5^th, where you couldn’t walk on the Boardwalk because of the mass of sweaty humanity, and no one had come here. I thought we were lucky… …
Second– the service was once again top notch. The waitress couldn’t have tried harder to please, as she had to come over to explain many issues as our meal went on. They were out of applesauce for kids meals, but could replace it with fruit (sure!)… they were out of blue cheese (for grilled cheese), but could replace that with dressing (ummmm… no)… they only had one order of crab cakes left (our party had ordered 2 and therefore had to fight it out)… It was eventful and she rolled right along with it.
Finally, had I not been so pleased previously, this meal would have rounded this review to 2 stars. The crab bisque was incredibly thick. The cobb salad was the same as the house salad (which someone else at our table had for fair comparison), only 2 times as big with a few avocados thrown on. And the crab cakes… oh, the crab cakes which we had fought over, were the consistency and color of meatloaf. We ended up trying to determine who HAD to eat them versus who wanted to.
They try hard and their prices are great. Their food was lackluster. I hope it was an off night.

We were here for breakfast. The coffee was decent and the service was friendly. The omelet was fine too. Only problem were the pancakes. They were awful. Not sure why a breakfast place put frisbees on the table instead of pancakes. They were hard to cut since the bottoms were hard and all the maple syrup in the world couldn’t make these edible. Microwave pancakes would have been a better option. We will not be back for breakfast.

This eatery is cheap and looked clean (read below). And cheap.
The Shore Thing is your typical casual restaurant. We ordered fried pickles as an appetizer, which were overly breaded and a little soggy. Edible if you’re starving.
I ordered a BLT. The bacon was crisp and the lettuce crunchy. I asked for toasted rye and was given what seemed like day old bread. I asked the waitress if I could have the bread toasted, to which she replied, «it IS toasted.» To her credit, she took it back to be re toasted, even though she was huffing and puffing all the way.
Hubby ordered a cheeseburger, which he finished after one disappointing bite. This man is a true carnivore and LOVES his beef. He would eat it every night if he could. He said the meat didn’t taste «right». As i always say, «if you don’t like it, don’t eat it!»
Here’s the kicker and what grossed me out the most– at the end of the meal, the waitress came over and asked if we used the appetizer plates. I replied, «not all of them.» She took all of the plates and stacked it with the clean dishes in the kitchen (our seat offered a view of the kitchen). Now, I realize that this is probably done all the time, however, I don’t need to see it. It made me sick to think that I might have eaten off of someone else’s dirty dish.
I would rate this restaurant one star based on the food alone, but the price point, outdoor tables, and ambience of Asbury avenue pushed the rating up to two stars. I would NEVER eat here again.
Editing on ¼/​12
Received the following email from the owners of The Shore Thing via private message:
THEM:
On January 3, 2012 8:36 PM jt1116MaysLanding wrote:
There is no way that this happened. There are no seats where you see into the kitchen. Our burgers our fresh ground beef your husband is probably use to frozen unseasoned ground beef. Our servers have never done what you said about the plates. They our to lazy to walk past the bus pan in the restaurant area to bring them back to the kitchen. If there was an isssue with the quilty of your burger then why did you not talk to someone there is an owner there everyday. Please remove this review.
ME:
This ABSOLUTELY DID happen.
We were sitting against the far wall– when you go in the door, step to the right. We could see into the kitchen. If there is a door there, it was open. Our visit was toward the end of the night and we were the last ones out.
And yes, your servers did do that with the plates. How can you possible know that they didn’t? Sorry to tell you, but it did happen EXACTLY as I described it in my review?
I will not be removing my review as this is a true account of our experience.
Have a good day.
THEM:
I will be sending a mesage to trip advisor. You can not put stuff on here when you have no idea what you are talking about. Once again if this did happen and you were so grossed out why did you not say anything. I was here every night in August and the plate thing has never happened. Our servers do not wash the dishes so they would not put them back in the kitchen as clean dishes. They put them in the bus pan and then they are washed. I dine out a lot and I would never pay for a bad burger. You look like an idiot if all those things happened and you did not talk to the owner before you left. It is people like you that ruin these sites. Read the other reviews that is how this place is ran.
Conclusion– I still stand behind what I wrote as this review is factual and was definitely my experience. I think it shows poor business practice that this restaurant had the audacity to call me names and discount my experience. They could have used the review to improve their food and service OR ignored it and continued on as is.
Just wanted to let everyone know the type of people that run this business.