Proving Ground Waterfront Dining

First time eating here. The atmosphere was great. Lobster bisque was excellent. Mussels in white wine absolutely delicious. The garlic bread served with the mussels was amazing. I had the crab cake dinner. It was very good. Would get again. Husband had linguine scampi with shrimp, also very good. Service was wonderful. Great dinner. Definitely on my list to return.

We enjoyed the Octoberfest event and the food was excellent! Always a great place to have a nice meal!

From the view to the food to the service everything was excellent. Will definitely be back

How do you screw up a Vodka martini? The place has great views so they uptick the costs and you get low quality food. Service was average, not warm and friendly or engaging. The manager came around as we were getting up, i bit my tongue as we wanted to get outta there.

We arrived and asked to be seated outside by a heater. There was an open table with a heater but the hostess refused to seat us at that table. Instead she offered us a 2 seat hightop without a heater and freeze or sit inside. Summers gone. The restaurant was empty. Remember your Locals who carry you through the winter.

Wonderful waterfront location. Very attractive pub/restaurant. They had a nice luncheon menu for $16 which offered 4 lunch selections with soup.

Excellent drinks, food and waitress service. Delicious surf and turf & Stuffed flounder. Margaritas were so good. No mix makes a big difference. Kudos to waitress and bartender

Had a 6 o'clock reservation on a Thursday night. Ordered drinks, which came out timely, placed our dinner order and proceeded to wait and wait. It took.close to an hour to get our food and the restaurant was not very crowded.

When being seated, we noticed that the silverware was dirty. Brought it to the attention of the server, and she replaced with new silverware, but did acknowledge the fact that it should not have been dirty in the first place. The food looked a little bit too ready made. Not fresh. The table was sticky and the best part of the whole night was that we were able to see the water. It felt like we went to a dive bar but the bill was way too high.

The Proving Ground is a solid choice for eating on the coast of the Jersey shore. The back patio is nice, the seafood fresh and the service was on point. The food, while being ok, just didn't wow me and we ordered lobster rolls, French burger, a shrimp wrap and crab cake sandwich. All ok and edible, just the side of fries were basic and no substitutions were allowed. We skipped alcohol drinks and dessert, but the calamari and the mussels apps were tender and again, super fresh and tasty (albeit a bit tiny compared to other places I've been to). Overall, a nice experience and I'd love to go back for some bar food and a drink on a great day or even try their brunch, but maybe another time.

The location is as good as it gets. Live band is unbelievably good. We've been there 2x in the last month. The servers are ok, the food is excellent. Unfortunately we ordered cappuccinos and they only come out luke warm. DON'T order it! The first time it was very busy and our server seemed overwhelmed. The second time we requested a window table well in advance, we got a table in the middle of the floor. I didn't want to make my wife uncomfortable by saying something, because it was her birthday dinner request location. Food was very good, server ok....cappuccino barely warm. Did I mention DONT order one. We will return because it's really nice and the food is good.

Great food, drinks and service. Had to bring the musician inside due to rain, but they stuck him in a back room near the bar, when he should have been on the main stage so we could see/hear him in the restaurant.

Atmosphere was fantastic! Food was excellent but took over an hour to come out of the kitchen.

We enjoyed the food and the service was good. I fortunately the music was WAY too LOUD!! It ruined the evening and we couldn't talk. Glad it started at 7 and our reservation was for 6:00. I was asked if I wanted to be near the “dueling pianos” and said no, but were seated upstairs not knowing that's where they played.

Two in our party of 4 asked for rare burgers. They came out well done. The waitress came to show us that it wasn't her fault as on the order she showed is wa medium rare. But we asked for rare. They said they would remake them. The manager came to the table and apologized and said he would comp our 2 drinks and we thanked him. The second round of burgers came out just as overcooked as the first round. How can a restaurant not even get a burger order correct with two chances?