Seems like there’s a 6th Guy in town!

FiveGuys is no longer the only new greasy burger joint in town.

If you drive just 10 minutes down from Livingston Mall on Columbia Turnpike, you’ll find a bunch of new strip mall development happening.  One of them houses the latest Smash Burger restaurant.

We decided to check it out this Saturday night – seems like everyone had the same idea.  Lines the length of the store from counter to door.  Loud and crowded, we waited a good 15 minutes to order, and then got seating and waited another 7-8 minutes for our food to be delivered.

Yelp.com reviews and others give it a so-so rating.  We do the same. . . 

The decor was clean and new.  Price is about $5-7 for most burgers — you’ll have to shell out another 2 bucks for fries and about another 2 bucks for sodas.

Smashburger at Florham Park, NJ

187 Columbia Turnpike
Florham Park, NJ 07932

Here’s some of the first impressions of the food itself:

• SALTY - overwhelming over anything else.  Every item has TONS of salt.  The burger meat itself was salty.
• GREASY - part of the experience you’re paying for – unhealthy comfort food, but wow, even the buns are shiny from the grease.  By the end of our meal, some of the remaining sweet potato fries weren’t crisp, they were just gloppy sponges of grease.
• PUNY - when fries are an add-on, you expect a decent portion.  They were puny.  Plus the way the “dishes” are made, which is basically wire baskets with a piece of wax paper covering the bottom, fries get lost and fall out or touch the table under it.  Something just seems…eewy to eat food that is touching the table that other people just eat off of back-to-back.  Especially, when the competition, Five Guys is known for their huge portions of overflowing crispy fries.

Here’s one thing to note, that might help inform why such an experience where the concept seems great, but in terms of execution, they are just a little off — apparently, the same operator for this location also runs Markers Restaurant, an upscale casual American Grille, located in Jersey City, NJ as well as other franchise concepts including Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Cinnabon, Seattle’s Best Coffee, and Carvel Ice Cream.  You can see lack of focus within the food spectrum — some of that lack of focus spills over in execution here.

The big question is would we go back?  Probably, but only if we’re in the area – definitely not a planned event.

QUESTION: What’s your opinion of Smashburger? (and which location are you talking about?  Please let your comment below!

It’s located right off the NJ Turnpike at the Mt Laurel Marriott (attached on the same property).  Most times you can book a “Water Package” stay at the Marriott for $200 or so that includes one night and water park passes for the entire family for *both* the day of arrival and the day of departure — two full days of water park fun.  The park is open from 10am to 10pm most days, so you’ll have plenty of water time.

Here’s what the seating area inside the water park area looks like:

But wait, there’s more!  On the second floor over part of the facility . . .

There’s a pirate ship wading pool for toddlers!  See that pirate ship sail? It’s a projection screen tv that plays continuous movies and kids tv programming.

The “main” water park area is really made of a large water play structure.  If you’ve been to Hershey Park or Sesame Place in PA, it’s basically the same concept — but indoors in a climate controlled setting where it’s basically 84 degrees year round.

There are 2 tiny water slides (left side yellow) for small ones.  And there’s a orange and blue slide (right side) for older toddlers.  To the far right is a lazy river that has both single and double inflatable tubes.  If you get tire of the lazy river, there’s another pool with basketball hoops all round where you can swim around with the little ones as they try to grab some basketballs and shoot.

To the far left rear, there’s a indoor-outdoor hot-tub pool which is restricted to 18 and over – they do come around and kids the little ones out periodically.  There’s also a water lily pad obstacle and in the far back of this main play structure above there’s 3 water slides that’s several stories high (4 stories? a LOT of stairs is all I can say).  There’s a regular tube and a completely dark tube.  And there’s also a single rider body slide (no tube, just you jetting down inside the slide).

While they do sell day passes for the park at $22 and $32 per day (weekday / weekend), if you stay at the Marriott, it is physically attached.  I don’t recommend staying on the bottom floor — which *is* the closet the park, but basically you’re in a walk-out basement setting and ALL the hotel traffic going back and forth to the park goes down that hallway.

They are going through a renovation of the property.  We’ve stayed in rooms before and after and were pleasantly surprised this time.  Here’s some photos of the guest rooms at the Marriott Lt Laurel:

On the desk, next to the flatscreen tv is a neat little media box:

You’ll notice the various connection options available so you can hook up your laptop, portable DVD player, iPod, etc to the flat screen TV.  Here’s a close-up shot of the connections for the techies reading this post:

There’s an outdoor pool, but I don’t know who would use it, unless you didn’t have a Water Package stay:

And the hotel gym on the 1st floor is small, but adequate:

And ah-yes, there’s a decent arcade if your kids get bored of the water.  We usually venture across the street to Bob Evans for a meal after coming out of the water in the evening, come back and hit the arcade for a bit before ending the day.  Overall, it’s a nice little getaway for families with little ones.  There’s a competitor indoor water park just minutes away — Sahara Sam’s.  It’s not quite the same — there’s not hotel connected to it, so it’s more of a day-park local scenario and the facility is not as nice.  (Local hotels do have similar “stay and play packages” like the Mt Laurel Westin, Alot hotel, etc).

Coco Keys is no Great Wolf Resort, which our family prefers (larger, nicer, better themed experience) — but two days at the indoor water park is a nice little break for the kids, especially when the weather isn’t showing any immediate signs of letting us all outside to play anytime soon.

QUESTION: Have you *every* been to an indoor water park?  Which one and what was your experience like?

Can you find your home or work place?

Do you recognize where the mall or other landmarks are?