I continue to hope that the place is well patronized by people who don't like me, and that's why I always see it empty.

But I think it's just a mixture of not enough office workers in the building and absolutely no attempt to attract anyone else. I mean, just walking into Harborside feels like trespassing sometimes.

It's a mirror setup of a typical food court to take advantage of tourists... in a business/residential area expecting repeat traffic.

This kinda thing works when you've got a steady flow of new bodies who will eat there and likely never come back. It's pretty ideal for vacations especially when nobody can agree with what they want.

But for someone who lives around here? There's always a better more affordable option.

Had it been put by the end of the high line it would do well with tourists who finished walking it and want lunch. Or by any museum.

The entire office building is still empty. You’ll see maybe a dozen people eating in the atrium during lunchtime. Definitely a stark difference to how it used to be.

They were supposed to have tacos open where Left Bank was but I don’t think that ever happened. They also rebuilt the bar where Piggyback was, but they haven’t opened anything there. Sad that it’s all basically a waste of space, they don’t even run the ferries to there anymore.

This place is the epitome of bad timing in covid age.

Wish it was. It’s a ghost town outside of Uber eats orders.

Tbh I didn’t even know it was open looking at it from the street I thought it was still under construction

Or just like be open on the weekends when people are taking a nice walk on the waterfront. Or do like Chealsea market and have stuff that's damn good & unique

I think you hit the nail on the head, it's classic copy something successful but put no effort into understanding why or how it got there.

Wut

They’ve been trying and failing to make something of that area for at least a decade.

Dood I’m at angry Archies. All the time! I actually work in this building and everything is a lot of the food options around here is expensive 😂

For sure but this was a big overhaul and investment that was really supposed to infuse energy and they barely got a full year out of it. Now it's a ghost town

Actually the taco place is open and most of that side where Piggyback used to be is open again

It’s normally empty like that - they are in the process of selling the building to new management. Same with some other plazas

Reminds me of that market Anthony Bourdain wanted to open. Then investors took over and lost all sight of the inspiration and how it should work.

The previous owners (Roseland/Mack-Cali) sold off all their commercial property to concentrate on residential and the new owners aren't nearly as community oriented. I guess if they don't have a lot of people working on-site, they don't see the need to have lunch options for them. They forget about (or ignore) all the people who live around here who now work from home and would welcome a bunch of new places to eat.

yeah they have gotten worse, pick up ramen from there for dinner occasionally and now it seems like if you want to go at night security needs to buzz you in. Modcup doesn't even seem to be open in there on some mornings either. Big waste.

I can never get in the building day or night.

I don't think it was built for tourists. It was built to replace the antiquated 80s style cafeteria that used to be in this building for the hundreds (maybe thousands) of people that used to work in this building on a daily basis.

Before COVID this was full every day for lunch. I don't work in this building, but work in one very close, and we frequently had lunch meetings here. It was always packed.

I mean, this entire building went under a multi million dollar renovation in 2018/2019. Just really poor timing.

I think the fatal flaw of District Kitchen is simply its location within the Harborside complex. No one really wants to walk deep inside a sterile office building to go to a food court, especially if it feels like you’re walking through an airport terminal. This only works when you have a captive audience of office workers that’s large enough to sustain it without having to rely on the patronage of outsiders and weekend visitors.

They should have put it at the south end of the building, which faces Columbus Dr and is right next to the Exchange Place PATH. That would drive more foot traffic because it would be a lot more convenient and visible to people commuting by bus and PATH, as well as for people who live in Paulus Hook.

To me, the renovation of that whole building complex is like putting lipstick on a pig. They should have bulldozed it and started from a clean slate. The area should be built with a smaller scale street grid that’s more in keeping with the historic parts of downtown. That would have made it feel more like an actual neighborhood that people want to spend time in.

I used to work in the building. When District Kitchen opened, it had the usual office worker crowds for lunch.

Post pandemic? Like others have said: it's pretty quiet. Some of the better options (Canteen, Left Bank, the Korean/Mexican fusion spot) left for good.

New owners have zero interest in Jersey City.

Any more information on that?

The only smart thing is several of the food spots participate in MealPal. Any time I work from home I bike over and get a poke bowl from Tidal.

I work there, its eerily empty and sad - OH & very expensive.($17 for a poke bowl) I've only seen about 4 food spots open consistently.

It has potential but like someone else said, it's hard to know if it's even open. The glass windows are covered & as an outsider you can't see what's inside.

Tbh it may as well just function as a ghost kitchen for now. At least till things pick back up down there.

I miss the kimchi burritos

Carlito’s. Slow cooked bbq on tacos. Really good stuff

Not putting it on the south side by exchange place was such a missed opportunity

Haven’t had them yet since Taqueria has ruined me from other tacos spots as of so far

I mean, there likely won’t be a mass return to office. So they have to find a way to bring people in there besides them needing to be there for work.

Ooh good looks I’m gonna check it out today

Edit: can confirm it’s fire

Honestly it would probably be better off as a Dave and busters at this point lol.

Probably haha. At least a bar. They literally have a full finished bar and there’s nothing there.

Any links to what his original vision would've been?

THIS!! I tried to go in one morning to get coffee and the security guard literally turned me away saying the building was closed. What? In what world is a coffee shop not open at 10am?? Never tried to go back after that.

What is MealPal?

Modcup is closed Friday-Sunday

It’s a company where you pay them a flat amount per month and get a certain amount of credits that you can exchange for lunches at participating restaurants. It’s kinda like classpass but for lunch spots. There’s hundreds if not thousands of participating restaurants in Manhattan and probably about 10 in JC.

Also if you are interested I’ll send you my invite code- I get a discounted month and so do you.