Best-To-Worst Rest Areas On New Jersey Turnpike

Vince Lombardi. Grover Cleveland. Molly Pitcher. Great Americans, right? So good, they had rest stops named after them. Indeed, the rest stops are so well known by their names that people sometimes shorten their names (like the "Vince").

But like a lot of things in New Jersey, there's always good and bad in anything you may find — even if that "thing" is named after a war hero or a Super Bowl hero.

Indeed, the publication Eater has rated the New Jersey Turnpike's best-to-worst rest areas, from one to 12. Much like the rest stops themselves, Eater did not skimp on the criticism gravy.

Ironically, some trucker publications have consistently rated the New Jersey rest stops among the worst in the country. But Eater finds a lot of charm — as well as a lot of "bad" — about the New Jersey fixtures.

Here is Eater's list, as well as a short description from Helen Rosner, Eater’s editor-at-large and a former resident of New Jersey:

1. Molly Pitcher

Southbound, mile marker 72

"My friends, Molly Pitcher is the best rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. I’ll admit now that I knew this outcome going in; for decades, for nearly my entire Turnpike-traversing life, this building named for a perhaps-fictional Revolutionary War heroine has been my rest stop of choice."

"The rest stop has many things you’ll find at other rest stops along the New Jersey Turnpike: a Roy Rogers (pleasantly sans salad-shaming), a Nathan’s Famous, a Cinnabon, a Dippin’ Dots vending machine, a counter where you can buy designer perfumes, for some reason. But it also offers gracefully arching windows and airy ceilings, a grassy picnic area, a standalone Starbucks with a separate entrance (which means it also offers the full Starbucks menu) and, semi-permanently, a Starbucks coffee truck parked just outside."

2. Woodrow Wilson

Northbound, mile marker 58

"There are plants in the corners — big, green, healthy looking ones. There’s a lot of sunlight. The floors are clean and the trim is un-chipped and the tables aren’t sticky. There’s a Quiznos and a Pizza Hut and a Roy Rogers, which has a lush, frequently refreshed Roy’s Fixin’s Bar that doesn’t carry with it so much as the faintest whiff of salad shaming."

3. Grover Cleveland

Northbound, mile marker 92

"This gloriously airspacey building of glass and steel looks utterly unlike any of the other service plazas, which rock more of a faded 90s aesthetic. For this, let us credit climate change: The original Grover Cleveland was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, reopening in 2015 with an open floor plan, midcentury-ish seating, and a massive un-branded counter where you can get made-to-order pizzas, salads, and sandwiches — including the signature 'I-95 Burger,' which for whatever reason is reuben-themed, the beef patty topped with pastrami, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing. Sure! Okay!"

4. James Fenimore Cooper

Northbound, mile marker 39

"This is competent, generally unremarkable rest area with some nice nature photos and, like Walt Whitman, a Carvel. As we were getting out of the car in its parking lot, Martha and I met THE TINIEST PUPPY EVER, her name is Diamond, she is a pit bull, and she was celebrating her eight-week birthday that very day."

5. Walt Whitman

Southbound, mile marker 31

"The Roy Rogers here doesn’t salad-shame its customers, which is nice, and the parking area is surrounded by trees on three sides in a way that feels very serene and secluded in a way I feel like Walt Whitman would appreciate. Most Turnpike rest stops have a Hershey’s Ice Cream and a Dippin’ Dots vending machine; Walt Whitman also has a Carvel counter. No Fudgie the Whales to be seen, but they sell Carvelanches, a far more eating-in-the-car-friendly ice cream option."

6. Vince Lombardi

Both directions, mile marker 116

"Vince Lombardi is the Turnpike’s most northerly service plaza, and also is the only one accessible to cars going in both directions. The truth is it’s quite good: Spacious, clean, and recently renovated, with a wide variety of fast-food options and a big, well-stocked Starbucks that (unlike many other rest stops) serves all of the hot Starbucks food."

7. Clara Barton

Southbound, mile marker 6

"Clara Barton is the only verified human woman to have a rest area named in her honor (Molly Pitcher, who we’re getting to shortly, is a ~figure of legend~), which shamelessly earns this service plaza a higher spot on the list than its goods and services alone would garner."

8. Richard Stockton

Southbound, mile marker 59

"Honestly, Richard Stockton is lovely. It’s got a double-height entry foyer with a sunny clerestory, and there’s a full-size wrought-iron bicycle mounted above the entrance to the market, complete with faux baguettes jauntily tucked in the basket. I thought the bicycle was amusingly nonsensical; Martha, an observational genius, pointed out that it’s an essential part of the rest stop’s theme: Paris! All the décor — framed stock art and massive murals — pay homage to Parisian café culture."

9. Thomas Edison

Southbound, mile marker 93

"There’s a Sbarro (Martha got a breadstick), a Popeyes (I got a side of green beans), and a Burger King, which is a nice range of options. This is also the rest stop where we saw a publicly posted letter from the CEO of HMSHost to his employees, assuring them that the company “welcomes, appreciates, and supports everyone regardless of race, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or national origin,” which is really quite wonderful, but it’s probably posted at every service plaza, so no extra points."

10. John Fenwick

Northbound, mile marker 6

"There is absolutely nothing interesting to say about this rest stop as a retail, gastronomic, or architectural entity. John Fenwick was the leader of the first English settlement in what would become New Jersey, but was not, at any time during his life, actually New Jersey."

11. Joyce Kilmer

Northbound, mile marker 78

"Beyond that delightful object lesson in the pitfalls of gender assumption, this is a dour and unexciting rest stop. They don’t even have the text of the tree poem! I would be completely comfortable with Joyce Kilmer being replaced with Bruce Springsteen, who is also undeniably a poet, even though he isn’t dead."

12. Alexander Hamilton

Southbound, mile marker 112

"Roy Rogers is usually is my favorite rest stop option, because you can get an order of really very good curly fries and then go to Roy’s “Fixin’s Bar” and load up on a lot of iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato and banana peppers and make yourself a nice little ersatz salad. The Roy’s Fixin’s Bar at Alexander Hamilton, which is an overall fairly dingy and unlovable service area, has a sign taped to it that says 'Salads are available in the refrigerator case,' which is VICIOUSLY AGGRESSIVE and made both Martha and me feel truly bad about ourselves even though we had no plans to salad-lifehack this particular Roy’s Fixin’s Bar."

Read the whole article here.

Photo: By DanTD - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/...