So did everyone go to Hot Rods and Harleys on Saturday? As you can see, my friend Batman stopped by for the festivities. Between Friday’s monsoon and Sunday’s gray skies and rain, we really lucked out with the weather.
Tag Archives: Cubanu
Happy six months everybody
Paper is what you give for a first anniversary. What do you give for a six-month “anniversary”? Ah, you don’t have to get me anything; reading the blog is gift enough for me. Six months technically isn’t an anniversary anyway, which is why I hate when people say x-month/week anniversary. But happy six months to everyone.
Another record number of votes in the the latest poll, besting the last poll, which had 73 votes. Of course anyone with too much time on their hands could skew the results, so it’s by no means scientific — but it sure is fun!
“It’s almost six months since we started. What do you think of the blog?”
Positively blog-irific! I can’t get enough! — (58/76) 76 percent
I like to check in, but I’m not addicted — (15/76) 19 percent
A blog among many — (1/76) 1 percent
Ah, you’re just a shill for the (insert political party here) — (1/76) 1 percent
Don’t quit your day job — (1/76) 1 percent
Wow, thanks for all the love, the checks are in the mail. But seriously, even those who didn’t gush about the blog, I’m always open to suggestions about anything at all. And since the brain trust is running dry lately for new poll questions, feel free to pass along any suggestions. Let ‘er rip in the comments section anytime. And try checking in on comments from older posts, you’d be surprised what you find.
The first couple of months were focused on just getting something posted and it wasn’t until about mid-January that I got around to tracking visits to the blog and jazzing it up, i.e., subscribe by email, etc. I’ll try to experiment some more but I tend to worry about just getting news up.
In case you’re interested, here are some statistics about the blog (gotta love Google Analytics even though they probably have more info on me than I care to think about). Since mid-January, we’ve had 8,569 visits from 2,792 visitors and almost 18,000 page views and with more than 2 page views per visit. We now get more than 100 visits almost every weekday (one reason why I tend to post stuff during the week more often lately), with a high of 181 on March 31. Average time on site is almost 3 minutes and the percentage of new visits is still almost 33 percent.
Of the more than 2,600 visits that found the blog by keyword searches, almost 600 (22 percent) came from searches for “rahway rising,” “rahway blog” and “rahway rising blog.” It appears some people still just type in the name in a search and access the blog that way; bookmark it, baby! Or better yet, subscribe by email or RSS feed. There are 68 subscribers by email, slow and steady growth the past two months (maybe a handful of new ones each week).
Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common keyword searches that ended up visiting the blog:
Luciano’s — 343 visits (13.1 percent, of the 2,600+)
SkyView — 182 (6.9 percent)
Cubanu — 167 (6.4 percent)
Rahway Center Partnership survey — 62 (2.3 percent)
Dornoch — 47 (1.8 percent)
There may have been slightly more in some categories, but I lumped all related searches into one, i.e., Luciano’s had searches for “luciano’s rahway,” “luciano’s restaurant,” etc. Not surprisingly then, the top three most viewed posts in the first six months all were related to Luciano’s and Cubanu opening or reviews. Rounding out the top five were the posts about condos rejected at the Koza’s site (big among nj.com readers ea few months back) and the state of the city address, which mentioned several development projects.
Most readers usually access the site directly, but 4.6 percent came through nj.com, and another 3.8 percent through craigslist (New York and New Jersey).
Thanks to everyone who’s been reading and those who have commented — especially those who don’t do it anonymously — it’s really kicked it up a notch the last few weeks.
Cubanu: A review
I’ve been meaning to check out the latest addition to the downtown, Cubanu, a new restaurant/lounge at the corner of Main and Lewis streets. Some might remember the previous tenants of the corner bar: Eighty Eights and Fat Tuesday’s.
I’m not all that picky when it comes to food (I’m one of those people who was raised to clean this plate), so it would take a real effort to serve up something I didn’t like. Given that my girlfriend Kathleen and I were excited to finally try Cubanu since it opened late last year, I expected that we wouldn’t be disappointed when we paid a visit Friday night. We were far from disappointed.
Two things jumped out at me when we got there. Though the physical layout isn’t much different from the previous bars, the decor was nice; it just fit really well. Loved the entrance way between the dining room and the bar, and later we both admired the colorful wall tile behind the bar. Maybe it was just the tableclothes and silverware, but as soon as I sat down I already had the impression that this was going to be one my best dining experiences in Rahway. Spanish versions of “I Will Survive” and “Hotel California” also just cracked me up; they embodied the whole evening, something different in Rahway.
To start, we went with the Cha-Cha Sampler so we could select three of the tapas chioces. We chose the Maria Rosa, Empanadas and Cubanitos. Kathleen’s favorite was the Maria Rosa, basically two balls of mashed potatos stuffed with meat and deep fried. I loved the Empanadas, perhaps the best I’ve ever had, though admitedly, I haven’t had all that many in my time. All in all, the apps were terrific.
For her entree, Kathleen selected the Paella el Malecon and I had the Pollo Tropicano. When I first viewed Cubanu’s menu on the Web, it was little pricier than I expected. But the portions are pretty healthy and you also get to choose two of about six sides. Though my chicken at first was a touch dry it got better and we both ended up with plenty of leftovers to enjoy for lunch the next day. I thought a very unique touch was being presented with the check in a cigar box. It’s definitely different from cookie-cutter casual dining places.
If there was anything I didn’t like about our visit, it was extremely minor, like keeping water glasses full, but the number of staff and their friendliness more than made up for that very minor critique. There weren’t many selections of wine by glass, and we probably would’ve been better off getting a bottle.
The very next night, I happened to meet friends (from Rahway and out of town) for impromptu drinks in Cubanu’s lounge. Our party of about six all had good things to say and were pretty excited about a new choice in downtown nightlife. The lounge was a bit warm and it was actually easier to have a conversation while the live Latin jazz trio played than when they were on break and the music was blaring. All in all, we had very good things to say about our experience in the lounge.
If people want to talk about Rahway being “the next Hoboken” or “the next (fill in the blank),” it needs more destinations, places that give people a reason to come. No one’s coming from out of town to go to The Waiting Room, Flynn’s or The Back Porch; all great neighborhood joints where everybody knows your name, but Cubanu seems like the first place in awhile that could be a destination. At the very least, it’s something different, and that’s what any downtown needs: diverse options.
Have you been to Cubanu? What’d you think? Good, bad, indifferent? If you plan to go, feel free to send comments this way. In the meantime, keep an eye out for a new poll question this week and maybe an update on the traffic projects downtown.
Eighty Eights is 86ed
Eighty Eights, the live jazz restaurant at Main and Lewis streets, is on the way out, and apparently a Cuban-type restaurant is on the way in. A liquor license transfer was approved last week, from Eighty Eights to Cubanu. Typically, a liquor license transfer is completed as part of a sale of the entire business.