Nora’s Park Bench Cafe

Last visit not so good, service slow as usual, Salad came out with meal (I should have sent it back, salad belongs on table before dinner, no?) And food was not very good, Had Buffalo Shrimp and it was in a slightly spicy BBQ SAUCE more sweet than anything and my Wife had Quesadillas that were tasteless, I wasn’t happy this time at all

Great comfort food at a reasonable price.
Good neighborhood place to grab a brew and burger.

Outstanding food the Chicken Parmigiana was amazing went there for my friends dads birthday and everything was wonderful staff was wonderful I hope they open another location in Manhattan but I will def travel to eat there again

The food is ok. Service is good. Rating should be between 3 and 4 star.
Good for hanging out for a cup of coffee, not recommended for dinner.

Eat here once a week. Always great from food to staff. Love the place. Great environment friendly people

Very much a neighborhood joint with many people walking by wishing each other Merry Christmas — or asking about other family members. But don’t let that turn you off. Crowd and staff were all very friendly and welcoming.
Bus service was very attentive. Servers a little slow.
Food was a mixed bag. Wife had pasta with grilled shrimp, sausage, chicken and broccoli. Very nice dish with well cooked meats and pasta. Broccoli looked like it came out a freezer bag.
I had a bowl of chili, with shredded cheese on top. Mix of meat and beans, very reminiscent of what my mother on Long Island made when I was a child. Spiced it up with some Tabasco habanero sauce and it was very good. Would have been nice if the cheese was melted, but it was cold and piled high on the bowl.
My main course was a Flounder Filet, stuffed with shrimp. Nicely cooked fish, but basically tasteless. Needed seasoning badly. Stuffing, was, I would swear, was stovetop with a few small salad shrimp mixed in. Now, I like stovetop, in it’s proper place, but the seasonings killed any flavor from the fish. It would have benefited greatly from a little sauce.
Mixed vegetable side was a very nice mix of broccoli, string beans, carrots and squash, but as in most restaurants, was totally overcooked. The french fries ROCKED.
Total for the meal, with 4 sodas and tip was $ 74. Frankly i was left feeling that the meal wasn’t worth the money.

Let me start by saying I’m pretty shocked and confused by the not-​so-​good reviews for this place. I’ve been coming here for years for lunch and dinner and have never had a sub-​par experience. The menu and atmosphere are equally comforting. The wait and kitchen staff are extremely attentive and friendly and the food is consistently delicious. I have never been treated with anything but the utmost respect by their staff nor has anyone I’ve ever known that has visited (dozens and dozens of people). Lastly, I have to mention, as I’ve just seen in one lengthy review in particular, it’s unfair (and completely bizarre) to post a poor review for a long-​standing and revered neighborhood establishment just because you’re having a bad day.
I will continue to visit Nora’s again and again for years to come.

nice local place that has a chinese wait and cook staff even though its basically American food. Service is good food tasty. Nice sized bar in the front, funeral home acroos the street keeps this place busy.

MEMORIAL MEAL for MOM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How can you rate a meal after you just spent a sadly surreal time either across the street viewing your one & only mom (while numbingly accepting condolences from god knows who), or right after a burial that seemed straight out of someone else’s nightmare… where my lovely basically freaked out & a few strong people had to almost carry her back to the limo?
Apparently the double whammy of both extreme grief & hypoglycemia can evoke Emmy Award winning drama that can blow anything out of the water that Hollywood can ever dream of.
Therefore, this Café, by being directly across the street from the Marine Park Funeral Home, seems to play a necessary, but maybe reluctant, role in one of the worst days of some of our lives. On the other hand, death may be good for business, just as birthing units bring big profits to hospitals.
Apparently, we & this place totally dropped the ball on a coherent comfy & logical seating arrangement. The tables were all so close to the wall that you could not move unless 2 – 15 people got out first. There was no way to mingle, nor did we have a coherent seating arrangement. As the eldest son, I was stuck out in the periphery with my brother’s quite vocal friends, where I would have rather had been moved to be near the two people who survived my mom.
Anyway, we did not feel very talkative anyway…
except for periodic yelling above the din to get special orders made for my veggie wife & me.
I must have had to stand up, yell & wave, to get what we needed about a dozen times.
Thank the lord that I already started out numb & in morose acceptance of the loss of my poor wonderful mom to begin with. She was extremely ill for several months & I had went through all the stages of grief already, and I was at peace, because my mom was now at peace.
I totally hate rituals, for the sake of having to have them, and this was one of them. Anyway, somehow we made it through this added cacophonous ordeal,
and did finally eat.
Being the Maverick that I am, I only ordered what I damned well pleased off the menu… forget the suggested stuff.
My veggie wife totally engulfed their Portobello Cheese Tomato Appetizer & even ate half of their vege Pasta… I still have no idea whether she enjoyed it or not… since she was far more shell shocked than I.
My Veal dish was OK, but nothing amazing to shock me out of my numbness.
Since I live right near the best vineyards in the world (in CA), the provided crappy table wine looked repulsive… I was not going to drink… until I saw an almost full
pitcher of amber beer at the other end of the table…(later ID’ed as Samuel Adams)
after some more yelling & waving, the beer was right in front of me…
& I kept drinking one after another glass of that beer (in a tiny little wine glass),
until the noise became less irksome & I felt calmer…& the pitcher was nearly
gone by then.
The Limo then brought us back home, where I promptly sat down & slumbered.
Ending one of the worst days…
Oh…The Carrot Cake was pretty decent. This place was kind of off, since it was part-​Irish-​pub– part-​Italian, but had a majority of Asian cooks & help… but then again… I was definitely off too. Normally, I would have Unilocaled this place first, but no one asked me. We flew 3,000 miles for this?
Sadly much of Brooklyn (& NYC in general) has gone rapidly downhill in the decades after I left for Hawaii & the West Coast. It seems that much of the good taste has gone Westward as well.

Come check out the newly revitalized Nora’s! New décor, new furniture! The place looks terrific! Same great service and the food is still some of the best in the neighborhood. Love this place!

I never write posts being in the business and know what can happen. That being said went after a wake for a family friend today. Service was outstanding !! Food very good as well! Our waitress was on point!!! No one needed or wanted for anything. Thank You for a great experience!

Good set up to watch a game or kick
back with an old friend and catch up on life.
Whatever the owners are doing in the kitchen isn’t working so stick with a salad
or basic bar food
Drink are strong and the beer is alway cold served by old school bartenders that like to talk which is cool.

A number of years ago, we had a family party at this place in their back room, which was great. Some 10 years later, I returned on a Sunday afternoon and was terribly disappointed…
So you sort of expect this sort of place would have a breakfast menu, and they really don’t. They have two Sunday brunch items listed. And they are both the same price, but one allows you a choice of two sides (I think bacon and sausage for example) and the other nothing on the side, but yet they both have the same # of eggs in the dish.
After we were seated, in a pretty empty place for Sunday very late morning, it took a while for the waitress to ‘get to us’. She wasn’t very helpful. My partner ordered the Sunday brunch and the waitress never asked her about the beverage she wanted w/​that order, which was Mimossa as one of the choices. Now the food comes and my partner say I’ll the have Mimossa and the waitress says, ‘didn’t i ask you before’ … I thought OH YEAH.
We were never offered a second cup of coffee. In fact the waitress came back only after were were sitting there practically finished to ask if there was anything else we needed. There wasn’t.
The food was truly nothing special. At first I was excited to see hand cut/​fresh french fries, but they were raw inside.
I won’t be back.

I ve been going here for many years One of my favorite places to go food is always really good, friendly service, nice atmosphere. If you haven’t been here yet would recommend go here to dine out.

This place is still a solid 3-​star, even after a long hiatus.
The menu has changed here and there from what I remember, and the prices are a bit stiff from your average bar and grill joint. A burger can be anywhere from $ 9.45 and up depending on what you want on it (comes with fries and onion rings) and for everything else, even pasta dinners and wraps are $ 12.00 and up.
Yes, they are filling, and the portions are more than what you’re paying for, but the service is really more like up to par with your local diner. You need to ask for water, ask for napkins, ask… ask…and ask some more; or ask anyone for that matter.
The bar is ALWAYS hoping, so that is their cash cow; totally understandable, but seriously, it’s just water in my cup — just fill it up occasionally okay?
Yes, with Marine Park Funeral Home across the street, you need to gauge as to whether you should or shouldn’t dine in with Nora’s that night. Expect long waits and standing room only; I usually judge by how noisy it is when I call beforehand as to how long it would be for a table.
Coming here last Friday with my parents, my Mom got a mozzarella burger, I got a muenster burger, and Dad got the Philly cheese steak. The total cost of dinner was $ 31.95; not too bad without getting any drinks. My favorite out of three, was honestly my Dad’s Philly cheese steak, although it wasn’t anything remotely close to what a Philly would taste like. My burger was huge, which was good, but when I asked for medium well, my first bite left drops of burger blood on my plate and into my fries. Yeah… better luck next time.

Nora’s is always a fun time to go with friends and family. We came tonight for drinks and dinner.
The staff/​bartenders are always friendly, and the food is always good.
I ordered the broccoli cheddar soup that they had on the special menu, it was really good, but it could of been a little bit creamier. For an entrée I ordered chicken quesadilla and well done French fries to split with the table.

I like the fact that Nora’s a is Marine Park local joint. I can appreciate it.
But the wait for the food was honestly not worth it. A 15 min wait turned into a 30 minute wait. No big deal.
I got a bacon cheeseburger with fries and onion rings and a bowl of French Onion Soup. The only thing I enjoyed, was the soup. The burger was flavorless. The fries and onion rings were good.
Not going back again.

This is my first time at Nora’s. As I walked in… it was very inviting. I was greeted and was seated immediately.
Very Warm neighborhood restaurant. I ordered a Chicken Cesar Salad with a tomato basil soup — soup was good and my Salad was a large portion and delicious.
The waitress was very attentive and professional.
My niece enjoyed the buffalo wings — she said it was really good. I will definitely visit again.

I’ve been to Nora’s many many times before and for the most part have never had a bad meal. I’ve been here just to hang out in the bar for a Giants game and for many parties a well just a dinner out. Each time the food has been good and satisfied my ever hungry belly.
They have set specials for every night of the week as well as other specials to go along with their normal. Definitely go for the prime rib special, it’s so so amazing. Huge portion and cooked to perfection.
I can’t begin to list all the things I’ve tried and enjoyed but I can say I’m not a fan of the wings. I enjoy my wings breaded and theirs are naked, but that’s just my preference, and my brother had them yesterday and said that they were good. Perfect amount of heat and a good portion size for one person.
The waitress who took care of us yesterday was prompt and very accommodating, not sure what her name was (she’s tall with long blonde hair) but I do hope to get her anytime I go!
All in all, if you’re looking for a laid back atmosphere with good food, Nora’s is the place to go!

The food selection is small, but I do love their homemade fries. They make it crunchy in the outside and soft on the inside. I don’t know what else they put in it, but it is just so tasty. I like their penne a la vodka too, the portions are big so me and my bf always share the fries and pasta. By the time we leave we are stuffed!
The service here is exceptional, very friendly staff. I always feel welcomed every time I come here.
I like coming here around Thanksgiving because they have pumpkin beer and what can I say, I really love my pumpkin that’ why Nora’s will always have a special place in my heart.