Journal Square Cafe

One of the better hookah lounge in jersey City. Naeem took care of me as if I was his family. The place is really laid back. You can actually do work and smoke hookah. This is my first time visiting and I absolutely loved it here. I will definitely come back here. It’s definitely a place worth checking out.

Firstly, this place is not for everyone. Secondly, if you can keep and open mind, then you might find this place to be one of JC’s best secret gems.
The location is nondescript — when I walked up the stairs with friends, I thought we were walking up to some rando apt to get murdered. :(But once we passed the entrance, it was like being in a the home of a middle eastern family. It’s $ 10ppl/​admission plus $ 2 smoothies. And sure, the clientele is mostly men, but what hookah isn’t a sausage fest? Because my table was 60% women, we got awesome service. We got two rounds of coals for yummy mango and blue mist shishah.
Entertainment wise, be sure to go on Saturday night. Belly dancing at mid night. Tip: grab a table on the middle floor away from the wall to join in. Otherwise, there are other entertainment like ping pong and dominos. Tip: bring your own boardgame for an awesome game night.
Thanks for a fun and low key night. I will be back.

They have nice hookah here. Try pam masala it is very good. Mostly you find men here. It is very big place and they have games like table tennis and dominos too. Definitely worth trying once with friends.

It’s an open grand hookah lounge. I love the size of it. A lot of space, to feel less like you are suffocating in smoke. The music is fine Arabic music, no particular genre rather just a bunch of music videos playing on their TVs.
Random ping pong table in the middle of the place, which I think is cool. The people are pretty nice there, they just don’t notice when we need to be served either to change the coal or make the hookah less harsh.
The hookah tastes really good, and runs for quite a while. I’d say about an hour and a half you’d be good.
They don’t have the best food, but you can’t expect much from a place like this in Journal Square. It’s not Manhattan to have top notch service, or 5 star hotel like food. It’s a chill place.
The guy who dealt with the bill basically took a free dollar for tip because he didn’t have change in his hands. (Even though he could have just walked over to the cash register on the other side.) I walked away knowing that that’s extremely unprofessional, and not just that, it’s cheap. I hope they know better in the future.
People shouldn’t read these reviews and be like «Fuck this place yo, it’s shady.» No matter what restaurant you look at for reviews, someone will have had shady experiences. Maybe a lot of bad experience reviews too. But only actually going there, will you know what you like/​dislike about it based on your standards, tolerance of customer service, etc. Give the place a try.

Horrible.
That is the one word that comes to mind to describe it. The service is ridiculous, I feel at times they purposely ignore you. The hookah is bland and burns super fast because they purposely bring you coals from the caves of hell. The food is ehh, the prices are pretty absurd. It’s $ 3 for a water and EVERYONE has to buy something, so the tab can get up there rather quickly. The cleanliness is nonexistent both at the tables and in the bathroom. I have been faced with a puddle of piss more times than I can count in the restroom. It’s generally cold in the winter and hot in the summer and they refuse to turn up either the heat or the A/​C.
Stay away!!!

First off, it’s literally across the street from the path train. I would of never known it was a hookah spot unless my friend told me, you have to walk up these stairs to a big open hall with tables and a bunch of windows. Hookah is ok, they have fruit heads, but no ice hose. The food I’d have to say looked extremely good. It even smelled amazing, I took a doggie bag home and it was delicious.

Great Egyptian atmosphere. Sandwiches were really good. They have dominos, cards and a pingpong table

Well where do I begin? First of all their location is horrible, in order to get upstairs to the café you must go through this graffiti filled hallway that makes you feel like this place will end up being a piece of crap hole in the wall. Surprisingly once we made it upstairs, the café was pretty big with a Ping pong table and plenty of room to sit a generous amount of customers. Once we sit down we are approached by the waitress, we tell her our order but somehow she felt she needed to check her iPhone while we were ordering. That pretty much got on my nerves but whatever I was just ready to smoke some Hookah! Sadly the hookah was horrible, the flavor was bland and we had to keep asking them to change the coal (if we could even get their attention) I swear I felt like they were trying to ignore us. Whenever I did grab the waitress’ attention to bring us some cards or dominos she would nod her head, walk away and ignore us again. There aren’t many hookah spots in jersey city and I was hoping to have a regular spot to go to whenever I wanted hookah. Honestly I would rather drive to NY then come back to this hell hole. Never Again!

Since I am the first person reviewing this place I am assuming the reason is because not many people have been to this lounge since it’s almost incognito. At least, that’s what I thought it was the first time I stepped foot into the building. This Journal Square Café is located on the second floor of the building from which you can see Christmas lights through the windows that spells PARTAYYY. Not really, but alas, I digress.
There’s a sign on the first floor door with a hookah on it so that gives away what’s hiding upstairs. When you walk in the building, it kinda gives off one of those eerie feelings where you feel like some creep in a Halloween Mask holding a butcher’s knife is about to jump out of a corner and put you to sleep, but it’s not actually so bad. You can get to the lounge via stairs or elevator. I took the elevator the second time I went there because by the time I finished climbing the 20 sets of stairs, I was all out of wind (I thought there were A LOT of stairs but it could just be the lack of gym-​time for me, HA!) The elevator, on the other hand, saved me from peril but, not entirely. It has a violent opening as if it was pissed off by the person it just had to drop off, and takes forever just to get to the second floor. Not to mention, if you’re going with more than 2 people, you’ll have to take about two trips — it’s tiny in there. While in that elevator, you’re just hoping you make it to and from in one piece. Old building!
I haven’t even gotten to the part about the lounge yet. Here goes.
The inside is pretty big, and very plain looking. They have many chairs and tables all over the place and a little recreational center in front where 2 sets of people can play ping pong. They also have other games like chess, checkers, etc. that you can play while smoking some hookah.
Problems, problems. where do I begin? First off, the staff in this place is generally nice, but EXTREMELY INATTENTIVE — for the most part. For some reason, they all have earphones on so they almost intentionally CAN’T HEAR YOU. Apparently, they can’t see you either. I ordered one hookah, and every time I needed assistance because it started burning, I would have to wave my hands like I fell off board a cruise ship. Did it work? NOPE. You really shouldn’t have to do that when you go to a lounge. I eventually just had to go up to them and ask them for assistance. Oh, and don’t bother screaming HELLO, or EXCUSE ME, because they are going to make sure their music is loud enough not to hear you. Also, they make sure they put about 6 coals on your hookah after about 15 minutes of good smoke, because they do not want you in there for more than 15 minutes, apparently.
The couches are comfy and you sink right in. It takes 2 or 3 tries to get up since it sinks so low but not a huge deal. Comfy, comfy couches. (They only have like, 2 couches, though.)
For all this, it ain’t cheap but not too shabby either. $ 10 for a hookah, and you MUST buy a drink. Don’t bother buying water — it’s $ 3 for almost any drink so don’t get water because you think it’ll be cheaper.
Overall, not a bad place, but I’ve definitely been to better. Still, not a bad deal.
P. S. Staff with the earphones on, PLEASE — enjoy your Pandora Radio session AFTER your office hours. Thanks!