Brunch at the North Maple Inn

North Maple Inn
Where: 300 North Maple Ave. Basking Ridge, NJ 07920.
Phone: 800-953-8033
Website: www.northmapleinn.com
Setting: Modern Hotel restaurant or ballroom.
Service: friendly and attentive
Best meal: brunch

Why you should go: the brunch here is a great value for a traditional hotel brunch. The price per person is under $40. The restaurant is crowded for holiday brunches on Easter and Mother’s Day but it is not packed. For all those occasions where you need a place for brunch this provides a good alternative to other hotels such as the Short Hills Hilton. If you are bringing children the value is even stronger: kids 5 and under eat for free and older kids are charged $12 each. They even have visits from the Easter Bunny on Easter Sunday.

Food was all good, not great, about what you expect for this type of service. Smoked fish platter along with peel and eat shrimp; omelet station; carving station; chafing dishes filled with breakfast meats, others filled with lunch entrees and vegetable sides; a table filled with breads, bagels, muffins. All this topped off by a dessert station including make your own sundaes and pastries which, typically, look better than they taste. On one visit there was a crepe station but this was not repeated this Easter.

Service was excellent. Juice, coffee and water were brought out frequently and plates were cleared with the same speed. Special requests were handled quickly and graciously. Our table needed to be reconfigured to accommodate a wheelchair and this was taken care of immediately.

The hotel and its grounds are beautiful and beautifully maintained. After eating there is a courtyard where, weather permitting, you can soak up some sun and let the kids run off some of the pent up energy from all that sitting and all those trips to the dessert bar.

A special note: this hotel is owned by Pfizer and Pfizer employees receive a 20% discount off the entire check. For those lucky enough to be able to take advantage this makes a good deal even better.

The hotel is conveniently located right off Rt. 287 at the North Maple Ave exit and is directly across the street from the Verizon office building which was formerly AT&T’s headquarters.