Cool Runnin’s Caribbean Cuisines

Delicious oxtail and great service. Fast for take-​out and although a bit pricey — well worth the expense. Try the small oxtail and a patty if it’s your first time.

Terrible service, very very rude! Waited an hour for food, ended up leaving and going to Rhythm and spice which was a much more pleasant experience. Would not go here!

Today was my first time trying Cool Runnings. I got the jerk chicken and I thoroughly enjoyed it! Perfect amount of flavor and moisture in the chicken. The sweet plantain also did not disappoint. Will be returning to try more menu items!

Curry chicken roti is a must! Very juicy and flavorful! Oxtail is pretty good too, but sometimes there is more fat than meat. Definitely order before you go in because it takes a good 15 – 25 mins. Oh and Grab a «Ting», it’s a fizzy grapefruit drink. Very refreshing

I ordered the chicken in brown sauce and my husband had the oxtail. The chicken was DRY! Such a bummer because it looks like such an authentic place, I was really looking forward to a tasty experience. My husbands dish was moist and just he really enjoyed it.
I don’t know if I’d risk ordering from here again.

The food is amazing here. The place isn’t fancy, but they get a lot of customers and I LOVE their food. The gf loves it too! If you’re new, try the spicy beef patties and the chicken roti. The beef patty texture is just right… flaky, but not flaky enough so that it looks like your lap was eating the food, and omg… the chicken roti is amazing!

I like this place, but I have to agree that the quality is very inconsistent.
I’ve tried the patties, the curry goat, the jerk chicken, and the oxtail.
The patties are OK but honestly I think golden Krusts are better. The jerk chicken is good, but it’s not very spicy and I consider it more a good rotisserie chicken rather than good jerk chicken…
I went through a phase where I got really into the curry goat. It’s very good but every time I went in it was slightly different and at times did taste like it had been out for a while. Additionally the plantains sometimes were rock hard…
I honestly would give this place a 3 but the people are nice and I like how it doesn’t try too hard to appeal to the college kids.

Delicious everything is good here it’s authentic Jamaican food right from yard. If you can’t take a trip to Jamaica having a dish from this restaurant will take you to paradise.

Best jamaican in the area. I always get the brown chiken stew with rice, vegetables, and plantains. Absolutely delicious. Definitely recommend you try it at least once… you’ll go back for more for sure.

Ordered the jerk chicken– large. .and a large ox tails order. Small portions for the pricen chicken was dry. The sweet plantains were one slice per order!!! One slice? For that dont even place it in the order. So overall. … not really worth it!

This is my go-​to Caribbean joint in the Rutgers NB area. The jerk sauce is present, but not overpoweringly so. If you’re not sure what to order, try the curry goat or stew beef. I find that those are pretty representative of the cuisine. They come in an aluminum platter, along rice, beans, cabbage, and fried plantains. Swish it down with some Ting, and you will thank your lucky stars for the Jamaican diaspora!
*Take out only – no seats at all.

Friendly service; authentic Jamaican food; quick service; relatively inexpensive; generous portions.

It’s a hole in the wall take out joint, but their food really tastes good. They lose one star, because they’re too slow, even when you call in advance your wait too long.

I really, really, wanted to like this place more. To be fair, the food was good… but not great. And the wait, omg, the wait was 45 minutes. It shouldn’t take longer to get take-​out than it does to eat in somewhere else. The service was polite, but I feel like the lady serving in front was probably really tired. I’m sure they’re all hard-​working people but there are some major kinks.
On to the food: I got the small chicken curry plate which came with 3 pieces of chicken, 2 slices of plantain, stewed cabbage, and rice and peas. I loved the curry sauce, the cabbage was tasty (I happen to like cabbage, must be my Eastern European side). The plantains were dry-​ish and made me sad… plantains are some of my favorite things. The rice wasn’t bad… had there been more curry sauce, I would have eaten all of it, but my bf polished off the leftovers. I tried one of his spicy beef patties and it quite good.
There’s major potential for this place to be amazing, but I think I only saw one guy in the kitchen and the one lady up-front…it seems a lot for them to be doing alone.

This place leaves a lot to be desired. It seems like it would be the premier destinations for quickly picking up some tasty Caribbean food. Unfortunately my last visit the chicken was dry and worse yet the plantains were so old and chewy I couldn’t eat them. What a sad dinner.
I won’t be returning anytime soon.

The food here is USUALLY great, but the service is just about always awful. I’ve had their jerk chicken, stew beef, stew chicken, and all the sides (rice and peas, white rice, cabbage, plantains, and beef patties) from here. If you have a lot of patience, and don’t mind double checking that they gave you your complete order, I’d recommend it.
I’ve gotten stale, incredibly dry sweet plantains from here before, which makes me concerned about how long they’re keeping some foods. Plantains take little effort to cook and shouldn’t be rock hard. The meats are well-​cooked and seasoned. I don’t recall having bad or subpar rice from here either– as far as I remember, that’s been good too. So you may be asking, why only three stars?
Every single time I’ve come here, the service leaves a great deal to be desired. Either I get the lady who is too busy talking on the phone to take my order or I get the lady who takes my order, but can’t communicate with the chef or forgets part of my order. The latest offenses were forgetting to pack beef patties I paid for and nearly forgetting my drinks.
Furthermore, my sister called the order in ahead-​of-​time so I could just pick it up and pay when I got there. Well, when I got there, the cashier said they ran out of rice and peas and that it’d be another 15 – 20 minute wait. If you’re from New Brunswick, and you’ve parked at a meter, this is incredibly inconvenient and annoying. So although the food is usually yummy, I rarely come here because the service is so disappointing.

Before I started at Rutgers, countless family members of mine that work and live in the area told me I just HAD to try Cool Runnins, and let me say it did not disappoint! My favorite dish here is the oxtail with rice, cabbage and sweet plantains. My mom has ordered the curry chicken and she said its sooooo good! The oxtail is always tender, falling off the bone.
However, I’m not necessarily a fan of there rice and peas because I find it hard in texture and I’m not a fan of the flavor, so I get the white rice instead.
Portion sizes are pretty good with about $ 10 for a small and $ 12 for a large platter. They’re open until pretty late, but can sometimes get busy so I suggest ordering ahead. The woman at the counter seems pretty nonchalant; not super friendly but not necessarily rude. I definitely come here when I’m in the mood for some Caribbean food. Best Jamaican food in the area!!!

I am a fan of this place… I only order for lunch.
So far the curry chicken is good but good use more sauce and they can make it a little hotter. But I was told some of these Rutgers kids couldn’t handle the heat, that is why they make it mild… lol
People if we want more HEAT! Everyone has to request it! Maybe they will start doing it.
Also I get the curry goat roti. Love it. I am ordering today!!! YEAH!

LOVE YOU GUYS! OMG!!! the JERK chicken is «AUTHENTIC» i have eaten at many other «so claimed» Caribbean restaurants. This one takes the cake, I got the goat curry n’ roti, and chicken curry n’ roti and the jerk chicken with cabbage and plantain and rice… WOW! delicious, i had to control myself

There are very few cuisines in the world that satisfy my occasional need for nose running, tear jerking spiciness. I’ve had jerk chicken in the past that has fulfilled that need beautifully, but unfortunately, Cool Runnin’s was a mild, somewhat sweet — oh gods, the horror -, version of one of my favorite dishes. Also, it was obviously not fresh. There was a certain staleness when you got down near the bones that speaks of days in the fridge or even the freezer. Portions were generous however.
I’ve also tried their patties which were the redeeming features of this place. Spring for the shrimp ones. They’re worth it.