Romantic flowers in Kearny run into a local complication that does not exist in a town of detached single-family houses: a large share of homes here hold two or three generations, and the person who opens the door at two in the afternoon is very often not the person you are sending to. Grandmothers are home. Mothers-in-law are home. An aunt on the first floor takes the package for the second floor, and then has questions. None of that is a problem so long as you plan for it. If the surprise needs to stay a surprise, three things fix it: send to a workplace instead, send in the evening window rather than the afternoon, or name the delivery in the notes so the card carries no information anybody else can read over a shoulder. Our shops will do all three. What they cannot do is guess which of them you wanted, so write the instruction down when you order.
Where Kearny actually takes a date is the Ironbound. Ten minutes south over the Passaic, Ferry Street has been the going-out street for this whole corridor since before anybody reading this was born — Iberia, Fornos of Spain, the Spanish Tavern over on McWhorter Street — where a Saturday two-top is booked days out and the portions arrive built for four. Closer to home, the churrascarias and late-opening bakeries on Kearny Avenue handle a shorter evening. Further out, the Jersey City waterfront at Exchange Place and Newport puts the Manhattan skyline across the water, Liberty State Park gives you the harbor and the statue for anyone planning a proposal, and Hoboken's Washington Street is twenty minutes up the river. Harrison, directly across the Passaic, has Red Bull Arena — which in this particular town is not a neutral fact, since Kearny is the place that sent John Harkes, Tony Meola and Tab Ramos out of its high school and has been called Soccer Town USA since long before the stadium was built. A match night is a date night here, and the Harrison PATH station beside it runs one stop to Newark Penn and straight under the Hudson to Manhattan.
Restaurant delivery is worth doing properly or not at all. Call the room first and get a yes plus the name of whoever said it. Ironbound kitchens send out platters built for sharing and their tables have no spare surface, so the only shape that survives is compact, low and water-held — a tall hand-tied piece will be moved to a service station before you sit down, which is the opposite of the effect you paid for. Ask for a late-afternoon window, before service starts. Hotels want one thing from you: the name printed on the reservation and the day of arrival. Anything else and the desk has no record to attach the flowers to. The rooms within reach run from Element Harrison-Newark beside the arena out to the Meadowlands Parkway chains in Secaucus, then up the Hudson to Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson, The Westin Jersey City Newport and W Hoboken.