The address at 115 River Road in Edgewater has long been one of the most distinctive dining locations on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, a building that extends toward the water in a way that gives its occupants something most restaurants in the greater New York metropolitan area cannot offer: unobstructed sightlines to the Manhattan skyline from a position that feels less like a viewing deck than a piece of the river itself. That location housed Pier 115 Bar and Grill for years before the original operator filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2025 and the space eventually closed. Now the team behind Blu on the Hudson — the sprawling, 30,000-square-foot Weehawken waterfront restaurant that the Blu Hospitality Group opened in spring 2023 and that has since established itself as one of the most successful upscale dining destinations on the Hudson River’s New Jersey shore — has taken over the Edgewater property. The new concept is called COV by Blu, and it is introducing itself to the region with a full-day Independence Day celebration on July 4 that positions the venue simultaneously as a premium events space, a skyline viewing destination, and the latest chapter in Blu Hospitality’s ongoing expansion of its waterfront presence.
The Fourth of July event at COV by Blu is structured around a natural divide in the day’s programming that reflects how the venue expects its guests to use it across different dayparts. The morning session, running from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as a Waterfront Access Pass for $50, positions COV by Blu as a front-row viewing location for the America 250th air and boat show — the series of aerial and maritime demonstrations taking place along the Hudson River as part of the nationwide Semiquincentennial celebration that has brought tall ships, naval vessels, and aerial performances to the waterway for the July 3 through July 8 window. Given that COV by Blu’s location extends into the river at a position that faces Manhattan directly, the geometry of the site gives guests something that shore-side viewing areas along the Hudson do not: a perspective on the air show and boat parade that is genuinely on the water rather than from the bank, at a remove from the street-level crowding that the New Jersey waterfront communities will be managing through the weekend.
The afternoon and evening session is a more fully realized celebration: a 4th of July Party running from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. at $85, structured around passed hors d’oeuvres, pier access, waterfront views, and premium bar service throughout. Table reservations beginning at 2 p.m. allow guests to secure dedicated space for group celebrations, and the venue is accepting group bookings and add-on experiences through its reservations email. The complete event runs from 10 a.m. through midnight, giving guests the flexibility to arrive at the beginning of the air show viewing period and remain through the evening’s fireworks displays that will be visible from the same waterfront position throughout the night.
The venue’s physical infrastructure, inherited from the former Pier 115 space and now being developed by the Blu Hospitality Group, includes the multi-level waterfront building, outdoor decks, and the pier access that made 115 River Road one of Bergen County’s most recognizable waterfront addresses for more than a decade. Pier 115 in its original form featured a 200-seat dining room, a 60-seat outdoor pier deck, and a 150-person Q Dock lounge, along with the kind of outdoor-indoor flexibility that a Hudson River waterfront property’s seasonal programming requires. What COV by Blu does with that inherited infrastructure — and how it distinguishes itself from both the original Pier 115 concept and from Blu on the Hudson, the Weehawken flagship that the same hospitality group operates at 1200 Harbor Boulevard roughly two miles south along the river — is the story that the July 4 event is the opening chapter of.
The Blu Hospitality Group’s track record at Blu on the Hudson provides useful context for understanding what the organization brings to the Edgewater space. The Weehawken flagship, which opened in spring 2023, was notable at its launch for both its physical scale — 30,000 square feet of dining and event space at the Hudson River waterfront — and its programmatic ambition: a full bar program, an extensive sushi menu created by a dedicated Blu Sushi Bar under the culinary direction of K Dong in collaboration with Executive Chef Juan Carlos Ortega, a pasta and Italian-influenced menu alongside modern American preparations, and an events calendar that has made the Weehawken location a consistent destination for private dining, corporate events, and large-group celebrations. The group also operates Blu Grotto in Livingston and has a forthcoming Miami location listed on its website as in development — a portfolio expansion that signals the organization’s intent to build something beyond a single-location hospitality business.
COV by Blu’s Edgewater location adds a distinct geographic dimension to the Blu Hospitality Group’s Hudson River presence. While Blu on the Hudson in Weehawken looks across the river to midtown Manhattan, 115 River Road in Edgewater sits on a stretch of the Hudson with sightlines that extend from the George Washington Bridge in the north down through the midtown skyline and toward lower Manhattan — a panoramic view that the former Pier 115 space specifically marketed as one of its defining assets and that gives any new concept at the same address an inherent visual argument for why guests should make the trip to Edgewater specifically rather than to any of the other waterfront dining options that have proliferated along the New Jersey shore in recent years.
For Edgewater residents and for the broader Bergen County and Hudson County dining and events audience that has watched the 115 River Road address sit empty through the period of Pier 115’s closure and subsequent resolution, the COV by Blu launch represents the return of a waterfront destination that had been missing from the local hospitality landscape. The Fourth of July celebration functions as both a genuine event and a soft opening opportunity — a high-visibility, high-demand date on which a new venue can establish its capabilities, its service level, and its physical experience for a concentrated audience of potential future regulars, generating word of mouth at the moment of the year when New Jersey’s waterfront hospitality scene receives its most intense public attention.
Tickets for the July 4 celebration at COV by Blu are available through Eventbrite, with the Waterfront Access Pass for the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. morning session priced at $50 and the 4th of July Party from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. priced at $85. Table reservations and group bookings beginning at 2 p.m. are available through the venue’s reservations contact at info@blu-hg.com. COV by Blu is located at 115 River Road in Edgewater, New Jersey.
