A new upscale pay-in lounge opened at Newark in Terminal B. It’s currently also available to El Al passengers as their premium pre-departure offering.

The “Art & Lounge” is on the gate level of terminal B beside duty free. The art concept involves changing exhibitions of contemporary art — given the El Al arrangement, currently Israeli art. There’s also video art displayed on several tv’s of varying dimensions.

There’s seating for 90 guests, free wifi, and Hebrew and English language newspapers and magazines.

They cater Kosher refreshments, fruits, a vegetable salad bar, cheese, breads, and baked goods are offered. A “health corner” offers granola, dried fruit, yogurt and silan (dates and honey).

The lounge is currently rented by El Al for their premium passengers, so open only around their departure times. It is available for other airlines to rent in a similar fashion, and will shortly be opening for any passenger to buy a $35 day pass.

Here’s the current menu and beverage selection:

Menu
Fresh vegetable salad bar with various dips and dressings
Marinated olives
Pickled peppers&cucumbers

Fresh morning pastries
Assorted muffins
Cheese blintzes
Cheese and apple raviolis
Pizza bites
Spinach pastry

Greek yoghurt
Granola and breakfast cereal
Madjhoul dates
Dried apricots and raisins
Pure honey
Apples
Nachos
Butter cookies
Sugarless cookies

Beverages
Assorted soft and carbonated drinks
Orange juice
Blackberry juice
Apple juice
Cava sparkling wine
Chardonnay, Mondavi Wineries, USA
Cabernet Sauvignon, Tabor Wineries, Israel
Espresso/Cappuccino/Latte/Americano
Assorted tea flavors

I avoid Newark, so don’t consider myself a local expert, but given more extensive food offerings would probably consider Lufthansa’s lounge there to be the best at the airport. Nonetheless this appears to be an attractive, if not exceptionally well-provisioned, lounge.

It’s new which alone will make it pretty nice. And it’s reasonable at the $35 price point as a means to escape the terminal. After all, it is Newark. (Disclosure: I probably am just scarred from way too many People Express flights out of there as a kid.)

Photos courtesy of Art & Lounge

---

You can join the 30,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!