Downtown Jersey City

A café and small market on Grove Street that serves breakfast all day and starts lunch at 11am. The coffee is the reason to sit down rather than take it out, and the tables turn over steadily on a weekend morning without anyone taking a name. It is a full kitchen rather than a pastry case.

Daily from 8am. Breakfast all day, lunch from 11am, brunch 8am to 3:30pm. Closing time varies by day and is not reliably published

Nicolas Kalcanides opened this in August 1968 and named it for his daughter. It sits on the stretch of Newark Avenue that was closed to cars and turned into a walking plaza, so the outside tables are in the middle of the street. Slices come over the counter, and there are calzones and sandwiches if you want more than a slice.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 11pm. Sun, noon to 10:15pm

A used vinyl shop on Brunswick Street open since 1996, which makes it older than most of the buildings around it. Stock is secondhand and stacked rather than sorted into a display. It opens two days a week and that is the whole schedule.

Mon and Sat, noon to 6pm. Closed Tue to Fri and Sun

A small dark bar on the corner of Second and Coles, a few blocks off the plaza and away from the newer buildings. There is a jukebox, a short beer list and wings, with DJs playing records on some nights. Tuesday is a singer-songwriter showcase at 8pm, so the bar sometimes has a bill of its own.

Mon to Thu, 3pm to 2am. Fri, 3pm to 3am. Sat, noon to 3am. Sun, noon to 2am

Opened in 2016 by people who already lived here, with a pub menu that happens to be entirely vegetarian and a yard out the back. Downstairs there is a smaller bar called PS that puts on comedy and art shows and music on its own nights. The front is a plain bar with a plain beer and cocktail list.

Mon to Thu, 4pm to 2am. Fri, 4pm to 3am. Sat, noon to 3am. Sun, noon to 2am

A narrow storefront on Grove Street below the Van Vorst blocks, doing tacos and tamales and tortas with the kitchen in plain view. It has been here long enough to open a second branch further up the same street. Order at the counter, sit at one of the few tables, and pay less than the newer places on the plaza charge.

Daily, 11am to 10:45pm

A family-run scoop shop on Erie Street going since 1968. Everything is made on the premises and the flavor list runs long, with a lot of tropical fruit on it. The name is short for todo rico. You order at the counter and eat it on the street.

Daily, 11am to 11pm

A small square between Montgomery and Jersey Avenue, ringed by the brownstones the neighborhood is named for. On Saturday a farmers market sets up along the Jersey Avenue edge and runs through the morning into the afternoon, year round. The rest of the week it is benches, a playground and people cutting through.

Park open daily, dawn to dusk. Farmers market Saturdays, 8am to 3pm spring through autumn, 9am to 1pm in winter

A bagel shop on Jersey Avenue that has been boiling and baking here for more than thirty-five years, with a deli counter alongside for egg sandwiches. There are other branches on Central and Bergen, and this is the downtown one. It is a morning and early-afternoon business and it closes when that is done.

Mon to Fri, 6am to 3pm. Weekend hours not confirmed

The Jersey City branch of a Greenpoint bookshop, now on a side street off Hamilton Park rather than its old Newark Avenue address. It is a general-interest shop with a staff-recommendation habit and a children's section at the back, and it runs readings and a book club. Open the same hours seven days a week, which very little else here manages.

Daily, 10am to 7pm