New Brunswick

A grill counter at the top of Easton Avenue that serves breakfast from nine in the morning and keeps going until three on the weekend. The sandwiches are built to order, the fries come in a paper boat and the line moves because everybody in it already knows what they want. This is the New Brunswick answer to the question of where to eat at one in the morning.

Sun to Wed, 9am to midnight. Thu to Sat, 9am to 3am

Started by two Rutgers graduates in a narrow storefront on Easton Avenue and still run out of New Brunswick, with masala chai made to order alongside the espresso. The Easton Avenue shop is the original and it is small, so people take the cups outside and stand. It is the one place downtown that is reliably open and reliably good at seven in the morning.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 6pm. Sat and Sun, 8am to 6pm

Open on Easton Avenue since 1977, selling stromboli by the half or the full nine inches and a beer list that got long before long beer lists were normal. You order at the counter or sit at one of the wooden tables and it arrives fast. Rutgers students have been eating here for close to fifty years and the prices still read that way.

Sun to Wed, 11am to 10pm. Thu and Fri, 11am to midnight. Sat, 11am to 10pm

This is the old Tumulty's Pub address on George Street, taken over in 2018 and reopened under a new name with a good deal of the old menu kept. The bar runs the length of the front and the tables behind it fill with people who have just come out of something. It is the closest proper bar to both theaters and it does not need a reservation to stand at the counter.

Tue and Wed, noon to 10pm. Thu to Sat, noon to midnight. Sun, noon to 10pm. Closed Mon

Rutgers' art museum sits on the corner of George and Hamilton with free admission and no ticket to buy. The collection it is known for is Soviet nonconformist art, the Dodge holdings, which is one of the largest such collections anywhere and not a thing you expect to find in central New Jersey. There is also nineteenth-century French work and a rotating run of shows upstairs.

Wed and Fri, 11am to 6pm. Thu, 11am to 8pm. Sat and Sun, noon to 5pm. Closed Mon and Tue, and closed in August