Plan

Adenah Bayoh and Zadie B. Smith opened the first Cornbread in Maplewood in 2017 and brought it to the ground floor of 915 Broad Street in February 2021. You order fried chicken, collards, mac and cheese and a square of cornbread at the counter and carry the tray. Bayoh co-developed the building it sits in, which is unusual for a restaurant on this street.

Daily, 11am to 10pm

Rutgers-Newark runs this on the second floor of the old Hahne and Company department store, reached through an atrium that opens onto both Broad and Halsey. Inside are the Paul Robeson Galleries, the SHINE Portrait Studio and a video production studio, and everything is free. The current exhibition cycle is built around Blues People, after the Newark-born LeRoi Jones.

Mon to Sat, 8am to 9pm. Closed Sun. Individual gallery and studio hours vary

Fornos sits at the downtown end of Ferry Street, where the Ironbound starts, and it has been the neighborhood's Spanish dining anchor for decades. Paella and seafood come out in quantities built for a table of six. Walk-ins get seated on a weeknight without much waiting because the place is enormous.

Mon to Fri, 11:30am to 10pm. Sat and Sun, noon to 10pm

A deli on Branford Place run by Marc and Michael Brummer, whose father Sam is in the photograph on the wall. The counter does pastrami and corned beef sandwiches built the old way, with pickles brought to the table. It keeps lunch hours and nothing else, which is a downtown-Newark habit rather than a quirk.

Mon to Fri, 8am to 2:30pm. Sat, 11am to 2:30pm. Closed Sun

Six acres of triangular green between Broad Street and NJPAC, laid out to a Frederick Law Olmsted plan. There is a carousel, a café kiosk and seasonal programming from the city parks foundation in warm weather. It is the piece of downtown Newark that has benches and people sitting on them before an event.

Daily, 7am to 9pm

Three acres of lawn and paths opened in May 2019 on the block facing the Prudential Center, with a children's play area, a splash pad and benches under young trees. It is the piece of ground that links the arena, Penn Station and the edge of the Ironbound, and in December it fills up with the Newark Winter Village. A pedestrian bridge over McCarter Highway and the rail tracks is the unfinished second phase.

Daily, dawn to dusk

Four owners of Ethiopian, Turkish and Afghan background opened this at the top of Halsey Street in autumn 2025. The espresso is pulled from Ethiopian beans roasted by Red House, and alongside it are Oromo chai, Yemeni-style karak and Turkish and Afghan teas. Omar Bareentto built it around booths with outlets rather than a takeout window, and said so plainly: he does not like businesses opening in Newark with only to-go options.

Mon to Fri, 7am to 10pm. Sat, 10am to 10pm. Sun, 11am to 8pm

A Black-owned bookshop on Broad Street that has been Newark's independent bookstore for decades, stocking Black history, fiction and children's books and hosting author events. It sits in the stretch of downtown between the arena and Military Park. Shelves are packed tight and the staff will point you at something.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 6pm. Closed Sun

A coffee and tea merchant on Broad Street trading since 1869, still family owned, selling beans by the pound alongside roasted nuts and boiled sweets. The fittings are old and the smell carries out onto the sidewalk. It is a shop with a counter rather than a café with seats, so you take the cup with you.

Mon to Fri, 7:30am to 3:30pm. Sat, 9am to 2pm. Closed Sun

A Portuguese bakery and café on Ferry Street that opens at five in the morning, selling papo-secos, custard tarts and coffee over a long counter. There is a second Teixeira's on Kossuth Street. The bread comes out through the day and most of the trade is people buying a bag of it on the way past.

Daily, 5am to 8pm

New Jersey's largest museum, on Washington Street behind Military Park, with American painting, a Tibetan collection and a period house attached. Admission is ten dollars, eight concessions, and free if you live in Newark or study at a university here. On the third Friday of the month it stays open to nine.

Thu and Fri, noon to 7pm. Sat and Sun, 10am to 5pm. Open to 9pm on the third Friday of each month. Closed Mon to Wed

The main library faces Washington Park from a limestone front laid in 1899 and dedicated in 1901, designed by the Philadelphia firm Rankin and Kellogg and on the National Register since 1978. The ground floor runs rotating exhibits out of the city's own collections, and Philip Roth's personal library is on display. Anyone can walk in and sit down without a card.

Mon, Tue, Thu and Fri, 9am to 5:30pm. Wed, 9am to 8:30pm. Sat, 9am to 1:30pm. Closed Sun

Flame-grilled chicken on Halsey Street, done with peri-peri sauces made on site, drawing on Portuguese, Mozambican, South African and Southeast Asian cooking. You order a quarter or a half at the counter with rice and a sauce and sit down with a tray. The meat is halal and there is a full set of vegan plates alongside it.

Mon to Sat, 11am to 8pm. Closed Sun

A small Brazilian lanches counter further up Ferry Street that never closes. The trade is burgers built the Brazilian way, with egg and corn and potato sticks on them, plus salgadinhos and coffee. The name means late hours.

Open 24 hours, seven days a week

The bar half of the Boi Na Brasa operation, on the corner where Merchant Street meets Ferry, with televisions on for Brazilian football and a grill running behind the bar. The churrascaria side is a separate door on Adams Street and keeps restaurant hours. This one does not, and on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday it is pouring until three in the morning.

Mon to Wed and Sun, 11:30am to 2am. Thu to Sat, 11:30am to 3am

Rodízio service on Monroe Street, where waiters carry skewers of picanha and sausage to the table until you turn the card over. One fixed price covers the meat and the hot table. The dining floor is loud and the turnover is quick, so a party of four walking in at 9pm gets sat.

Mon to Sat, 11:30am to 11pm. Sun, noon to 10pm

A Brazilian bakery and cafeteria on Ferry Street that opens at four in the morning and does not shut at all between Friday and Sunday. The case holds coxinhas, empanadas, brigadeiros and the cheese bread it is named for, all baked on site, and there is a plate of the day and a soup as well. Orders go over a counter and most people eat standing or take a bag away.

Mon to Thu, 4am to midnight. Fri and Sat, open 24 hours. Sun, open all day to 11pm

Juan Jose Aurre opened this in 1976 on a quiet corner of Elm Street, off the main Ironbound drag, and it still cooks Basque coastal food with a long list of fish. Portions are large and the dining side fills with families rather than anyone passing through. It is the nearest of the Ironbound places to downtown.

Mon and Wed to Sat, 11am to 10pm. Sun, 11am to 10pm. Closed Tue

Cooking from Minas Gerais served the way Brazil serves it, off a hot buffet you either pay a flat price for or put on the scale and pay by the kilo. Feijão tropeiro, frango com quiabo and rice and beans sit alongside a grill, and the bar runs separately from the food line. On Friday and Saturday it is still going at half past two in the morning.

Mon to Thu, 11am to 10pm. Fri and Sat, 11am to 2:30am. Sun, noon to 10pm

Frank Krug started selling burgers in 1932 and the tavern has been on the corner of Wilson Avenue and Napoleon Street since 1938. The burger is a twelve-ounce patty cooked on a flat top behind the bar and it is most of why anyone comes. It is a bar with tables rather than a restaurant, deep in the residential Ironbound.

Tue to Sat, 11am to 11pm. Closed Sun and Mon

Frank McGovern opened this on New Street in 1936 and it has not moved or changed its name since. It is a narrow old bar with a kitchen, a long wooden counter and a sign reading in God we trust, all others pay. On a night when downtown Newark empties out after an event, this is the place that is still serving.

Mon to Wed, 11:30am to 1:30am. Thu to Sat, 11:30am to 2:30am. Closed Sun

A tapas and wine bar at the downtown end of Ferry Street, with a bar you can stand at and a garden out the back. Plates are small and Spanish and the wine list is long. Of the Ironbound places this is the first one you reach walking east from the arena.

Tue to Thu, 11:30am to 10pm. Fri, 11:30am to 11pm. Sat, 11am to 11pm. Sun, 11am to 9pm. Closed Mon

Stephen Hughes runs this taproom on Broad Street north of Military Park, brewing on site under names borrowed from the neighborhood, including a Kolsch called Lite Rail and a stout called Coal Train. It fills growlers, sells cans to carry out and lets dogs in. There is no kitchen, so people order food in and drink it at the tables.

Mon to Fri, 4pm to 10pm. Sat, 2pm to 10pm. Sun, 2pm to 8pm

A 7,000 square foot German beer hall on the corner of Market Street and Edison Place, with its back door facing the arena and long communal tables inside. Seating is open and reservations are not taken, so you walk in and find a bench. The kitchen stays open after every Prudential Center event lets out, which is the whole reason it is here.

Mon to Thu, 11am to 2am. Fri and Sat, 11am to 3am. Sun, open for Prudential Center events. Kitchen to 10pm, extended on event nights

Open since 1989 on Madison Street, a block off Ferry, and the kitchen is built around grilled octopus and whole fish. Orders arrive on platters meant to be shared and the bread and olives land before you have decided anything. Service runs to midnight every night of the week.

Daily, 11am to midnight