Night Dining Options For Night Owls in New York City

Posted by Black Oak On August - 26 - 2009

Every New Yorker knows the feeling. You’ve been trapped inside of an overcrowded, rambunctious, loud, messy, bar and/or night club for the last 3-4 hours of your Saturday night, and now you just want the right piece of food to settle your nerves, absorb your alcohol, and send you to sleep for the rest of the night. Only problem is, most of your favorite places are closed at 3am in the morning.

Well, in the city that never sleeps, there still are plenty of tasty options, even at a time of night when even you don’t think you should be up!

So, in honor of those who do it up every weekend, here are a few of the most popular late-late-late-night food choices in Manhattan. Warning: be weary of long, long lines.

Rosario Pizza – 173 Orchard Street, New York, NY
Here’s a Lower East Side favorite that I haven’t quite bought the hype on yet. Don’t get me wrong, the pizza at Rosario’s is great, as it is freshly baked, made of fine ingredients, and the crust has just the right amount of oil. However, the line that runs outside the door isn’t worth the wait—at least not to me. Personally, unless we’re talking about gourmet pizza, rarely do I see the need to wait longer than the time it takes to make a pizza to get my slice. That being said, most New Yorkers would kill for a piece of this stuff on a Saturday Night, and as a result, you will have to do your share of waiting if you want to eat Rosario Pizza after midnight. I guess it works out well though, considering it’s located in the Lower East Side, which probably means you’re leaving your typical LES dive bar and you probably need a little time to sober up so can you locate your wallet.

Tick Tock Diner – 481 8th Avenue, New York, NY
Yes, there is a God! We suburban transfers here in New York are used to being able to hit up our local IHOP for a decent pancake after midnight. However, when you’re in Manhattan, you have to choose from your typical diner, only very few of them open that late have the quality of breakfast food you’re looking for at 2am in the morning. So since anybody living south of 42nd Street would be reluctant to hit up Manhattan’s only IHOP on 135th Street, there is an even better late-night, breakfast diner option on the corner of 34th and 8th. Tick Tock Diner is renowned across the city for its fabulous food and the incredible wait you have to put in to get it. But it’s even more popular for its unbelievably good pancakes, which even put the International House to shame. Of course, they have your typical diner options—you know, all the way from chicken wings to broiled sea scallops. However, I’d stick close to their choices of omelettes and pancakes—safe choices, but well worth the wellbeing.

The Mecca – Southeast and Southwest corners of 53rd and 6th
There really is no official name for these guys, other than the Halal Guys, so my peeps just call them “The Mecca.” And indeed, they are The Mecca of chicken and rice, because night crawlers of all walks of life line up at the feet of these pushcart food-stops just to get a taste of their of chicken and lamb Halal platters. I must tell you, I didn’t buy the hype at first. When I initially happened across these guys, I saw a line down 53rd Street that was about 50 yards long, and I thought it was ridiculous that street-meat from a cart vendor could be worth that kind of time. But my friend persuaded me to wait, and sure enough, the chicken and rice platter has had me coming back for more for over 2 years now. The funny thing about this place is that it’s not just twenty-somethings exiting the club coming to this place, but its graveyard shifters, doctors, tourists, parents, actors and night-owls of all fashions lining up at this place at 2 in the morning, and it’s all for a platter of chicken and rice! I tell you, it’s something else, but the food is definitely worth the wait. Word to the wise though, the line tends to get very big on the West side of 6th Avenue, but what many people fail to recognize is that the same guys have a 2nd cart on the East side of the street as well. Some people will tell you the East cart isn’t as good as the West cart, but I’ve had both plenty of times, and they are the exact same things. Trust me!