In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City.
Now the pizzeria is known as 109th Street Pizzeria
The pizza here is delicious.
*Since the pandemic, Make & Bake Pizza has changed names and owners and is now known as 109th Street Pizzeria. The restaurant has also been renovated since my last review.
I came across Make & Bake Pizzeria when I was visiting East Harlem for my walking project, “MywalkinManhattan” and I needed a snack. I had already visited Moe’s Grocery a few doors down for a ‘Chopped Cheese’ and I needed a slice of pizza.
I followed the school kids from the two schools across the street into the pizzeria and they really seemed to like the pizza here. Because the kids are from the housing projects that surround the school and this part of Second and Third Avenues, the prices at the restaurants in the area are very reasonable. Here the prices are more than reasonable, they are cheap.
A slice of cheese pizza here is $1.00, a soda and water are $1.00…
Zabar’s is one of the most interesting grocery stores in New York City. Back in the late 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s, it was the only place to go for certain gourmet items, baked goods and a variety of vegetables. Their cheeses were some of the best in the city and when you needed fresh pasta, it was here or Manganario’s which went out of business about five years ago.
While other stores have gotten fancier or more expensive in their wares and grocery items, Zabar’s stays tried and true to its roots and is still a place for the average person to come and do their grocery shopping while buying high quality at a fair price. New York City has never been cheap.
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City. The Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwich on an Everything Bagel is just excellent!
Sometimes you are looking for the perfect little ‘hole in the wall’ restaurant and it just jumps out at you. This is how I found out about West Side Cafe & Pizza. I was looking for a snack and came a across a restaurant that offered well-priced pizza slices. It also offers a whole lot more.
I went into West Side Cafe & Pizza for a slice of pizza. The place around the corner from it had the slices at $3.25 for a slice of cheese and when I walked in here, the slice was $2.50, more on the level of a regular slice.
Even though the slice was warmed over, the sauce was flavorful…
I have been to Malachy’s (See reviews on TripAdvisor) several times when visiting the Upper West Side and just happen to come across it one night when walking down West 72nd Street, a shopping and restaurant row for this section of the West Side. The bar has been around forever and run by the same family.
It really is the “Cheers” of the Upper West Side. Everyone here seems to know one another and as I have sat at the bar, I can see that I was getting ‘sized up’ by some of the regulars, who the bartender really well. I must have made the cut because everyone has been really nice to me every time I have gone there for lunch or dinner. Admittingly, I am not really a drinker so the only…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City. I highly recommend the Dumplings and soups here.
*Bloggers Note: Chi Dumpling House closed at the end of January of 2023 and is being replaced by a new restaurant).
I have been to Chi Dumpling House (formerly the C & L Dumpling-sign still stands out front) several times for meals and have enjoyed the food at the restaurant.
It is truly ‘bare’ bones in its appearance. There are a few small tables in the restaurant but it is not most attractive place to eat at in Chinatown. It is a ‘workers’ type of restaurant where the employees from other restaurants come for a meal after work. The inside is more for take-out and the tables are for a quick meal. Many people taking the bus a few doors down from the restaurant came here the days I visited for a quick snack or take out food for the ride.
What the restaurant lacks in appearance it makes up in food and in the prices…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful restaurants that are reasonable in New York City. Lions, Tigers & Squares closed in June 2025 and has since been replaced by another pizzeria.
This new pizzeria opened in the heart of Chelsea in Manhattan that specializes in ‘Detroit style’ pizza, which is a type of Sicilian pizza that is baked in a deep dish with the cheese baked right into the sides of the pizza producing a caramelized edge to the pizza. Having gone to college at Michigan State University, I was introduced this this type of pizza at a restaurant named “Dooley’s” in the mid-Eighties. It’s nice to see it come to New York City.
Lion’s & Tiger’s (Named after two sports teams in Michigan) & Squares, a very clever ring in the fact that the pizza is cooked in a square pan in a pizza oven. These wonderful deep-dish pizzas are offered with a limited amount of toppings such as pepperoni, sausage…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful reasonable restaurants in New York City.
G’s Coffee Shop is a great little place for breakfast and lunch when you are touring the Dyckman Farmhouse and The Met Cloisters. The food is very reasonable and the service is very friendly.
The menu is very extensive and reasonable
The burgers here are amazing!
So are the breakfasts. This is the Sausage and Egg Breakfast Burrito
I came across G’s Coffee Shop (Steve & Gus Coffee Shop as the sign says) when I was taking a tour of the near by Cloisters Museum in Fort Tyron Park and then explored the park. After I finished at the museum and walking the park, I was starved and explored around the neighborhood to find a place to eat. Having walked the neighborhood for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” a few years earlier, I had passed many restaurants on 207th Street that had opened and closed over the years and I came to G’s Coffee Shop which I had not noticed on my last few trips to the neighborhood.
Sitting down to eat at this small hole in the wall diner, I found that it was a…
In honor of Small Business Saturday, I am featuring wonderful restaurants that are reasonable in New York City.
Corrado Bread & Pastry’s outdoor cafe.
The case line of sandwiches and pastries
The Chicken Salad on a Brioche bun
*Bloggers Note: Corrado’s Bakery closed in early June of this year and is now being replaced by another coffee shop. The Upper East Side loses another great little restaurant.
I came across Corrado Bread & Pastry shop when I was walking around the Upper East Side for my blog, “MywalkinManhattan.com” and looked in the window to see a large display of pastries and sandwiches and decided I needed a dessert and walked in. What a delicious variety of foods so beautifully displayed and so colorfully placed like jewels in a case. The best part is that everything I tried was delicious and their prices are very fair for the neighborhood.
This indoor/outdoor cafe is a block from the main campus of Hunter College and caters to everyone from the college students up for coffee and pastries between classes…
This surprisingly good Chinese take out hole in the wall restaurant on 8th Avenue has some of the best Chinese food in Midtown Manhattan. In what still advertises video tapes, New Dynasty Inc. is a real find for customers who want a reasonable lunch or dinner that is large in portions and low in prices. Their lunch specials run between $6.60 to $7.20 for a combination platter that could easily feed two people.
The restaurant is bare bones in décor with only the illuminated signs for decoration. What is lacks in atmosphere it makes up in the quality of the food and the friendliness of the service. The family that runs the place have always been very welcoming to me on my few trips here and…
I had passed Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace many times when walking the Sutton Place neighborhood of Manhattan for my project “MywalkinManhattan.com” and decided to come in for lunch. It is a small local restaurant and most of the customers obviously have been coming here for years since the guys at the grill seemed to know everyone. Most of the locals in the neighborhood were sitting at the counter, kidding around with the cooks who seemed to know everyone by either name or site.
Jimbo’s is a small diner type restaurant on First Avenue and one of those small hole in the wall restaurants that every neighborhood needs and are now becoming a dying breed in areas all over Manhattan. Lucky that this wonderful…
mywalkinmanhattan 