There is a specific kind of Jersey City morning where you leave the apartment at 7:15, you have not eaten, and every place with a lit sign turns out to be a bodega. The good cafes near Journal Square keep bakery hours. Nine, sometimes ten on a Sunday. By then your train has come and gone twice.
This is a guide for the other schedule.
The 7am problem
Journal Square is a transit hub that mostly does not feed people before nine. There is coffee, there is always coffee, but a coffee is not breakfast and everybody knows it. If you want eggs before the PATH, your options thin out fast.
We open at 7:00 AM Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM on weekends, up on Summit Ave in Jersey City Heights. It is a short walk from the station — far enough that it is quiet, close enough that you are not gambling with your commute.
How much time you actually need
Fifteen minutes if you order at the counter and take it with you. Twenty-five if you sit.
A breakfast sandwich runs about six or seven minutes on the flat top. Eggs to order, a little less. If you are cutting it close, order the 586 Sandwich — single layer, built how you want, cut in half, chips in the bag — and walk out with it. If you have the twenty-five minutes, sit down. The coffee comes in a real cup and the difference is not nothing.
What to order before a train
The breakfast sandwich. Bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel or a croissant. This is the one people come back for and it travels well, which matters when you are eating it standing up on the platform.
Build your own savory toast. Sourdough, white, whole wheat or rye. Pick your spread, your greens, your protein, your eggs. It sounds fussy but it takes the same time as anything else and you get exactly the thing you wanted instead of the thing that was on the menu.
The Breakfast Sampler, if you are not in a rush at all. Two eggs, home fries, bacon, turkey bacon, beef sausage, and a side of mini pancakes. This is a sit-down order. Do not try to make this a to-go order at 7:30. You will be sad.
Espresso. Pulled to order, hot or iced. Not sitting on a burner since six.
Breakfast and brunch hours, and what comes after
Breakfast and brunch run from 7:00 AM on weekdays and 8:00 AM on weekends, until 3:00 PM. If your morning starts slow, there is still plenty of runway — come any time before three and the eggs are cooked to order, not scooped off a sheet.
And when the breakfast hours are done, we do not close. The cafe stays open until midnight for crepes, espresso and matcha, so Summit Ave is still the move on a late one — just for the sweet side of the menu rather than eggs.
Getting here
586 Summit Ave, Jersey City, NJ 07306. Walk up from the Journal Square PATH, or street park on Summit and the side streets. Our pizzeria, Lievito, is next door at 584 if the day turns savory later.
If you want the full picture of what we serve in the morning, the breakfast and brunch menu is here.