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Teixeira's Bakery
Portuguese Bakery Counter — call for prices
The Ironbound's most iconic Portuguese bakery, packed at the counter from 5am — pastéis de nata, chouriço milk bread, croquettes, and bifana sandwiches, with a second location at 113-129 Kossuth St. Their own site publishes no prices and we don't print aggregator numbers as fact, so call (973) 344-4902 if the math matters. A bakery breakfast for two here has long been one of the neighborhood's cheapest tickets — and a perfect stop before a flight out of EWR.
📍 186 Ferry St, Ironbound · ⏳ Daily from 5am
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Ferry St. Barbecue
Portuguese Charcoal BBQ — phone-check the combo price
A flagship Ironbound churrasqueira at the start of Ferry Street — spice-rubbed meats charcoal-grilled on a hand-rotated spit, plus bacalhau na brasa and garlic shrimp. The $12 half-chicken-and-ribs combo quoted all over the internet traces to one stale scrape recycled by lookalike menu sites; the restaurant has no site of its own, and where Ironbound charcoal prices could be verified this year, they'd risen. Call (973) 344-7337 for today's number. Gets packed at lunch; worth the wait.
📍 89 Ferry St, Ironbound · ⏳ Daily 11a–10p
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McWhorter Barbecue
Off-Strip Portuguese BBQ — call for prices
A block off the tourist drag on McWhorter Street and consistently rated among NJ's best Portuguese BBQ. The owner's only online presence is a members-walled Facebook page, so the $10–12 plates floating around are third-party numbers — one lookalike menu site even describes this charcoal-chicken institution as a Thai restaurant, which tells you what those pages are worth. Call (973) 344-2633 for today's board. Cash, Zelle, and Cash App accepted. Closed Mondays.
📍 104 McWhorter St, Ironbound · ⏳ Tue–Sun (closed Mon)
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Pulaski BBQ
Whole Charcoal Chicken w/ Fries & Rice — $18, feeds two
New hands on an old pit: the Carmo brothers sold to Sebastian Meleiro, who renovated the Walnut Street room. Per the owner site's own price board, the two-for-$20 play is a whole charcoal chicken with fries and rice — $18.00, shared. The famous steak sandwich is now $11, so two of those is $22 and over the line, and the half-chicken-and-ribs combo is $23. Stick to the whole bird. Closed Mondays.
📍 384 Walnut St, Ironbound · ⏳ Tue–Sun 11a–10p (closed Mon)
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Banh & Bo
Two Grilled-Pork Bánh Mì — $19.90
A modern Vietnamese bánh mì café on Market Street, steps from Prudential Center and Newark Penn Station. Per their own Chowbus ordering menu (August 2026), the grilled-pork bánh mì is $9.95 — two squeak under at $19.90 with a dime to spare. That's the whole margin: add two $4.25 Vietnamese iced coffees and you're at $28.40, and the $11.95 signature pushes a pair over. Sandwiches only, water from the cooler. Online prices can carry a markup, so the counter may run slightly kinder.
📍 194 Market St, Downtown · ⏳ Call ahead: (973) 679-0034
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Canela Bakery
Pastéis de Nata to Order — call for counter prices
A locals' Portuguese bakery on Wilson Ave — squarely in the Ironbound, whatever lists calling it "North Newark" say; the owner's own site puts it in the East Ward — baking pastéis de nata to order, pulled from the oven with just the right char. Counter prices aren't published anywhere: the online shop only sells $65–100 shipping packs. Call (862) 763-9008, and go early — doors open at 4am on weekdays. The Ironbound experience without the Ferry Street crowds.
📍 180 Wilson Ave, Ironbound · ⏳ Tue–Fri 4a–3p · Sat 5a–5p (closed Sun–Mon)
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O Preguinho
Bifanas at the Six Corners — call for prices
An Ironbound Portuguese sandwich counter at the "six corners," run by a family from Tondela — the bifana (marinated pork cutlet on a crusty Portuguese roll), the frango no pão, and the prego are the orders. Their website was down for hosting reasons at our August 2026 check, so no owner price list was reachable — sandwiches here have historically been the ward's cheapest handheld meal, but call (973) 900-5171 before you build a budget around it.
📍 98 Elm Rd, Ironbound · ⏳ Call ahead for hours & prices
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Salgaderia Maranato
Brazilian Salgados — no posted prices, call ahead
A Brazilian salgado counter with two Ironbound locations — coxinha, catupiry-stuffed coxinha, beef and shrimp risoles, and yuca croquettes, ordered by the piece and built for sharing. The owner site shows the whole lineup without a single price, and ordering runs through WhatsApp, so call (862) 234-2292 for the current count-per-dollar. The Pulaski Street counter opens at 5am on weekdays for the work crowd.
📍 99 Pulaski St + 114-116 Wilson Ave, Ironbound · ⏳ From 5am weekdays (Pulaski St)
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Peru Taypa
Half Pollo a la Brasa w/ Sides — $17, feeds two
An Ironbound Peruvian rotisserie on Van Buren Street with owner-branded online ordering, so the math is checkable to the penny: a quarter pollo a la brasa with sides is $10.50, and the half chicken with sides is $17.00 — charcoal-roasted, crispy-skinned, and genuinely enough for two. The whole bird with sides is $24, worth it only if you're three. The cheapest owner-verified table for two on this page.
📍 62 Van Buren St, Ironbound · ⏳ Daily 11a–9:30p (Fri–Sat late)
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Tortas Lokas
Tortas $10 · Taco Tuesday Now $2
A downtown torta shop on Market Street piling breaded beef or chicken, beans, and avocado onto soft telera rolls. Per the owner's own menu, tortas are a flat $10.00 — so two loaded tortas is $20.00, exactly at the line, not under it. The move is the split: one torta plus Taco Tuesday tacos, which just dropped from $3 to $2 each, or a torta and a quesadilla, and you're under with food to spare. Walkable from Penn Station.
📍 378 Market St, Downtown · ⏳ Mon–Fri 10a–10p (Sat: call (862) 234-1575)
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Bloomfield Ave BBQ
Churrasco Combo — listed at $15, verify by phone
A North Newark Portuguese churrasqueira well off the Ironbound tourist track. The half-chicken-and-half-ribs combo with rice and fries showed $15.00 on menu mirrors — matching our old card — but the owner's own site was down every time we checked in August 2026, and the one Ironbound pit whose prices we could verify had raised its sandwich 60%. So treat the $15 as a lead, not a promise: call (973) 268-5415 before you count on it. Feeds two if it holds.
📍 391 Bloomfield Ave, North Newark · ⏳ Call for hours
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Cachapa Loka
Patacones, Cachapas & Arepas — check the counter board
A Lower Broadway storefront for Venezuelan and Dominican street food — patacones (crispy smashed-plantain sandwiches), cachapas, arepas, and empanadas. Bold, filling, and a rare find in Newark. Its online ordering is walled to automated checks, and the suspiciously exact "$5.81 patacón" we once printed had delivery-app fingerprints all over it, so no numbers until the counter board says otherwise. Note the sister stores in Passaic and Paterson price separately — the Newark board is the one that counts.
📍 129-131 Bloomfield Ave, Lower Broadway · ⏳ Call ahead
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Taqueria Los Güeros
Shared Taco Spread — $19.47
A downtown Halsey Street taqueria whose owner site prints real prices: "Los Tacos" is four street tacos for $11.99 — al pastor, carnitas, chicken, $3 a taco. Share the stack, add rice and beans ($4.49) and chips ($2.99), and two people land at $19.47. The catch: order a four-taco round each and you're at $23.98, over the line — this works only as one spread, split down the middle.
📍 138 Halsey St, Downtown · ⏳ Daily
This page carried 17 cards. Two did not survive the August 2026 owner-source pass, and they're listed here with the reasons rather than quietly deleted:
And a standing caveat instead of a cut: six Ironbound institutions on this page publish no prices anywhere they control. We keep them because they're open, beloved, and historically cheap — but their cards carry phone numbers instead of dollar figures, because the only "menus" online are lookalike scrape sites we won't cite.
Bigger than one storefront, smaller than the home-page national list — regional chains with real Newark addresses.
These chain deals work anywhere in the country, including Newark.