Walk past 238 Franklin Avenue this week and you'll notice something different from restaurant weeks past. The storefront that anchored the event's headline lineup in 2024 is dark. No flyer taped to the door. No mention on the Nutley Chamber of Commerce's list of participants. That address spent 2024 as The Hudson Rose and part of 2025 as Bacarosa, and as of this month it isn't open at all.
Meanwhile, across town, Vilardo's Deli & Catering is running its usual 10 percent off everything except catering, and Nutley Diner is offering its regular restaurant week discount like it has for years. The Nutley Chamber of Commerce's fourth annual Restaurant & Foodie Week is running through Thursday, August 27, and the list of who's participating this year tells you more about how Nutley actually eats than any "best of" roundup could.
The lineup still running through Thursday
The chamber-backed promotion started four years ago as a way to get residents into local restaurants they might be driving past without ever walking in. This year it's pulled in close to two dozen businesses, from pizzerias to cafes to the town's only full-service grocery. The rules are simple: offers are good for dine-in and takeout only, you mention the deal before you order, and you can't stack it with any other promotion.
Here's a sample of what's on the table before the week wraps up Thursday.
| Business | Deal Through Thursday |
|---|---|
| Amore Pizza by Jack Calandra | $46.95 family meal: two pies, garlic cheesy sticks, buffalo or Asian garlic wings |
| Chris & Angie's Dinette | 10% off bills of $40 or more |
| The Crazy Argentinian Empanadas | $39.95 chicken and pork combo with two sides, two sodas, dessert |
| The Sweet Life Café | Buy one, get one free handcrafted beverage or baked good |
| Vilardo's Deli & Catering | 10% off everything except catering |
| Sugar Tree Café | 15% off bills of $20 or more |
| Thai Essence Restaurant | 10% off bills of $40 or more |
ShopRite Nutley, Pita Bowl, and The Oakley Kitchen + Cocktails round out the chamber's own participant page, alongside longer-running names like Nutley Diner. If you want the full flyer-by-flyer list, the chamber has it posted here.
The address that's sitting this one out
Restaurant week hasn't always looked like this. Back in 2024, local coverage of the kickoff named The Hudson Rose alongside The Oakley and Mamma Vittoria as one of the event's headline stops. It made sense. The Hudson Rose had just taken over the old Franklin Steakhouse space after two years of renovation, brought in a chef who'd won a title on "Chopped," and built a 200-person event room called The Harlow Room upstairs.
That restaurant closed in July 2025, less than a year after opening, so the team could rebrand. Bacarosa opened in the same space that August, pitched as a looser, more playful take on Italian food from the same ownership group. It lasted four months. The final service was December 20, 2025, with ownership citing what they called the ongoing economics of running a restaurant.
So the same 238 Franklin Avenue address has now hosted a steakhouse, then two different concepts from one hospitality group, in under four years, and none of them are on this year's restaurant week list. That's not a comment on the food. It's a fact about how fast the marquee end of Nutley's dining scene turns over compared to what's actually filling the tables during the town's own restaurant week.
The businesses that never needed a rebrand
Look at who's actually run every year of this event and a pattern shows up fast. Nutley Diner has been family owned and operated since 2003. ShopRite Nutley has been run by the LoCurcio family since 1932. Vilardo's, Sugar Tree Café, Amore Pizza by Jack Calandra, and The Oakley Kitchen + Cocktails don't have rebrand stories attached to them. They're the businesses restaurant week counts on year after year, not because they're flashy, but because they're still there to sign up.
Set that against the Franklin Avenue timeline. One address went through three names in under four years. Across town, a family grocery store has operated under the same ownership since 1932, which is 94 years and counting. That's the actual range of what "Nutley restaurant" means right now: a handful of ambitious concepts that come in loud and sometimes leave just as fast, and a much larger group of places that have simply kept showing up.
What four years of this list actually tells you
Restaurant week isn't just a discount calendar. Run it back four years and it functions as an informal census of who's still standing in Nutley's food scene. The businesses that show up on the list every August, rain or shine, aren't the ones getting written up for their design or their celebrity chef. They're the diner, the deli, the pizzeria with a name attached to a real person behind the counter.
That doesn't mean the newer, more ambitious spots don't matter. Nutley residents clearly wanted a New York-style restaurant on Franklin Avenue enough that two different concepts tried to be it. But if you're deciding where to spend a Tuesday night five years from now, the businesses with the longest track record on this list are the safer bet, and this year's lineup makes that easier to see than it's ever been.
How to use what's left of the week
A few practical notes if you're planning to eat your way through the rest of it:
- The promotion runs through Thursday, August 27. After that, the deals disappear until next August.
- Mention the specific offer before you order. Flyers and full details are posted on the Nutley Chamber of Commerce's site.
- Deals are for dine-in and in-person takeout only, and none of them stack with other promotions the restaurant might be running.
- If you're catering something for later this fall, check whether the business you're eyeing has a catering-specific discount tied to the week. Several do, separate from the dine-in deals.
Nutley's food scene changes shape every year, sometimes because a new concept moves in with real ambition, sometimes because that same concept moves out sixteen months later. What doesn't change as fast is the shorter list of places that keep signing up for restaurant week no matter what's happening two doors down. That's worth knowing whether you're deciding where to eat tonight or just keeping track of the town you live in.
If you're the kind of person who pays attention to which businesses last and which ones churn, that same instinct is useful the day you decide to buy or sell a home here too. Jessica Munoz has been tracking Nutley block by block for exactly that reason. If you ever want to talk about what's happening in this town beyond the dinner menu, from the Nutley neighborhood market to what your next move here might look like, schedule your free consultation whenever you're ready.
