Jersey City Mac and Cheese Festival 2026: Food Crawl Nov. 7

Comfort food season is here, and Jersey City is celebrating with a citywide crawl. The 3rd Annual Jersey City Mac and Cheese Festival takes over downtown Jersey City, Hudson County, NJ on Saturday, November 7, 2026, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., with every guest checking in at Hudson Hall on Marin Boulevard.

Presented by Jersey City Happy Hours and lokel group, the festival works like a bar crawl, but for mac and cheese. You pick up a Mac Passport, walk to the participating restaurants in any order and at your own pace, sample each featured dish and vote for your favorite to crown the 2026 winner.

Jersey City Mac and Cheese Festival Details

• Date: Saturday, November 7, 2026
• Time: 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (check in 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.)
• Check in: Hudson Hall, 364 Marin Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07302
• Weather: Rain or shine
• Tickets: Jersey City Mac and Cheese Festival tickets

Participating Restaurants and Their Mac

Here is the lineup posted by the organizers. They note that vendors and varieties can change.

• Ashford: short rib mac and cheese
• Boots and Bones: truffle mac and cheese with pancetta and bread crumbs, with a no pancetta option
• Rustique: Joey Mo’s award winning mac with mozzarella, parmesan, fontina, pecorino, pancetta, garlic and bread crumbs
• Jam Cakery: vegan mac and cheese with shiitake bacon
• Hudson Hall: triple cheese rigatoni mac
• Stellas: classic mac and cheese plus a hickory bacon version
• Milkshake Factory: the sweet treat stop

Tickets

General admission includes a sample at every stop, a sweet treat from Milkshake Factory and a complimentary select beer at Hudson Hall. A VIP ticket adds an exclusive festival T-shirt and skip the line access, and child tickets for ages 10 and under must be bought with an adult ticket. On the ticket page this week, general admission was listed at $43.42 and VIP at $69.92, fees included, and both VIP and child tickets were running low. Online sales end at 12:59 p.m. on festival day.

Tips for the Crawl

• Check in by 3 p.m. sharp. No passport means no samples.
• If one line is long, head to another stop and circle back.
• Seating is limited, so only sit down if you plan to order more food or drinks.
• Buy only through the official ticket page. Organizers will not honor third party tickets.

Making a day of it? See our guide to things to do in Jersey City this weekend, the best things to do in Hudson County in November and our picks for the best bars in Jersey City for after the crawl.

Have a favorite Jersey City restaurant? Vote for it in the Best of Hudson County 2026 awards, and subscribe to our free newsletter for local events every week.

Featured photo: Baked macaroni and cheese (illustrative, not from the festival). Photo: Vancouver Bites!, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.