New York City / Soul food
Best Soul Food &
Comfort Food in NYC
Fried chicken from $9.99 a pound to $26 a plate — and three of these have a real happy hour.
Three of these run a published happy hour — including Sylvia’s, which has been open since 1962.
- 18 verified rooms
- 3 publish a happy hour
- chicken from $9.99/lb
- oldest: 1954
The best soul food in NYC right now is Charles Pan-Fried Chicken in Harlem ($18.95 for three pieces, two sides and cornbread, cast-iron fried by a James Beard-nominated chef), Sylvia’s (open since 1962, and one of very few with a published happy hour), Jacob Restaurant ($9.99 a pound, 42 dishes a day), Peaches HotHouse in Bed-Stuy ($17 Nashville-style hot chicken) and Shaw-nae’s House on Staten Island — six tables, three nights, reservations only. A fried chicken plate runs $17 to $26 across this city, with a $9.99-a-pound floor. Read the hours before you go: this is the category where they catch people out most — Miss Mamie’s does not open until 2:30pm, and Sarge’s has not been a 24-hour deli for years.
The short version
- Best valueJacob Restaurant — $9.99 a pound, 42 dishes a day, 10am to 10pm. You size the plate.
- Best plateCharles Pan-Fried Chicken: $18.95 for three pieces, two sides and cornbread, cast-iron fried.
- Real happy hoursSylvia’s (since 1962) does $5 beer and $10 cocktails, Mon–Fri 3–7pm.
- Check the hoursMiss Mamie’s opens at 2:30pm and shuts at 8:30 · Shaw-nae’s is Thu–Sat only.
- Out of date everywhereSarge’s is not 24 hours · Jacob’s Pickles moved to Columbus Ave.
At a glance
What to order, when the kitchen is actually open, and where the price is published.
| Restaurant | Order this | When | Neighborhood | $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sylvia’s Restaurant | $5 beer · $10 cocktails | Mon–Fri 3–7pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Charlie’s Bar & Kitchen | Happy hour, prices unpublished | Mon–Fri noon–7pm | Port Morris | $$$ |
| Peaches HotHouse | Fried chicken $17 | Mon–Fri 4–7pm | Bed-Stuy | $$$ |
| Charles Pan-Fried Chicken | $18.95 plate, 2 sides | Daily 11am–10pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Jacob Restaurant | $9.99/lb · $10.99 all-meat | Daily 10am–10pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Amy Ruth’s | The Rev. Al Sharpton | Daily to 9:30pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Melba’s | Chicken & eggnog waffles | Daily to 9:45pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Red Rooster Harlem | $95 gospel brunch | Sun 11am & 1:15pm | Harlem | $$$ |
| Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too | The Miss Mamie Sampler | Tue–Sun 2:30–8:30pm | Morningside Heights | $$$ |
| Shaw-nae’s House | Sugar Daddy Wings $16 | Thu–Sat 5–10pm | Stapleton | $$$ |
| The Soul Spot | Fish plates $10–$10.50 | Daily 11am–10pm | Boerum Hill | $$$ |
| Kori’s Eats | Chicken and waffles | Mon–Sat 7am–12:30am | Mott Haven | $$$ |
| Soul City | Fried chicken plate | Daily from noon | Jamaica | $$$ |
| Jacob’s Pickles | Fried chicken & biscuits | Daily to midnight | Upper West Side | $$$ |
| Bubby’s | Meatloaf $25 · pie $9 | Daily, gap at 4pm | Tribeca | $$$ |
| Good Enough to Eat | Meatloaf · biscuits | Hours not published | Upper West Side | $$$ |
| Sarge’s Delicatessen & Diner | Chicken soup $9.95 | Daily 10am–10pm | Murray Hill | $$$ |
| Veselka | Chicken noodle soup | Open overnight Fri–Sat | East Village | $$$ |
Map: where these 18 spots are
Harlem carries this page. The rest runs from Bed-Stuy and Boerum Hill out to Jamaica, Mott Haven and Stapleton.
Pins are numbered to match the table above – tap any pin for the detail and directions.
The three real happy hours
Three of eighteen, and one has been open since 1962. More in best bars in NYC.
Sylvia’s Restaurant On now
The oldest soul food room in Harlem still trading is also one of very few in this guide with a happy hour published on its own drink menu: Monday to Friday 3 to 7pm, $5 beer, $8 wine by the glass, $10 cocktails and $30 bottles. Founded by Sylvia Woods in 1962 on Lenox Avenue and still family-operated. The fried chicken entree is $25 with two sides and cornbread; smothered pork chops $25 for one or $32 for two, orderable golden fried, grilled or smothered; ribs $29. The honest caveat, and it is a timing trap: Sunday through Tuesday the kitchen shuts at 8pm, and the happy hour ends at 7. Show up at 7:30 on a Monday and you have missed both.
sylviasrestaurant.com · See our Harlem happy hours
Charlie’s Bar & Kitchen On now
Seven hours, Monday to Friday, noon to 7pm — published on the venue’s own site and among the longest happy hour windows we have verified anywhere in New York, in a room that occupies the lobby of the landmarked Clock Tower building on Bruckner Boulevard, a former piano factory. The kitchen is New American with Latin and Southern influences: burgers, steaks, seafood. Kitchen runs to 10pm Mon–Thu and 11pm Fri–Sat, with the bar an hour later every night, and weekend brunch noon to 4pm. The honest caveat: the window is published, the prices are not. A seven-hour happy hour with no listed prices deserves one phone call before you build a plan around it.
charliesbarkitchen.com · See our best burgers in NYC
Peaches HotHouse On now
Open since March 2010 and one of the first places in New York serving Nashville-style hot chicken, at $17 for the fried chicken in three heat levels — regular, hot, extra hot — with fried shrimp at $18, mac and cheese $7 and stone-ground grits $6. There is a Monday-to-Friday 4–7pm happy hour published on the operator’s own location page, which almost nobody writes about. Two honest caveats: the window is published but the prices are not — nobody lists what a happy hour beer actually costs here — and extra hot is genuinely extra hot. Order down one level from wherever you think you are.
bcrestaurantgroup.com · See our Bed-Stuy happy hours
Harlem institutions
Where the category lives, and the founding years to go with it. See Harlem happy hours.
Charles Pan-Fried Chicken
$18.95 buys three pieces of chicken, two sides and cornbread — the best plate-for-price in Harlem, and the chef is James Beard-nominated. Charles Gabriel has been cooking here since 1990, and the distinction that matters is in the name: the chicken is pan-fried in a cast-iron skillet, not deep-fried, which is the entire point of the place. Sides on their own are $6. Three locations, all open Sun–Thu 11am–10pm and Fri–Sat to 11pm — including 146 W 72nd St, which puts the same $18.95 plate below 96th Street. The honest caveat: it is a counter operation, not a sit-down room. Go for the chicken, not the atmosphere.
charlespanfriedchicken.com · See our Harlem happy hours
Jacob Restaurant
$9.99 a pound, 42 dishes a day, 10am to 10pm — the cheapest real soul food plate in Harlem, and the size of it is entirely your call. A pay-by-weight buffet running a hot line and a cold salad bar: fried chicken, mac and cheese, candied yams, collards. The all-meat rate is $10.99/lb, plus 8.875% sales tax. Trading in Harlem since 2009, with a second site at 143rd and 8th, both open the same hours daily. The honest caveat, and it is arithmetic: you are paying for weight, so the mac and cheese and the candied yams cost you more per forkful than the collards. Load smart or the $9.99 plate quietly becomes a $22 plate.
jacobrestaurant.com · See our best cheap eats in NYC
Amy Ruth’s
Opened on Mother’s Day 1999 by Carl S. Redding and named for his grandmother, Amy Ruth Moore Bass, who taught him to cook in Alabama. The signature waffle platters are named after Harlem and civil-rights figures, and the Rev. Al Sharpton — fried chicken and waffles — is the order and the reason the line forms. The restaurant has announced a Union Square expansion, its first room outside Harlem. Two honest caveats: the menu is published only as images and a PDF, so no price appears in readable form anywhere on their site — and the old “open 24 hours at weekends” reputation is out of date. The kitchen closes at 10:30pm Friday and Saturday.
amyruths.com · See our Harlem happy hours
Melba’s
Melba Wilson cooked at Sylvia’s, Rosa Mexicano and Windows on the World before opening her own room on 114th in 2005, and describes herself as born, bred and buttered in Harlem. The signature is southern fried chicken with eggnog waffles — hers, not a borrowed idea — with collard green spring rolls and Jamaican oxtails as the other calling cards. House cocktails are $16, the only first-party prices published. A second Melba’s runs in Grand Central Terminal. The honest caveat, and it matters if you are pricing a night: the food menu is published only as a PDF and image, so every price you see online is a delivery price with markup baked in. Assume dine-in runs meaningfully lower.
melbasrestaurant.com · See our Harlem happy hours
Red Rooster Harlem
The Sunday Gospel Brunch is $95 a head, all-you-can-eat, with a performance by the Sing Harlem choir collective — now in its 16th year and the only one in the city that books out weeks ahead. Two showtimes, 11am and 1:15pm. Jazzy Sunday runs alongside it, with resident artist Nate Lucas on Hammond B3 organ from noon. Marcus Samuelsson opened the room in 2010; the fried yard bird is the dish. The local move: the bar runs an hour and a half past the kitchen every night — to 11pm Mon–Thu and midnight Fri–Sat. The honest caveat: $95 before drinks is the price of the room and the choir, not the food. Go for the gospel brunch or go to the bar.
redroosterharlem.com · See our best bottomless brunch in NYC
Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too
Read the hours before you go, because almost no guide prints them: it serves 2:30pm to 8:30pm, Tuesday to Sunday, and that is the whole day. There is no lunch service, and it is dark on Mondays. Open since 1997 and owned by Norma Jean Darden, a former model turned caterer and cookbook author. The Miss Mamie Sampler puts shrimp, short ribs and fried chicken on one plate; the cornbread stuffing and the collards with ham hocks are what the sides are known for. The New York Post called its fried chicken the best in the city, a line the restaurant still runs. The honest caveat: turn up at noon and you are standing outside a locked door.
spoonbreadinc.com · See our Harlem happy hours
Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island
The rooms outside Manhattan worth the trip. Pair with best BBQ in NYC.
Shaw-nae’s House
Six tables, three nights a week, reservations required — the hardest soul food seat in New York, and it is in Stapleton. Chef-owner Shaw-nae Dixon runs it as an intimate boutique dining experience, open Thursday, Friday and Saturday only, 5 to 10pm, closed the other four days. The Sugar Daddy Wings — maple butter and cinnamon, $16 — are the dish it is known for. Book by phone or Resy. The honest caveat: this is not a walk-in and not a Sunday plan. Book it or skip it. One address note: the restaurant’s own site says 381 Van Duzer; The Infatuation says 379. Trust the restaurant.
shawnaeshouse.com · See our best birthday restaurants in NYC
The Soul Spot
Caribbean-soul dining in its own words — Caribbean cooking and Southern comfort on the same menu — with fish and seafood plates at $10 to $10.50 and soups at $7.50, which on Atlantic Avenue is genuinely striking. Open 11am to 10pm, Monday through Sunday, with no dark day, which is rare in this category and the practical reason to know about it. The mac and cheese is what people order alongside. The honest caveat, and check the block before you walk it: third-party listings disagree with the restaurant about its own street number — the venue’s own site says 307 Atlantic Ave, Yelp and several aggregators still say 302. Go with the restaurant.
thesoulspotnyc.com · See our Cobble Hill happy hours
Kori’s Eats
Seven in the morning until half past midnight, six days a week — the widest service window of any soul food kitchen we checked, and the reason this card exists. Caribbean-soul in Mott Haven: chicken and waffles including tenders on bacon-infused waffles, oxtail, mac and cheese, braised ribs. Sunday is 8am–7pm. A second Kori’s trades on Boston Road in the north Bronx. The honest verdict, because the reviews are genuinely mixed: the oxtail and the waffles get the praise; the pasta and rice sides get the complaints. Order the chicken and waffles and skip the sides. There is no official website, so every published hour comes from an aggregator.
See our best late-night food in NYC
Soul City
The Queens entry, and the room Jamaica actually uses: a Black-owned, family-operated Southern kitchen on Merrick Boulevard doing fried chicken, mac and cheese, catfish, collard greens and candied yams. Opens at noon seven days, closing 9pm Sun–Thu and 11pm Friday and Saturday. The honest caveat, and there are three, which is why this sits last in the section: there is no website, so every hour and price online comes from a third party; no prices are published anywhere; and at least one reviewer reports the posted noon opening is not always honoured. Call (917) 300-6051 before you make the trip out.
See our Forest Hills happy hours
American comfort food
Meatloaf, biscuits and pie. More in best brunch in NYC.
Jacob’s Pickles
Correction first, because most of the internet has not followed: it is at 680 Columbus Avenue now. Grubhub, Seamless and several guides still list the old 509 Amsterdam Ave address. Launched in 2011 and built its name on buttermilk fried chicken, mac and cheese, biscuits and gravy, and house pickles. Open until midnight every single night — from 10am on weekdays and 9am at weekends — which makes it one of very few comfort kitchens above 96th Street that genuinely is. It also runs counters at Moynihan Train Hall and Time Out Market DUMBO. The honest caveat: menus are published only as PDFs, so no readable price, and no happy hour is published on their own site.
jacobspickles.com · See our Upper West Side happy hours
Bubby’s
Opened on Thanksgiving Day 1990 by Ron Silver, who began by baking pies in a kitchen at Hudson and North Moore and selling them to his neighbours — and the $9 slice is still the thing to order, with peach crumble, local apple, Michigan sour cherry, banoffee, peanut butter chocolate and key lime in rotation. The meatloaf is $25 (beef, pork and bacon, crispy onions, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy), half a 24-hour-brined fried chicken $26, matzo ball soup $15, pancakes $24. The honest caveat, and it is a real trap: there is a hard service gap in the late afternoon — brunch stops seating around 3:45pm and dinner does not start until 4:15. Turn up at 4:00 and you wait.
bubbys.com · See our best brunch in NYC
Good Enough to Eat
Farmhouse American comfort at 520 Columbus at 85th since 1981, and one of the last Upper West Side rooms of its kind still trading under the same name — which after four decades on that avenue is most of the reason to go. Breakfast, lunch and dinner with a full bar, plus catering, and seasonal prix-fixe menus for holidays. The meatloaf and the biscuits are the two long-running signatures. The honest caveat, and it is an odd one for a 45-year-old restaurant: their own site publishes neither hours nor prices — daily specials go to Facebook instead of the website. Call (212) 496-0163 or check their Facebook before you plan around it.
Where to get chicken noodle soup
Two rooms, both older than most of this list. See also best deli sandwiches.
Sarge’s Delicatessen & Diner
$9.95 for chicken soup with noodles or a matzo ball, on the published menu — the best bowl in Murray Hill and one of very few in this category with a price you can actually read. Opened in 1964 by Abe Katz, a retired NYPD sergeant, hence the name; a three-alarm grease fire shut it for fifteen months in 2012 and it reopened in 2014 under fourth-generation owner Andrew Wengrover. The Chicken in the Pot puts a matzo ball, noodles, peas and carrots in the broth. The honest caveat, and it is the single most out-of-date fact about this place: it is not a 24-hour deli any more. The doors shut at 10pm and takeout stops at 9:45, whatever the old listings say.
sargesdeli.com · See our best deli sandwiches in NYC
Veselka
Open straight through Friday night into Saturday, and 24 hours on Saturday — which makes this the only place in New York where a genuinely good bowl of chicken noodle soup is a 4am option. Founded in 1954 by Ukrainian immigrants Volodymyr and Olha Darmochwal, with three generations of the same family still running it. Chicken noodle soup is one of the dishes they ship nationwide frozen, which is a fair signal of what they are known for. Four locations: East Village, Williamsburg, Grand Central and Madison Square Garden. The honest caveat, twice: the only soup price on their own site is the frozen shipping price, not what a bowl costs at the table — and the 24-hour service is Friday overnight into Saturday, not every night.
veselka.com · See our best late-night food in NYC
NYC soul food: FAQ
How much does a fried chicken plate cost in NYC?
Between $17 and $26 at a sit-down room, with a much lower floor if you go by weight. Peaches HotHouse in Bed-Stuy is $17, Charles Pan-Fried Chicken in Harlem is $18.95 for three pieces with two sides and cornbread, Sylvia’s is $25 and Bubby’s in Tribeca is $26 for half a 24-hour-brined bird. The cheapest real soul food plate in the city is Jacob Restaurant on Lenox Avenue at $9.99 per pound, or $10.99 if you load up on meat – you decide how big the plate is.
Which soul food restaurants in NYC have a happy hour?
Three of the eighteen verified for this guide. Sylvia’s in Harlem runs Monday to Friday 3-7pm with $5 beer, $8 wine by the glass, $10 cocktails and $30 bottles – published on its own drink menu, and remarkable for a room that opened in 1962. Charlie’s Bar & Kitchen in the Bronx runs a seven-hour window, Monday to Friday noon to 7pm, published on its own site without prices. Peaches HotHouse in Bed-Stuy runs Monday to Friday 4-7pm, also without published prices.
Which NYC soul food restaurants have closed?
Four worth knowing, all still listed as open in most guides. Mitchell’s Soul Food at 617A Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights, a long-running Brooklyn institution, is marked closed as of April 2026. Sam’s Soul Food on the Grand Concourse closed in May 2026 – that removed the Bronx’s best-known soul food room, and Time Out’s 2010 profile is still live, which is how it keeps getting recycled. Harlem Seafood Soul’s Harlem location closed in June 2026, and Harlem Bar-B-Q was replaced by Fish & Chicks in February 2026. Red Rooster Harlem, by contrast, is confirmed open.
What are the hours traps at NYC soul food restaurants?
This is the category where they catch people out most. Miss Mamie’s Spoonbread Too serves only 2:30pm to 8:30pm, Tuesday to Sunday – there is no lunch and it is dark Mondays. Shaw-nae’s House on Staten Island opens Thursday to Saturday only, 5-10pm, with six tables and reservations required. Sylvia’s shuts at 8pm Sunday through Tuesday. Amy Ruth’s is no longer open 24 hours at weekends – the kitchen closes at 10:30pm Friday and Saturday. And Sarge’s Delicatessen is not a 24-hour deli any more either; it closes at 10pm.
Where can you get good chicken noodle soup in NYC?
Two rooms, both older than most of this list. Sarge’s Delicatessen in Murray Hill, founded in 1964 by a retired NYPD sergeant, publishes chicken soup with noodles or a matzo ball at $9.95 – one of the few readable prices in this category – and its Chicken in the Pot adds noodles, peas and carrots to the broth. Veselka in the East Village, founded 1954 and still run by the same family three generations on, is open straight through Friday night into Saturday and 24 hours on Saturday, which makes it the only place in the city where a good bowl is a 4am option.
Last updated: August 2026. Prices and hours change – confirm with the venue before you go. Spot something out of date? Let us know.
