Places To Eat Near Me in DUMBO: How to Order at Time Out Market

Time Out Market in DUMBO is a food hall with twenty-one kitchens in it, spread over two floors of the Empire Stores warehouse, and the thing it is best known for — the fifth-floor rooftop with the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges lined up in front of it — is not where the food is. That split is the whole problem with visiting. People come for the view, eat whatever is closest to the lift, and leave having missed the actual reason the building is interesting: the vendor list is a genuine curation of New York restaurants rather than a set of food-court concessions. Here is how to order across it properly.

Twenty-one kitchens is too many to choose from while standing up holding a tray. Ask Karpo what to order at Time Out Market for your group before you get there.

The lineup includes Fish Cheeks, Bessou, Juliana's Pizza, Breads Bakery, Jacob's Pickles, Clinton St. Baking Company, Mr Taka Ramen, Miss Ada, the Mermaid Oyster Bar and Alta Calidad, among twenty-one in total.

Several of those are the kind of restaurant people plan a separate trip across the city for. Juliana's is a coal-oven pizzeria with its own queue and its own history a few blocks away; Clinton St. Baking Company built its reputation on a brunch wait in the Lower East Side.

That changes what a visit is for. You are not choosing between food-hall approximations; you are choosing between actual New York restaurants that happen to be under one roof, which makes the ordering strategy below worth following rather than obvious.

The Clinton St. pancakes are the single most-recommended item in the building and the one that makes the trip make sense in the morning. The brisket sandwich from the barbecue counter and a bowl from Mr Taka are the other two names that come up repeatedly.

Beyond those, the useful shape of an order is one substantial thing, one thing from a category you would not normally order, and something from the bakery for afterwards. Tacos, lobster rolls, lamb pita and mini doughnuts all exist here and all work as the second slot.

Do not have everyone order a full plate from a different counter. It is a food hall — the portions are restaurant-sized, not tasting-sized, and four full plates for four people is more food than anyone finishes.

Food is served on chinaware with glassware and actual cutlery. There are no disposables anywhere in the building, which is unusual for the format and immediately obvious when you sit down.

The practical consequence: this is a sit-down meal rather than a walking one. You cannot pick up a plate and take it to the rooftop, and treating the market as takeaway does not work.

There are brand ambassadors on the floor whose job is to help you navigate, which sounds like corporate language and is genuinely useful on a first visit when you cannot see all twenty-one counters from where you are standing.

The fifth-floor terrace looks out at both the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges, and it is the reason a large share of visitors come. It is above the food floors, so going up is a deliberate trip rather than something you wander into.

The sequence that works: eat first on the lower floors, then go up. Doing it the other way round means seeing the view, getting hungry, and coming back down to a busier hall.

It is exposed and it is on the East River. In winter the terrace is a five-minute visit; in summer at golden hour it is the busiest part of the building.

Empire Stores is on Water Street, a couple of minutes from Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Manhattan Bridge view down Washington Street that everyone photographs. The York Street and High Street stations are both a short walk.

That puts the market in the middle of a walkable afternoon rather than at the end of a trip. Park, carousel, bridge, market, and back across the Brooklyn Bridge on foot is a full day that requires no planning beyond deciding when to eat.

Weekends are busy in the way all of DUMBO is busy. A weekday lunch is the version of this building where you can actually look at all twenty-one counters before deciding.

Location: Empire Stores, Water Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn. Two floors of vendors plus a fifth-floor rooftop terrace facing the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

Twenty-one vendors, including Fish Cheeks, Bessou, Juliana's Pizza, Breads Bakery, Jacob's Pickles, Clinton St. Baking Company, Mr Taka Ramen, Miss Ada, Mermaid Oyster Bar and Alta Calidad.

Everything is served on chinaware with proper cutlery — no disposables — so plan to sit and eat rather than to carry food out.

Tags: #Brooklyn #DUMBO #TimeOutMarket #PlacesToEatNearMe #EmpireStores #FoodHall #BrooklynBridge #NYCFood #Ramen #Pizza #RooftopViews #BrooklynEats

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Ask Karpo which Time Out Market counters are worth it on the day you are going, how to order across them for your group, and what else in DUMBO to build the afternoon around.