There is a stretch of Maywood Avenue where you can pick up Thai takeout, browse a restored 1872 railroad station, and grab a table for grilled Greek octopus, all inside a four minute walk. Most Bergen County boroughs this size lost their little centers to the highways decades ago. Maywood kept its own, and that one fact shapes everything else about living here.
I work all 70 Bergen County municipalities, and Maywood is one of the towns I bring up most often with buyers who assume they are priced out of the county. It is 1.3 square miles, home to just over 10,000 people, and it sits directly against Paramus, Hackensack, and Rochelle Park. Small on the map, big on livability. Here are the five reasons it belongs on your shortlist.
1. A Real Walkable Center in 1.3 Square Miles
Maywood Avenue is the spine of the borough, and it still functions the way a small town main street should. Shops, a bagel run, restaurants you will meet again below, and sidewalks that actually take you somewhere. The borough is dense by Bergen standards, around 7,800 people per square mile, and the payoff is that most homes sit within a ten minute walk of the center.
The anchor is the Maywood Station Museum at 269 Maywood Avenue, an 1872 New York, Susquehanna and Western depot that volunteers restored and reopened as a museum in 2004. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, complete with a restored caboose and an original ALCO locomotive on display. A town that takes care of a 150 year old train station tends to take care of everything else too. Maywood does.
2. Tree-Lined Starter Streets That Still Add Up
The housing stock is exactly what first-time buyers tell me they want and cannot find: capes, colonials, and split levels on tidy lots along quiet, tree-lined blocks. Zillow puts the typical Maywood home value around $554,000, which in Bergen County terms is genuinely accessible. You are buying a real single family house with a yard here, not a compromise.
Be ready to compete for it. Redfin rates the market somewhat competitive, and well priced homes draw multiple offers because everyone eventually does the same math: Maywood delivers the county’s location at a price its glossier neighbors abandoned years ago. The family infrastructure holds up its end too: Memorial Park’s ballfields, shaded playground, and picnic pavilion, plus a borough swim pool for the summer. When my buyers win a house here, they tend to stay ten or fifteen years. That tells you something.
3. All of Paramus, One Town Over
Maywood shares a border with Paramus, which means Garden State Plaza, Bergen Town Center, and the entire Route 4 and Route 17 retail corridor are minutes from your driveway. Anything you could possibly need to buy is close enough to be convenient and far enough away that none of it runs through your neighborhood.
That second part matters more than people expect. Paramus traffic is famous for a reason, and Maywood’s residential grid sits just outside of it. You get the errands without living inside them. And thanks to Bergen County’s blue laws, the whole retail corridor goes quiet on Sundays, which suits a town like this just fine.
4. A Small School District That Outperforms
Maywood runs two schools of its own: Memorial School for the early grades and Maywood Avenue School for grades four through eight, both with a student to teacher ratio around 12 to 1. Maywood Avenue School ranked 71st out of 743 New Jersey middle grade schools on SchoolDigger’s 2023-24 data, with 93 percent of seventh graders proficient or better in English language arts. For a district this size, those are serious numbers.
For high school, Maywood students now attend Henry P. Becton Regional High School in East Rutherford, a send and receive relationship that began with the 2020-21 freshman class. Becton is a smaller high school environment than the county’s big regional programs, and many of the families I work with consider that a feature, not a drawback.
5. A One-Seat Bus Ride to Port Authority
The commute is simpler than most people expect from a town without an active train stop of its own. The NJ Transit 163 bus runs straight through the borough, with stops along Maywood Avenue and Passaic Street, and delivers you to Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown. The full route runs about 46 minutes end to end, so from Maywood you are typically looking at 40 to 50 minutes depending on traffic, with no transfers.
Drivers take Route 17 to Route 4 and head over the George Washington Bridge. If you prefer rail, the Pascack Valley Line’s Anderson Street and Essex Street stations sit just over the Hackensack border, a few minutes by car, with service toward Secaucus Junction and Hoboken. Three real commuting options from a 1.3 square mile borough is a strong hand.
Where to Eat in Maywood
For a borough you can cross on foot in twenty minutes, Maywood eats far better than it has any right to. The center of gravity is the blocks around Maywood Avenue and West Pleasant Avenue, where most of my five picks sit within a short stroll of each other. All five are in town, all independently owned, and all places residents actually use on a weekly basis.
Seafood Gourmet
Half fish market, half BYOB restaurant on West Pleasant Avenue, and the top rated spot in town for good reason. The fish in the case up front is the fish on your plate, and the difference shows in everything from the crab cakes to the black bass specials.
The lobster bisque has a following of its own, portions run generous, and bringing your own bottle keeps the bill reasonable for seafood this fresh. Closed Sundays, so plan around it.
Why locals love it: It is a working fish market first, which means the restaurant side never gets to cut corners on freshness.
Angelo’s Greek Taverna
Angelo’s brings honest Greek taverna cooking to Maywood Avenue: grilled octopus, moussaka, lamb chops, and whole grilled fish handled with the confidence of a chef raised on the cuisine. It is BYOB, the portions are serious, and the room feels like a family operation because it is one.
Regulars come for the gyro platters at lunch and the fish at dinner. The reviews keep landing on the same word, fresh, and it is hard to argue with them.
Why locals love it: Real Greek grilling at neighborhood prices, close enough to walk home from dinner.
Twin Door Tavern
The Maywood Inn’s Twin Door Tavern has been family owned for some 65 years, and it works as the borough’s living room: pub classics, seafood and pasta dinners, live music on weekends, and enough televisions that you will never miss a game.
A renovation cleaned up the edges while keeping the tavern feel, and the Sunday brunch has become a local ritual. It is also the rare Maywood spot with a full bar and reservations you can book online.
Why locals love it: Sixty five years of the same family behind the bar buys a consistency no new restaurant can fake.
Bangkok Station NJ
A small Thai kitchen on Maywood Avenue that has quietly built a devoted following. The pad thai, drunken noodles, and penang curry are the headliners, and the spice levels are honest when you ask for heat.
It is a modest storefront run with real warmth. Reviewers keep mentioning the owner greeting regulars like old friends, which matches the town it serves. Takeout on a weeknight is the move.
Why locals love it: Legitimate Thai cooking a short walk from home, served by people who remember your order.
Maywood Pancake House
Open daily from 7:30 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, this is the town’s breakfast institution. Stuffed French toast, creative pancake specials, and omelets that arrive fast even when the weekend crowd fills the room.
The menu runs broader than the name suggests, with vegan and gluten free options that earn their own loyal reviews. More than 700 Yelp reviews for a breakfast spot in a town of 10,000 tells you the reach this place has.
Why locals love it: It is the default Saturday morning answer for half the town, and the stuffed French toast justifies the wait.
What Maywood’s Food Scene Says About the Town
Notice the pattern: a fish market that cooks, a Greek family taverna, a tavern with 65 years under one family, a Thai storefront, and a pancake house. No trend chasing, no constant turnover, just independent owners who stayed because the town shows up for them. That is Maywood in miniature. It keeps what works, takes care of it, and lets the flashier towns compete over everything else.
Ready to Make Maywood Home?
If you have been watching Bergen County prices and wondering where a first house still makes sense, Maywood should be on your list before the rest of the market finishes doing the same math. I know these blocks, I know what it takes to win here, and I would be glad to walk you through it. If you are weighing nearby options, my guide to living in Teaneck covers a larger neighbor with a very different feel.
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Tom Lee | NJNest
Phone: 848-565-1425
Email: tom@njnest.com
Website: njnest.com
Tom Lee is a licensed real estate agent with 2Win Realty, specializing in Bergen County residential real estate. With deep local expertise and a client-first approach, Tom helps buyers and sellers across all 70 Bergen County municipalities make confident real estate decisions.
