Drive Route 46 past Teterboro Airport and you will pass South Hackensack without ever noticing it. The view from the highway is warehouses, a diner sign, more warehouses. Turn north toward the residential blocks, though, and you find a quiet pocket of streets where about 2,700 people live in one of the most affordable corners of Bergen County.
I will be straight with you, because this town rewards honesty. South Hackensack is a working township, three separate pieces of land stitched together in 1935 from what was left of old Lodi Township. The industrial lots carry a heavy share of the tax base, and the homeowners on the residential blocks quietly benefit from that arrangement. For the right buyer, that math is the entire story, and it is a good one.
1. A Real Front Door Into Bergen County
Bergen County’s average residential property tax bill reached $13,329 in 2024. South Hackensack’s came in at $11,167, more than two thousand dollars lighter, and the reason is simple: the township’s warehouses and commercial properties pay a large share of the freight. You get a Bergen County address, Bergen County schools, and a tax bill that undercuts most of the county.
The housing stock matches the town’s personality. These are capes, ranches, split levels, and a healthy number of two family homes on compact lots. Recent sales have run from roughly $380,000 at the entry level to about $750,000 at the top. In a county where plenty of towns start above a million dollars, that entry point is not a typo. It is the most realistic first rung on the Bergen County ladder that I can show a buyer right now.
2. The Warehouses Pay Their Share
South Hackensack is honest about what it is. The township covers three quarters of a square mile in three non adjoining sections: the main residential neighborhood in the northeast, the small Garfield Park section to the west, and an industrial sliver down in the Meadowlands. Huyler Street, the town’s spine, is lined with machine shops, suppliers, and distribution buildings that have been busy for decades.
That industrial base is not a drawback to apologize for. It is the town’s economic engine. Sitting at the junction of Interstate 80 and Route 46, minutes from Teterboro Airport, this corridor has become prime last mile logistics territory, and new Class A warehouse space keeps going up around it. Every one of those buildings is a commercial ratable helping to hold residential taxes down. The homeowners here understand the trade, and most of them would not change it.
3. The Commute Is Better Than the Town’s Size Suggests
For a township this small, the commute options are genuinely strong. The NJ Transit 161 bus picks up along Route 46 and runs straight into the Port Authority Bus Terminal, a scheduled ride in the range of 35 to 40 minutes before traffic. No park and ride gymnastics, just a walk to the highway stop.
Rail commuters use Teterboro station, right at the township’s edge on the Pascack Valley Line. Trains run to Hoboken Terminal, and a quick transfer at Secaucus Junction puts you into New York Penn Station. The line gained full weekend service in 2020, which made it a real seven day option instead of a weekday only one. Drivers have it easiest of all: Interstate 80 crosses the township, Route 46 runs along its southern edge, and the George Washington Bridge is about eight miles east. Few towns at this price point sit this close to that much infrastructure.
4. Memorial School Punches Far Above Its Weight
Here is the fact that surprises my buyers most. South Hackensack Memorial School, the township’s single PK through 8 school, is ranked among the top 50 public K-8 schools in New Jersey by Niche, coming in at number 33. It serves about 249 students with a student teacher ratio of 10 to 1, and its reading proficiency runs well above the statewide average. In a town this size, every teacher knows every family.
For high school, students attend Hackensack High School through a long standing send and receive arrangement, with its big school breadth of athletics and programs. Ambitious students also apply to the Bergen County Technical Schools, whose Teterboro campus sits directly next door. A tiny district feeding into county wide options is a combination that works better than most people expect.
5. Ten Minutes From Almost Everything
South Hackensack has no downtown of its own, and I will not invent one for you. What it has instead is position. Hackensack sits directly north, with its Main Street restaurants, the county courthouse, and Hackensack University Medical Center, one of the state’s major hospitals, all a few minutes away. The Paramus retail corridor, the largest shopping concentration in the region, is a short drive up the road.
Head the other direction and you reach the Meadowlands, MetLife Stadium, and American Dream in about ten minutes. Teterboro Airport next door means corporate aviation, and the jobs that come with it, are literally across the street. Living here means accepting that your entertainment happens one town over. It also means everything is one town over.
Where to Eat in South Hackensack
Nobody moves to South Hackensack for a restaurant row, and I will not pretend otherwise. What the township has is five dependable spots, three inside its own borders and two a few minutes over the line, and every one of them has earned a real following. For a town of 2,700 wedged between warehouses, that is a better lineup than it has any right to have.
I Gemelli Ristorante
The best restaurant in South Hackensack is a sixteen table BYOB on Huyler Street that most of Bergen County has never heard of. I Gemelli, Italian for the twins, has been run by brothers Luigi and Saverio for some three decades, and it holds the number one spot among the township’s restaurants on TripAdvisor for a reason.
This is old school Italian cooking done with care: fresh pasta, proper veal dishes, daily specials recited at the table. Reservations are smart, since sixteen tables fill fast and the parking lot is small.
Why locals love it: A white tablecloth Italian dinner hiding in plain sight on an industrial street, with the owners in the room every night.
La Cocina de Cristina
A few doors down Huyler Street, La Cocina de Cristina cooks Dominican and Latin American food the way it is made at home: slow cooked meats, rice and beans that get their own applause, and portions that assume you worked a full shift before you sat down.
It is a family run room with a loyal daytime crowd from the surrounding shops and warehouses, open seven days with breakfast through dinner. The freshness is the calling card, and the prices belong to a different decade.
Why locals love it: Genuine home style Dominican cooking at workingman prices, served by people who remember your order.
Runway Diner
Every proper New Jersey town needs a diner, and South Hackensack’s sits on Route 46 within sight of Teterboro’s runways, which explains the name. The Runway Diner is the modern kind: fully redesigned interior, a real bar with cocktails and martinis, and a menu that runs from all day breakfast to steaks and poke bowls.
It pulls a genuine cross section of the town, airport crews, warehouse workers, families after school events, and it does the diner fundamentals, big portions and fast friendly service, without irony.
Why locals love it: An all day, full bar diner where breakfast never ends and the runway views are free.
Segovia Steakhouse & Seafood
Five minutes over the border on Main Street in Little Ferry, Segovia is the special occasion room for this whole cluster of towns. It is a Spanish steakhouse in the classic Northern New Jersey tradition: garlicky shrimp, paella, lobsters, and serious Angus steaks in portions that make doggie bags standard equipment.
New Jersey Monthly readers have voted it the best Spanish and Portuguese restaurant in Northern New Jersey, and on weekends the parking lot proves it. Book ahead; walk ins wait.
Why locals love it: Big Spanish steakhouse energy close to home, and the surf and turf that ends every family celebration.
Bazzarelli Restaurant
A few minutes south in Moonachie, Bazzarelli has been feeding the Meadowlands towns since 1971. It is the definition of a neighborhood Italian institution: red sauce classics, sausage and peppers, meatball subs, and pizza that generations of local families consider their benchmark.
Half a century in one location does not happen by accident. The room is warm, the portions are honest, and the regulars span three generations.
Why locals love it: Fifty plus years of the same family recipes, and a meatball sub that settles arguments.
What South Hackensack’s Food Scene Says About the Town
Notice the pattern: a tucked away BYOB, a Dominican family kitchen, a diner on the highway, and two institutions a few minutes over the line. Nothing here is chasing a trend, and nothing needs to. South Hackensack’s food scene is exactly like the town itself, unpretentious, hardworking, and better than its size suggests. The places that survive next to warehouses survive on merit, because there is no foot traffic to save them. That is the most honest restaurant review there is.
Ready to Make South Hackensack Home?
If your Bergen County search keeps ending in sticker shock, South Hackensack deserves a serious look: real entry prices, taxes below the county average, a top 50 K-8 school, and a one bus commute to Manhattan. Inventory here is thin because the town is tiny, so when something lists, you want to know the same day. And if you want the same value math with a bigger downtown attached, ask me about living in Teaneck as a comparison.
Your South Hackensack agent
Thomas Lee
Thomas Lee is a licensed real estate agent with 2Win Realty LLC, 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.
