How much of Thanksgiving can come from a Saddle River kitchen other than your own? This year the answer depends on a calendar. Jamie Knott is the chef behind both of the borough's best-known dining rooms, and his two kitchens divide the week between them. The Saddle River Cafe on East Saddle River Road handles the holiday table through a takeout order with fixed dates. The Saddle River Inn at Barnstable Court handles the dinners that bracket the holiday.
The cafe's order deadline is Sunday, November 22, and pickup is Wednesday, November 25.
Ten days to order, three hours to collect
The Saddle River Cafe's Thanksgiving Menu 2026 is takeout only. Orders go through the cafe's website and nowhere else. The schedule, counted from this post's publication on November 12:
- Thursday, November 12: ten days left to order.
- Sunday, November 22: the order deadline, online only.
- Wednesday, November 25, 11am to 2pm: pickup at the cafe, 171 E Saddle River Road.
- Thursday, November 26: Thanksgiving.
The pickup window is three midday hours on a weekday, the day before the holiday, and the order form asks you to choose a pickup time inside it. If you work in the city or are meeting relatives at Newark that afternoon, you will need to settle who does the pickup well before Sunday's deadline. The cafe's homepage also says quantities are limited, so an order placed on the 22nd may find some dishes already gone.
What $245 puts on the table
Every dish is made to serve four to six people. Gravy and cranberry compote are sold by the pint. Here is the full menu at the posted prices.
| Course | Dish | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Cafe Salad | $40 |
| Starter | Caesar Salad | $45 |
| Starter | 20 Shrimp Cocktail | $55 |
| Main | Roasted Beef Tenderloin | $150 |
| Main | Oven Roasted Turkey Breast | $75 |
| Main | Honey Glazed Ham | $70 |
| Fixing | Sweet Potato Mash | $50 |
| Fixing | Brussels | $50 |
| Fixing | Sausage Apple Stuffing | $55 |
| Fixing | Garlic Mashed Potatoes | $50 |
| Fixing | Turkey Gravy, pint | $10 |
| Fixing | Cranberry Compote, pint | $10 |
| Dessert | Pumpkin Pie | $45 |
| Dessert | Bread Pudding | $45 |
A traditional table built from this list has turkey breast, sausage apple stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, a pint each of gravy and cranberry, and a pumpkin pie. That comes to $245. Shared among six guests it works out to about $41 a person. Shared among four it is about $61.
The protein is where the bill moves fastest. Swapping the turkey for the beef tenderloin adds $75, the price of a second turkey breast. A sweet potato mash and the Brussels add $100 more, which is $35 more than the gravy, cranberry and pie together. Ordering the whole menu once costs $750.
The serving size changes the math more than any single dish. Because each item feeds four to six, a table of ten means two of everything, and the $245 dinner becomes $490 before anyone adds a vegetable. A Saddle River host feeding a large family is really deciding which dishes to double and which ones a single order of can stretch. Doubling only the stuffing and garlic mashed potatoes on the $245 table adds $105, bringing it to $350.
One chef behind both kitchens in town
The cafe and the Inn share a chef. The Inn's own biography of Jamie Knott says he and business partner Robert Palmer founded the Saddle River Cafe in 2018. It describes the cafe as contemporary American, serving lunch, brunch and dinner, with an organic juice and smoothie bar. The cafe's own site says its juices are pressed daily. The cafe also posts an all-day menu and a separate dinner menu.
The Inn is the older and more formal of the two. Knott and Peter Liloia bought the business in January 2013. The Inn describes itself today as a contemporary French restaurant whose menu changes twice each season. In practice the cafe's kitchen makes the Wednesday takeout for your home, and the Inn's dining room serves dinner out for the rest of the long weekend.
The weekend belongs to Barnstable Court
The Saddle River Inn sits at 2 Barnstable Court and books tables by phone at (201) 825-4016 or through OpenTable. Its posted reservation hours make it a good fit for the days on either side of the holiday:
- Tuesday through Thursday: 5 to 9 pm
- Friday and Saturday: 5 to 9:30 pm
- Sunday: 4 to 8:15 pm
This gives the holiday weekend a natural sequence. Friday and Saturday have the latest reservations of the week, until 9:30. Sunday opens earliest, at 4 pm, a useful hour if guests are driving home that night. During busy services the Inn holds a reservation for fifteen minutes past the booked time and asks late parties to call ahead.
Visiting relatives may not know the Inn's posted dress code. It rules out:
- Shorts
- Jerseys
- Flip-flops or sneakers
- Sweatpants or sweatshirts
- Sleeveless shirts for men
The Inn says it keeps the dress code to maintain an upscale atmosphere, and entry is at management's discretion. If a college student is flying in with one duffel bag, a phone call home before the trip will cover it.
The Inn has a strong outside reputation. In May 2025, NorthJersey.com included Saddle River Inn in its series on the 25 most essential restaurants in North Jersey, a list chosen by readers. Reviewer Matt Cortina's headline called the cooking "thoughtful, soul-satisfying food."
A sawmill before it was a dining room
The building has a longer history than either restaurant. According to the Inn's own history, the property is part of the William Packard Estate, now called Barnstable Court. The site was operating as a sawmill and basket-weaving factory as early as 1840. The restaurant arrived much later. Hans and Imelda Egg opened the Saddle River Inn in 1981 and made it a destination for French fine dining. The current owners took over 32 years after that and kept the French menu.
A dining room on the banks of the Saddle River, in a building that milled lumber and wove baskets in the 1840s, is a different outing from a holiday-weekend dinner on a commercial strip. For guests in from out of town, the setting is part of the plan, and Thanksgiving weekend may be the only visit some of them make all year.
Both restaurants also make an easy host gift. The cafe sells gift cards online that can be mailed, emailed or printed at home, and the Inn sells its own through its website. A card to the Inn is a practical way to thank whoever hosted the holiday this year, since it gives them a dinner they don't have to cook.
When the plan calls for platters instead
Not every gathering that week is a seated dinner. Friday's crowd of cousins or a Saturday open house may call for something simpler. Saddle River Deli describes itself as located in the heart of Saddle River and offers catering, with packages built around events and themes. Its packages are general rather than a Thanksgiving menu, so they cover the meals around the holiday more than the main event. That leaves the week roughly divided this way: the deli for a casual Friday or Saturday spread, the cafe's Wednesday pickup for Thursday's table, and the Inn for a seated dinner out over the weekend.
If gathering around this year's table has your family wondering which house should host the next one, Sheryl Epstein-Romano would be glad to talk it through with you privately. Request a confidential consultation.