Second Watchung Mountain runs down the spine of Cedar Grove, and almost every good thing about summer here happens on it, under it, or within a five-minute drive of it. The ridge is the reason the trails exist, the reason the concert lawn sits where it does, and the reason the best new restaurants keep landing on Pompton Avenue instead of further down the valley. Once you see the geography, the calendar organizes itself.
Most "things to do in Cedar Grove" posts read like a phonebook of parks and pizza. That is not the town you live in. The town you live in has a 284-acre nature preserve that was a psychiatric hospital campus twenty-five years ago, a Turkish grandfather's kitchen from Gaziantep sitting three miles from a white-tablecloth Italian institution, and a chamber-run concert series that gets moved into the high school auditorium the second it rains. The interesting move is to stop treating these as a list and start treating them as a single Saturday.
The ridge you are actually hiking
Hilltop Reservation is the piece of Cedar Grove that most residents underuse. It is a 284-acre passive-use facility of the Essex County Parks system inside the host communities of Verona, Cedar Grove and the Caldwells, cared for by the Hilltop Conservancy, a nonprofit of local residents formed in 2003. The land has a strange resume. It has been in intense human use since the 1600s, moving from agriculture through institutional use as the Essex County penitentiary, a tuberculosis sanatorium, a mental hospital, and a leaf composting site, before local activists in the 1980s pushed to save it and the remaining acreage was purchased with Green Acres funds in 2001.
That history matters when you are actually walking it. The meadow at the top of the mountain is not a natural clearing. It is a 15-acre grassland restoration area, the first habitat restoration the Hilltop Conservancy undertook, sitting on ground where the Essex Mountain Sanatorium once stood. The Lenape Trail now leads hikers up to the forested ridgetop of the Second Watchung Mountain, through recently-restored meadows, and alongside historic features like White Rock and Prisoner's Pond.
A quick way to think about your time budget:
| If you have | Try |
|---|---|
| 45 minutes | Old Hilltop Trail loop from the Cedar Grove Community Park side |
| 90 minutes | Lenape Trail up to the grassland restoration and back |
| Half a day | Peace, Spruce Outer, Spruce Inner, and Old Hilltop Trail Loop, the highest-rated loop in the reservation at 3.7 miles |
Two practical notes that only regulars figure out. First, parking. There are three trailhead lots, and the one behind Cedar Grove Community Park fills up fastest on summer weekends; the Verona Community Center lot on Bloomfield Avenue and the Courter Lane lot in North Caldwell almost always have room. Second, footing. The trails are not well marked and can be muddy, so downloading the route beforehand and wearing proper shoes are recommended. This is a working preserve, not a groomed park. That is the appeal.
The Lenape Trail is not a local invention. Established in 1982, the 36-mile trail is a unique urban/suburban route connecting 18 parks and 11 municipalities in Essex County, and in 2017 it was rerouted through Hilltop Reservation. You can, in theory, walk from your Cedar Grove trailhead to Newark.
The concert lawn most people miss
Come down off the ridge and the same geography puts you at Cedar Grove Community Park. At 77 acres, it is the fourth largest park in the Essex County parks system, and includes the Robert J. O'Toole Community Center, four bocce courts, a farm-themed playground, three fitness stations along the walking paths, and entrances to the Lenape Trails. The paved loop is the town's unofficial evening promenade from June through September.
It is also where the town's summer music actually happens. The Cedar Grove Chamber of Commerce runs a three-night summer concert series, and in case of rain, concerts move to the Cedar Grove High School Auditorium. That rain plan is worth knowing about a full day ahead; the auditorium seats fill in the order people arrive, and the lawn crowd tends to underestimate how quickly a Thursday thunderstorm will collapse an outdoor set. The Chamber's lineups have historically leaned to cover bands built around decades of hits, which is either exactly your taste or exactly not, and worth checking the roster before you pack a chair.
Separately, the Essex County Free Summer Music Concert Series brings a rotating lineup of performers to county parks across the summer. Between the county and the chamber, most Cedar Grove residents can find a free evening show within a ten-minute drive on almost any warm-weather week.
Dinner, within a mile of the trailhead
The stretch of Pompton Avenue between the community park and the Verona line has quietly become the most interesting dining corridor in this part of Essex County. Three anchors, one newcomer.
Dervish Turkish Restaurant. The newcomer, and the one worth going out of your way for. Dervish sits at 450 Pompton Avenue and serves Mediterranean cuisine authentic to Southern Turkey. The family story is the reason the food tastes the way it does. Brothers Emre and Ali Yalaza opened it with their father Mustafa, and the family hails from Gaziantep, where the grandfather opened the first family restaurant in 1978 before Mustafa expanded the business across Turkey, including a location in Istanbul. The menu leans into Gaziantep's regional cuisine, renowned for kebabs and sweets like baklava, with chefs native to the region working alongside Mustafa to keep it authentic. Hours run Monday through Friday 11 AM to 10 PM and 10 AM to 10 PM on weekends with breakfast added, and it is BYOB. Reserve on Friday and Saturday.
LuNello. Since 1990, Chef Seger's use of unique ingredients, homemade pastas, and innovative specials has built a loyal following at LuNello. If you are hosting the in-laws or celebrating something, this is the reservation to make. The seafood rotates because they only carry what is fresh that day.
DelMonico. The less formal option on the same corridor, not your average steakhouse, offering an affordable casual dining experience with a wide variety of food options. Useful for Tuesday nights when you do not feel like cooking but do not want to overthink it.
Laboratorio Kitchen. Technically just over the line, but on the route home from Hilltop. Chef and owner James DeSisto runs a BYOB with a seasonal a la carte menu of fresh seafood, pasta, steaks, and appetizers, plus a chef's special sheet that turns over weekly.
A three-hour Saturday, mapped
Here is the argument in practice. This is one contiguous afternoon that uses the ridge, the park, and the corridor as a single system:
- 3:30 PM. Park at the Verona Community Center lot on Bloomfield Avenue. Take the Lenape Trail north past Prisoner's Pond, up to the grassland restoration, and back. Budget 90 minutes and expect the last third to feel harder than the first.
- 5:15 PM. Drive five minutes to Cedar Grove Community Park. Do the paved outer loop. If it is a Chamber concert Thursday, you are already in the right place.
- 7:00 PM. Dinner at Dervish. Order the mixed grill for the table, and if baklava is on that night, do not skip it. If Dervish is booked, LuNello is the fallback, and reversing the order (dinner first, walk after) works too.
None of that requires a car trip longer than ten minutes. That is the point. The reason to live in Cedar Grove instead of a town three exits down the Parkway is that the ridge, the park, and the good tables are stitched together tightly enough that a Saturday plan does not need a spreadsheet.
If you are the kind of resident who has been meaning to explore what is in your own zip code, the Cedar Grove neighborhood page is a decent starting point for the market context. But the better move is the one above. Park at Bloomfield, walk to the meadow, come back down for dinner, and decide for yourself whether the summer you are living matches the summer you thought you were signing up for when you moved here.
When you are ready to talk about what your Cedar Grove address is actually worth, or what a move within town would look like, Vestra Home Collective is here. Let's Connect.
