Are there halal restaurants in Clifton, NJ?

Yes. Clifton and the neighboring part of Paterson have a lot of halal food. The useful distinction is not whether a restaurant serves halal meat but how strictly the kitchen keeps it: a halal-only kitchen has no non-halal product on the premises, while a halal-friendly kitchen serves certified meat alongside non-halal items. Ask before you order.

What is the difference between a halal-only and a halal-friendly kitchen?

A halal-only kitchen buys nothing but certified meat and runs every fryer, slicer, grill and prep table on halal product only, so there is no cross-contact pathway. A halal-friendly kitchen sources certified meat for specific dishes but cooks it in a kitchen that also handles pork or uncertified meat. Many families are fine with the second; many are not. Neither is dishonest — the mistake is assuming the first when you are getting the second.

How do I check that a Clifton restaurant is really halal?

Ask three things: is the whole kitchen halal or only the meat, is the fryer halal-only, and can you see the supplier certificate. Certification travels with the meat, so the document you want is the supplier certificate the kitchen keeps on file. A window sticker is a claim, not a document.

Which part of Clifton has halal food?

Clifton has no single downtown, so it is spread across neighborhoods rather than concentrated on one strip. Lakeview borders Paterson and is the closest to us, about 0.6 miles from our corner. Botany Village is about a mile south down Getty Ave. Athenia sits north of Crooks Ave, and Allwood is the shopping side of the city around the Circle. We are at Getty and Crooks; each neighborhood page lists the actual distance and drive time from our oven.

Is Alaeddin's Pizza a halal-only restaurant?

Yes. Every meat we buy is halal-certified, and the fryer, deli slicer and prep tables run halal product only — there is no non-halal food on the premises at all. We keep current supplier certificates at the shop and show them to anyone who asks, which happens most often before a big family or mosque order.

Halal dining in Clifton · Passaic County, NJ

Halal restaurants in Clifton, NJ.

The hard part in Clifton is not finding halal food. It is knowing how strictly each kitchen keeps it. This page explains the difference between a halal-only kitchen and a halal-friendly one, the three questions worth asking before you order anywhere, and how the city breaks down by neighborhood. We are one of the options: a halal-only brick-oven pizzeria at 600 Getty Ave in Clifton. If you already know what you want, our halal kitchen page lays out exactly how we source and separate everything.

Order Online (973) 247-9922

★ 4.4 · 944 Google reviews · 600 Getty Ave, Clifton NJ 07011

Halal-only vs. halal-friendly

Most of the confusion comes down to one distinction, and a menu rarely spells it out. There are kitchens that are halal-only, and there are kitchens that are halal-friendly. They are not the same standard, and a sign in the window does not tell you which one you are dealing with.

A halal-only kitchen buys nothing but certified meat. No pork or uncertified product comes through the door, so there is no cross-contact pathway to worry about — not in the oil, not on the slicer, not on the prep table. A halal-friendly kitchen sources certified meat for certain dishes and cooks it in a kitchen that also handles non-halal items. That is a real service to customers, and plenty of families are comfortable with it. The problem is only when you assume the first and you are being served the second.

Where it usually breaks down

• The fryer. Ask about this one first. Halal chicken tenders dropped into oil shared with non-halal product are not halal by most families' standard, no matter what the chicken invoice says.
• The deli slicer. One slicer running both certified and uncertified cold cuts is a direct cross-contact path, and it is invisible from the dining room.
• The grill and prep surfaces. Same idea. Ask whether the halal item gets its own space or shares the line.
• “Halal available.” This usually means one or two menu items can be swapped on request. It is not a statement about the kitchen.
• Alcohol in the kitchen. Some families count vodka sauce, beer batter and wine reductions; ask if that matters to you.

What the paperwork actually is

Certification travels with the meat. It is issued to the supplier a restaurant buys from, so the meaningful document a kitchen can hand you is the certificate for the meat on its own invoices. That is what we keep at the shop, and we refresh our copies as suppliers renew them. Ask to see it. If you want the full breakdown of what has to be true for a pizza specifically, we wrote a guide to what makes pizza halal — certified meat, no pork anywhere, and equipment that is not shared.

Three questions to ask

Ask these at any counter in Clifton — including ours. Thirty seconds, and you will know exactly what you are ordering.

1. Is the whole kitchen halal, or just the meat?
This is the question that separates the two kinds of restaurants. Certified meat in a kitchen that also cooks non-halal product is a different thing from a kitchen where nothing non-halal exists. Both answers are legitimate — you just need to know which one you are getting.
2. Is the fryer halal-only?
Chicken can be certified and the oil it fries in can still be shared with something that is not. Ask about the deli slicer and the grill the same way. Shared equipment is the part you cannot see from the dining room.
3. Can I see the supplier certificate?
Certification travels with the meat, so the paperwork a kitchen can hand you is the certificate for the meat it buys. A place that keeps current certificates on file will not hesitate. Hesitation is your answer.

How our kitchen answers →

Halal food by Clifton neighborhood

Clifton does not have one main street. It is a set of distinct neighborhoods stitched together, and where you live changes what is a five-minute drive and what is a twenty-minute one. Here is how the city breaks down from our corner at Getty and Crooks, with real distances and drive times.

Botany Village

The historic Eastern European pocket centered on Parker Avenue, a 5-minute drive south on Getty Ave from our brick oven.

Near: Botany Plaza · Sullivan Square · Athenia Diner

1.0 mi · ~4 min from the oven →

Athenia

Compact Clifton residential grid north of Crooks Avenue — straight up Getty Ave to Van Houten, about 7 minutes door-to-door.

Near: School 11 · Athenia Steel Park · Van Houten Ave shops

1.7 mi · ~7 min from the oven →

Lakeview

Densely-packed neighborhood bordering Paterson; cross Crooks Ave and we're under a mile away — usually the fastest delivery zip we hit.

Near: Lakeview Plaza · School 12 · Crooks Avenue corridor

0.6 mi · ~3 min from the oven →

Allwood

Allwood Circle and the Bloomfield-Ave shopping spine — a straight shot down Allwood Road, roughly 10 minutes for a hot pizza.

Near: Allwood Circle · Styertowne Shopping Center · AMC Clifton

2.6 mi · ~10 min from the oven →

Lakeview is the closest neighborhood to our oven and it borders Paterson, so that side of the city has the shortest run in either direction. Cross Crooks Bridge and you are in South Paterson, on the Main Street corridor between Crooks and Park, where most of the area's halal grocers and bakeries sit. Our Paterson halal guide covers that side in detail.

Where we fit

We will be straight with you: we are a pizzeria. If you want kebabs, biryani or a sit-down mezze dinner, that is not what we do. What we are is a halal-only brick-oven pizzeria on the corner of Getty and Crooks — pizza, fried chicken, wings, calzones, wraps, heroes and salads, all of it halal, all of it made in a kitchen where nothing else is allowed in.

We opened in 1998 in Paterson as that city's first halal pizzeria. We later moved to Clifton, and the standard came with us. Every meat we buy is halal-certified: beef pepperoni, chicken, beef, sausage, gyro, deli turkey and halal turkey-bacon. The fryer, the deli slicer and the prep tables are halal-only. Supplier certificates stay on file at the shop and we show them on request.

The pizza itself is a 550°F brick oven, dough cold-fermented for 24 hours and stretched by hand. You can read the whole halal menu before you come in, and if you are feeding a crowd, the 28-inch rectangular party pizza feeds 12 to 15 adults off one pie.

Practical details

• Hours. Closed Mondays. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday, 11:00 AM to 9:30 PM; Friday and Saturday until 10:30 PM. Full hours here.
• Pickup. Free, and usually ready in about 15 minutes.
• Delivery. Our own drivers, not Grubhub or DoorDash, so there is no third-party markup. $15 minimum plus a small driver fee, roughly 25 to 40 minutes.
• Paying. Cash works on every order. Card is in person or online only — phone and delivery orders are cash to the driver.
• Catering. Trays from small gatherings up to 200 people. Give us about 24 hours for large tray orders — Ramadan iftars, Eid parties, mosque and school events are our busiest.

FAQ

Halal in Clifton, answered

Are there halal restaurants in Clifton, NJ?: Yes. Clifton and the neighboring part of Paterson have a lot of halal food. The useful distinction is not whether a restaurant serves halal meat but how strictly the kitchen keeps it: a halal-only kitchen has no non-halal product on the premises, while a halal-friendly kitchen serves certified meat alongside non-halal items. Ask before you order.
What is the difference between a halal-only and a halal-friendly kitchen?: A halal-only kitchen buys nothing but certified meat and runs every fryer, slicer, grill and prep table on halal product only, so there is no cross-contact pathway. A halal-friendly kitchen sources certified meat for specific dishes but cooks it in a kitchen that also handles pork or uncertified meat. Many families are fine with the second; many are not. Neither is dishonest — the mistake is assuming the first when you are getting the second.
How do I check that a Clifton restaurant is really halal?: Ask three things: is the whole kitchen halal or only the meat, is the fryer halal-only, and can you see the supplier certificate. Certification travels with the meat, so the document you want is the supplier certificate the kitchen keeps on file. A window sticker is a claim, not a document.
Which part of Clifton has halal food?: Clifton has no single downtown, so it is spread across neighborhoods rather than concentrated on one strip. Lakeview borders Paterson and is the closest to us, about 0.6 miles from our corner. Botany Village is about a mile south down Getty Ave. Athenia sits north of Crooks Ave, and Allwood is the shopping side of the city around the Circle. We are at Getty and Crooks; each neighborhood page lists the actual distance and drive time from our oven.
Is Alaeddin's Pizza a halal-only restaurant?: Yes. Every meat we buy is halal-certified, and the fryer, deli slicer and prep tables run halal product only — there is no non-halal food on the premises at all. We keep current supplier certificates at the shop and show them to anyone who asks, which happens most often before a big family or mosque order.