Restaurants and food trucks.
Confirm the authority for your exact address. Some cities run their own health division, and building, planning, fire, sewer/grease and business-license approvals are separate even when Bergen County Department of Health Services, Consumer Health Program (acts as the local health agency, performing inspections/plan review for ~30 contracting municipalities); retail food LICENSES are issued by each municipality issues the health permit.
Cities with their own health department: Englewood. Food businesses inside these cities apply to the city health department (with its own fees and rules), not Bergen County. Confirm which authority covers your exact address.
What the local foodservice landscape looks like — useful whether you’re opening here or sizing up the competition.
▲ 3.0% change in establishments since 2022 (2,653 → 2,732).
The average foodservice wage here is $1,284 above the New Jersey average ($27,115); New Jersey has about 21,457 food & drink establishments statewide.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 (NAICS 722, food services & drinking places) — establishments with paid employees. Some small-county payroll figures are withheld by Census for confidentiality.
In NJ, retail food licensing is a MUNICIPAL function; the county department of health provides inspection and plan-review services to contracting towns but does not itself sell the operating license; The annual license fee is set by each municipality's ordinance and is not published county-wide; typical NJ municipal retail-food license fees run roughly $100-$500/yr depending on the town and establishment size; Confirm the exact fee with the specific municipality (or the Bergen County Health Dept for towns it serves); Left null; no single county fee exists
Turnaround: Not published; A plan review / pre-operational inspection is generally required before a municipality will issue a new retail-food license
Under State Sanitary Code Chapter 24 (N.J.A.C. 8:24), establishments post a color-coded placard: Satisfactory (white), Conditionally Satisfactory (yellow), or Unsatisfactory (red).
Mobile/food-truck licensing is also municipal in NJ; A mobile vendor typically needs a retail food license from the town where the unit is based plus separate approvals in each additional municipality it operates in, and must work from an approved commissary; Fees vary by town and are not published at the county level; left null
Fees/payment and forms are on the department site; application steps vary by concept — see the checklist below.
U.S. Census 2023 population; County Business Patterns 2022 (NAICS 722).
A code-compliant kitchen in Bergen County needs more than the health permit — these approvals are handled by separate offices. Confirm current requirements with each.
| Building / plans | City of Hackensack – Building, Housing & Land Use Dept (Construction/Building) |
| Fire marshal | Hackensack Fire Department – Bureau of Fire Prevention · 201-646-7800 |
| Zoning / planning | City of Hackensack – Zoning (Building, Housing & Land Use Dept) |
| Sewer / grease | Bergen County Utilities Authority (BCUA) – Industrial Pretreatment (grease/FOG) |
| Business license | City of Hackensack – City Clerk (mercantile / business licensing) |
Under NSPC 2021 (NJ UCC Plumbing Subcode), food establishments here must control fats, oils & grease (FOG) with a grease interceptor or trap, and typically register with the local sewer/wastewater authority. Grease interceptors are required where grease-laden waste is produced, sized under the state plumbing subcode, with the FOG discharge permit issued by the local sewer authority.
Size the interceptor with our grease-trap sizing calculator, compare units in the grease-trap catalog, and confirm the local FOG permit with Bergen County Department of Health Services, Consumer Health Program (acts as the local health agency, performing inspections/plan review for ~30 contracting municipalities); retail food LICENSES are issued by each municipality (contact above).
Hood fire suppression (IFC 2021): commercial cooking under a Type I hood needs a wet-chemical suppression system to NFPA 96, permitted and inspected by the local fire marshal. Commercial kitchen hood suppression follows NFPA 96 and is permitted and inspected by the local fire official under the NJ Uniform Fire Code. See do I need a hood? and the hood CFM calculator.
Backflow prevention: An annual RPZ/backflow assembly test is required under state cross-connection control rules and administered by the public water supplier. A certified backflow assembly (often an RPZ) on the water service, tested annually, is standard — confirm with your water utility.
Health-department plan review looks for specific, code-compliant fixtures. Compare spec-filtered options, then confirm counts and sizes with your local requirements. See the full list in what equipment a commercial kitchen requires.
Permit costs and rules change at the county line — compare Bergen County with its neighbors.
This is a typical sequence — confirm the exact sequence with your authority having jurisdiction.
Official plan-check requirements: plan-check guide →