Savor Scout › Cities › Connecticut › Meriden, CT
Where to eat in Meriden, CT
Find somewhere to eat in Meriden →
A few places to eat in Meriden
- family pizza Pizza · 0.1 miles
81 W Main St, Meriden - La Brasa Grill & Restaurant Hot Dog · 0.1 miles
133 Hanover St, Meriden - Banana Brazil Grill Brazilian · 0.1 miles
124 Hanover St, Meriden - Marianna's Belltop Bakery Bakery · 0.2 miles
212 W Main St, Meriden - Old San Juan sport bar · 0.4 miles
163 Springdale Ave, Meriden
The closest few by distance from central Meriden, not a ranking — local places listed ahead of chains. Listings from Overture Maps open data (September 2026); hours and openings change, so check before you go. Want one picked for what you're craving instead? Ask Savor Scout in Meriden.
The food scene in Meriden
Open listings put 118 places to eat within 2 miles of central Meriden, 29 within a ten-minute walk (half a mile). The most common: pizza (25), sandwiches (7) and burgers (6). 11 are fast-food counters; the rest are sit-down restaurants, cafés, bakeries and takeaway spots.
What stands out in Meriden is Latin American, deli and pizza — types that are listed here at 2 to 8 times the national rate.
By type of food — tap one for what to order and how to spot a good one:
Pizza 25 Sandwiches 7 Burgers 6 Bakery 6 Chinese 5 Mexican 5 Deli 5 Latin American 4 Ecuadorian 3 Donuts 3
The food in Meriden
Meriden does not have infinite options, and that brings its own problem: you have been to most of them, and picking again is somehow still hard.
Savor Scout picks one restaurant in Meriden and tells you why it picked it. Say what you're craving and it reads menus and reviews for that specific dish, rather than sorting places by overall star rating. Free, runs in the browser, and one search needs no account.
Eating out in Meriden
Meriden has a population of about 60,456. Somewhere this size rewards knowing which places are actually worth the trip. Savor Scout searches up to 35 miles around Meriden, so places just outside the city are still on the table when they are worth the drive.
How well supplied is Meriden?
Meriden sits in South Central Connecticut Planning Region, where the Census counts 571 full-service restaurants, 493 limited-service places, 187 cafés and snack bars and 51 bars — 1,302 places to eat or drink in all. Meriden makes up about 11% of the county's population.
That is 22.8 per 10,000 residents, comfortably above the national median of 19.4. Enough range that the deciding takes longer than the eating. Sit-down and counter-service places are close to balanced, with the edge to sit-down.
Those county figures also cover New Haven, West Haven, Milford, all within Savor Scout's search radius from Meriden.
County-level counts from the US Census (2022) — how we got these numbers.
What are you craving in Meriden?
- tacos in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- pizza in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- sushi in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- burgers in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- ramen in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- wings in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- chinese food in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- italian food in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- thai food in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- mexican food in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- barbecue in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- seafood in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- brunch in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- indian food in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- sandwiches in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
- noodles in Meriden — what separates a good one from an average one
Near Meriden
- Middletown, CT — about 8 miles away
- New Britain, CT — about 9 miles away
- Bristol, CT — about 12 miles away
- Waterbury, CT — about 13 miles away
- Hartford, CT — about 17 miles away
- New Haven, CT — about 17 miles away
Campuses in and near Meriden
Each has its own page: what is within walking distance and a few places to start with.
- Quinnipiac University
- Central Connecticut State University
- Southern Connecticut State University
- Yale University
- Connecticut State Community College
- University of Hartford
- University of New Haven
How this differs from Google Maps and Yelp
Maps and Yelp are directories: they rank everything nearby and leave the deciding to you. Savor Scout makes the call and shows its reasoning — the match score, what it beat, and the evidence behind the pick. The underlying place data comes from the same public sources, so the difference is the selection, not the data.
Guides
- What to eat when… — 30 guides by situation, from a first date to a hangover to a group of twelve.
- Food guides — what separates a good taco, ramen or pizza from an average one.
- Eating out with a restriction — allergies, halal, kosher, vegan and more.
- Near a campus? — food around 637 US universities.