By Angela Russo
NIAGARA FALLS — There is a rose painted on the glass door of the new dining room at Marketside Restaurant, and it’s there for a reason. It honors “Grandma Rosie,” the Poletti family member who, in the 1930s, decided the family could run a restaurant of its own.
Eighty-seven years later, the breakfast-and-lunch spot inside the Niagara Falls City Market is on its fourth generation, has just opened a long-planned expansion, and still draws a crowd that, by most public accounts, is worth waiting for.
This column isn’t based on a visit. It draws on the restaurant’s own website and published menu listings, the owners’ comments to the Niagara Gazette, Niagara County Department of Health inspection records, a past review in The Niagara Reporter, and a read of public diner reviews on Tripadvisor, Yelp and Restaurantji. Nobody from The Chronicle ate there for this piece.
The family behind it
The origin story is a lunch counter. Owner Tony Poletti told the Niagara Gazette’s Mark Scheer in July that his grandmother had worked the counter at a downtown department store and came away convinced.
“She worked at Kresge’s Department Store at the lunch counter and she said, ‘We can do that too,’ and that’s how it all started,” Poletti said.
When Marketside opened in 1939, according to the Gazette, Grandma Rosie cooked in a neighboring house and carried the food over to the dining room. Later generations added seats and a proper kitchen. Poletti worked in the restaurant for 22 years before taking over as owner in 2023 from his father, Mike Poletti, whom The Niagara Reporter described in 2018 as greeting “each and every customer.”
The restaurant puts it simply on its website: “Since 1939 our family has served Niagara Falls with the freshest and most sought-after breakfasts.”
A bigger room in an old market
The expansion took years. Tony Poletti bought the neighboring property in 2011, and the space had sat empty since 1996, when Goodfellas Pizzeria moved across the market, the Gazette reported. The finished project adds an 800-square-foot dining room with seats for about 60 more guests, plus “The Marketside Theater,” an outdoor patio with a projection screen for games and movies and a Renaissance-style mural by local artist Ken Cosentino.
The Gazette put the project at $200,000, helped by a grant from the city’s Small Business Improvement Program. An earlier announcement, reported by Niagara Action in February 2025, described a larger $300,000 plan; the figures differ by source.
“It really is a dream come true. It came out exactly the way I imagined it,” Tony Poletti told the Gazette.
His father saw it as a tribute. “He not only honored me, but he honored my mother who started this whole thing,” Mike Poletti said.
What’s on the menu, and what it costs
This is a short-order breakfast house with a classic lunch menu: eggs, omelets, pancakes, French toast, breakfast sandwiches, salads, sandwiches and the Market Burger. Toast comes on white, wheat, rye or Italian bread.
The house specialty is the Sal Maglie, potatoes and eggs scrambled together, which can be ordered “with everything.” Jamie DePetris, reviewing Marketside for The Niagara Reporter in 2018, listed sausage, bacon, hot and green peppers, mushrooms, ham, spinach, potatoes and cheese in that version, and called Marketside “definitely a Niagara Falls staple.”
The restaurant’s online ordering page didn’t show prices when we checked, so the figures below come from menu listings on Yelp and SinglePlatform. The restaurant hasn’t confirmed them, and they may be out of date:
- Two eggs any style with toast: $3.70
- Sal Maglie: $4.17; with everything: $8.33
- Single-item omelets: $4.17; specialty omelets: $5.09
- Stack of three pancakes: $5.09; Mickey Mouse pancake: $2.31
- Lunch sandwiches with a side: $6.02
- Coffee or tea: $1.39
Even allowing for some increases since those listings were posted, these are budget diner prices.
What the inspection record shows
The most recent Niagara County Department of Health inspection on file, dated March 24, 2026, found no critical violations. The inspector cited one non-critical item, for floors, walls or ceilings in disrepair or not smooth. Everything else on the checklist, from cold-holding temperatures to sanitizer levels and a new high-temperature dish machine, was marked OK. The permit runs through May 2027.
What diners say
Public reviews are strong and consistent. Marketside holds a 4.6 rating on Tripadvisor across 173 reviews and on Yelp across 377, and a 4.7 on Restaurantji across 497 ratings. The recurring themes are big portions, low prices, pancakes, French toast, home fries and the owners stopping by tables.
“Good food, clean, good service, good value, personable owner visited with us,” one Tripadvisor reviewer wrote in September. Another, in July, warned that “the pancakes are huge. If you are not a big eater only order one!”
The complaints are mostly about crowds. A July Tripadvisor reviewer described a long wait for a table and 45 minutes for eggs and pancakes. Weekend mornings appear to be the busiest, and several reviewers say it’s worth the wait.
The verdict
Marketside is for anyone who wants a big, cheap, unfussy breakfast with real local history attached, and for visitors who want to see the Falls’ Pine Avenue neighborhood rather than only the tourist strip. Order the Sal Maglie if you want what the place is known for, or a single pancake if you value your afternoon. Go early, be patient on weekends, and remember the kitchen closes at lunchtime most days.
Tony Poletti’s thanks at the ribbon cutting sums up the formula: “I want to thank my family, my customers and my workers for making my dreams come true.”
If you go
Marketside Restaurant
712 E. Market St., Niagara Falls (inside the City Market)
(716) 282-0644 · marketsiderestaurant.com
Hours (as posted by the restaurant): Monday and Tuesday 7:30 a.m. to noon; Wednesday and Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Friday 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 to 7 p.m.; Saturday 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Sunday 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Price range: The restaurant doesn’t publish one; third-party menu listings put most breakfast plates under $10.
Catering and a banquet room are available.
Sources: Niagara Gazette, July 25, 2026; Niagara Action, Feb. 19, 2025; The Niagara Reporter, Sept. 11, 2018; Niagara County Department of Health inspection records via Health Data NY; Tripadvisor, Yelp and Restaurantji reviews. Featured photo is illustrative and was not taken at Marketside.
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