i just don't agree with the hype....and resented the bill.. my husband and i decided to try the 'famed' route 58 delicatessen- the self-proclaimed 'jewish' deli in the area. i'm from outside philly and i love jewish delis. if we called it a jewish deli, we knew we were getting really good food. i just didn't find this was the case with route 58 deli.
we arrived around 1pm on a saturday and had a 15 minute wait. we were taken to one of the small 2-top tables and given a dirty, shaky child seat for our baby that was in a car seat. it was too shaky (basically falling apart) so we asked to be moved to a booth and they were really nice about it. the atmosphere is fun. they have tables, some booths, and even a 'countertop' area. there are picture crammed high and low. i found it ironic that we wound up at a booth with the godfather wedding picture above it (my all-time favorite movie). but there was no theme. it was all random pictures- i couldn't tell what they were trying to do with these pictures.
regarding the food: first, the menu was overwhelming. though i loved all the choices they had to offer, i got lost in the menu and all the pictures. i appreciated every taste they were trying to catch, but it's like a brewpub with every possible brew available on tap. how do you keep all of that in stock and fresh? the menu was a lot of flash. and they had hot dogs on the menu, but they weren't touted as kosher. any jewish deli i have been to- if they have hot dogs at all- would express they were kosher. not the case here.
the waitress asked if we'd been there before and we said 'no'. the waitress went on about the meat, how it comes from the carnegie deli (like everyone knows the deli- my husband had no idea so i had to explain this later). it was a canned speech because i heard her say the exact words to other tables around us. it was like a sales pitch. she left and brought a sample of their 'famed' pastrami and corned beef. i'm not a big fan of either, but the pastrami was okay- the corned beef was really greasy. my husband liked the pastrami.
i'd done some quick research on the place before our arrival and knew about the large sandwiches. i was taken aback when i actually saw a sandwich on a table near us. it explained the high prices ($13.99-$15.99 for most sandwiches with no sides).
my husband ordered a pastrami sandwich with swiss and i got a tuna sandwich on rye (bonus- it was seeded rye, which is really hard to find in this area). we shared an order of fries and a side of coleslaw.
my husband's sandwich was basically an excuse to put a pound of meat and one thin slice of cheese on bread- no kidding, it was really thin. my sandwich was an excuse to put a pound of tuna salad on two slices of rye. frankly they were ridiculously hard to eat. we both barely finished one quarter and it took a lot of work to do so. i basically ate some tuna with a side of bread. my husband ate some meat with a side of bread (he couldn't even taste the cheese since it was so thin compared to the amount of meat).
the tuna was good, but generic. there are other places i can get the same taste for a lot less and, hey, i can eat the whole sandwich. i had to scrape off 2/3 of the salad because otherwise i would just have eaten tuna. and towards the end of the 'half' it had a slightly fishy, stale taste. there was nothing special about it except the bread. my husband barely finished a quarter of his sandwich and wasn't really impressed because it was way too much meat with a thin slice of cheese and a couple pieces of bread.
i should mention that in philly a jewish deli includes jewish (or kosher) pickles (i'm a huge fan of kosher pickles- that's what i grew up on). route 58's pickles had a very strange taste to them. they weren't really crisp- as i expected them to be- and just odd.
the fries were good and one order was enough to share. the coleslaw was awful! i spent so many years working as a cook in restaurants and i always sample the coleslaw everywhere i go- and i know the taste of fresh versus out of a supplier's container. it was very limp/stale and tasted like it was out of a typical restaurant container (those big jugs or packages they get) and clearly not made fresh, though the waitress said everything was made fresh. i ordered the macaroni salad to see if it was better (the waitress asked if i liked the coleslaw and i said 'no, it was bad'). the macaroni salad tasted just like the coleslaw (really, they tasted the same, just a different texture). you know the difference between container and fresh and this was just awful.
let me stop here and say that the places that have huge sandwiches are not impressive to me. you can put 2lbs of meat on a sandwich, but it doesn't make it right. a sandwich should be great because of all the flavors- and all of those elements, the bread, the veggies, the cheese, whatever should be edible in a single bite. these required forks and knives, which is fine, but after so many bites with so much plain filling, you ran out of anything but the meat or salad. just because it's big, doesn't make it good. there are places that do awesome, enormous sandwiches, but the difference is that every bite is incredible. they can marry a lot of things together. route 58's idea of a sandwich was more about shoving a lot of plain meat/filling on a plate and left you eating a lot of the filling instead of a great sandwich- it was more of a novelty. and the high price tag didn't make it any better.
we saw the bakery items during our wait for a table and they looked impressive. i bake a lot of desserts and love to try out whatever a restaurant brags about. so, we decided to get a couple items to take home. there were no prices on the menu for dessert. we asked the waitress to recommend something, but she said 'everything'. frankly, she should have warned us what they cost. i might have been happier with the place had she done so. we ordered a chocolate truffle cheesecake and a piece of red velvet cake to go.
so, everything got packed up- all our leftovers (about 2-3 days worth for each sandwich) and the desserts. then came the bill. for out lunch, it was $78.23. holy crap.
here's the bill:
tuna sandwich: $13.99
fries: $3.99
cole slaw: $2.99
pastrami sandwich: $15.25 + swiss (.99$- one very thin slice)
2 iced teas: $5.99
macaroni salad: $2.99 (yes, they charged me even though i said i didn't like the cole slaw and we didn't eat it)
red velvet cake slice: $10.99
chocolate truffle cheesecake: $12.99
when we saw the price of the desserts, we were shocked. my husband said 'well, they're huge pieces', but i think the waitress should have let us know the cost. as i said, there are no costs on the menu for desserts (i guess you should ask, but we thought if it was so high, the waitress might say something- after all, they shouldn't want you to be left resenting anything if they want you to come back). that was ridiculous.
i shook it off thinking that was the price of going into a touristy-type place and if we ever went back (probably not because it wasn't that good) we'd share something and never get dessert or any sides.
that night, though, we brought out the desserts. they were awful. the red velvet cake had almost no real flavor other than cream cheese and sugar. the icing tasted of cream cheese (way more cream cheese than sugar and that was bad- cream cheese frosting is pretty good, but this was like eating pure cream cheese). there was something in the layers- my husband thought it was some kind of gel, but it was brown. and the truffle cheesecake was nothing to write home about. i would think for the price and hype, these would be phenomenal.
i don't recommend this place for a few reasons:
(1) yeah, they have giant sandwiches, but they really aren't special. there was nothing but meat/filling on the sandwiches. you can buy a pound of meat, some good bread, add some good toppings, and have about 3-4 sandwiches for the same price.
(2) they should have removed the cole slaw from our bill when we said we didn't like it. it was a nominal cost to them and we did order something else.
(3) the pickles were weird. a real 'jewish' deli has kosher pickles that are fresh, crisp and a high vinegar content. these were limp, stale, and just 'odd'.
(4) they didn't inform us on bakery items' costs. if it's not on the menu, you know we haven't been there before, and we asked for a recommendation, i'd respect a place a lot more for letting us know how much these things cost.
(5) the bakery items were awful. spending $23 on desserts, i'd expect they would be incredible. they were worse than your average grocery store desserts.
i don't really understand the high ratings for this place and think you should know what you're going to spend and the quality you'll get if you decide to try it. if you want to try it out, i recommend sharing food. maybe you can get your bill below $50, but i doubt it. and for lunch, that's just silly.