Centre Street Deli — Restaurant in Vaughan

UPDATE to Previous - Called in as suggested by an employee - spoke to manager Enzo. Explained I was a long standing original customer and had issue with party sandwiches. Enzo said I should drive back up to Center Street (I live St. Clair and Avenue Rd area, ~20 km away) to "show him sandwiches". Enzo also asked "what do you expect me to do?" I said , "take my name and number and next time I am at the restaurant, simply credit me a box of sandwiches". He said, "There is nothing wrong with our sandwiches" and you are the only one who has complained". Really Enzo? Seriously, I am a liar over a box of sandwiches? You are willing to lose me as a customer and have me tell others to boycott CSD? His answer was yes. So that's it Nana and Ganesh, I am gone and go to Sumilicious. I will let people I know to avoid CSD - very sad that the service has gone so far down...

UPDATED Edit to owners (Nana and Ganesh) - thought I would try again today at 2 pm as I am a long time original and large $ customer, hoping previous experience was just a "bad day" :

For take out - ordered regular medium smoke meat, hot - - "Sorry, we don't have any hot" - - seriously at 2 pm? Like a hamburger place running out of burgers?? Tried party sandwiches again... Much higher price ($32) and no salmon anymore... Plus pin wheel lox/cream cheese sandwiches are now sliced ultra thin. Very sad. Even staff agreed when I asked opinion privately... They said many customers are disappointed.

I don't know how you can repair the damage. Can't return with this drop in quality/service. I know Cheryl and Sam were not perfect but quality and ensuring customer satisfaction were never compromised. If there was an issue, they tried and offered something, a box of cookies, something to say "sorry".

I feel terrible, lost one of my favs. Too bad.

My older review from months ago (2023):

Not what it used to be... 1) Fries are definitely odd tasting now 2) They use cheaper French's ketchup, awful (claim they want to support CDN products but sell American Boylan's drinks!) , Party sandwiches poorly packed and 1st time ever...stale bread!) - get Cheryl back for quality and...

Well I sent an informative email to someone at the deli on a Friday night and got a replied 4 days later that was insulting.

My email word for word to them was…..

I’m writing to you that I’m extremely upset and disappointed in a few of the $100 items I purchased on Friday morning at 8 am from the take out counter. I was in and ordered a bunch of products fresh and frozen. The gentleman who severed me that morning was great and helped me out well that’s why I gave him a great tip to start his day. He even made a comment to me that I was the first customer of the day. Tonight I went to heat up two of the frozen soups that were in your freezer on the bottom shelf on the left side. One was navy bean and one was cabbage and rice. I and my family were really looking forward to them both tonight. Unfortunately we heated up one of them and it was sour and split. Then heated up the other one and it was sour and not good as well. I noticed the container didn’t even have an expiry date on the bottom. That led to me questioning are the soups in that freezer just extras that people don’t know when they’re supposed of been thrown out? I have been coming to Centre Street with my family for over 25 years. I’m really let down after this experience. It’s a shame.

Their reply word for word and I quote was….

Our soups are placed in freezer same day they are made and are not there for more than a week ( as there’s not much room, and made several times throughout week therefore no need to freeze many) we’ve been doing this for the last 33+ years and never had an unhappy customer experience.

WOW it’s amazing that they’ve never had an unhappy customer experience yet reviews on this page so very many unhappy customer experiences The new owners are obviously not keeping up with the standard of the old owners. It’s a shame and I don’t recommend anyone to shop here or get take out till they get their act together. You can’t blame COVID for rotten soups when you charge...

Born and raised in Montreal; moved to Toronto 8 years ago. After eating Montreal food almost all of my life, I have to declare that Montreal has the best restaurants in Canada. Having been raised eating smoked meat, etc from Schwartz Delicatessen (my late Mom was a cashier there when she was 19!), there is no other place in Montreal that comes close. Snowdon Deli is so-so and since I moved to Toronto, I used to go to Centre Street Deli (a subdivision of Snowdon Deli) whenever I felt like having some "Montreal"-cloned smoked meat. It used to be passable, but lately, not so much. I bought a container of chicken soup and matzo balls recently and both had no taste; threw them out. I was told the other day that ownership of Centre Street Deli changed ownership so my friends, brother, and I made the mistake of going there yesterday for lunch. The smoked meat was mostly fat (couldn't find much meat in there and tasted rubbery); the French Fries were horrible - no taste (not even after putting on salt & vinegar, or ketchup!). The quarter slice of dill pickle was pure salt (not sour) and the small piece of pimento pepper (they also sell Putter's sweet pimento peppers so I thought they use some of their supply to serve with meals) was sour, not sweet. One of my friends had their cheese blintzes and said that they had no taste at all. The service wasn't exceptional; in fact as we sat down, the waitress removed my cutlery and napkin and I had to get her to bring them back. If you read this review, please take it seriously - and don't come here if you want "Montreal"-style deli; there are so many ex-Montrealers living here, I don't understand why they would come here; On the other hand, Torontonians don't know any better! So if you really want good smoked meat, stuffed chicken - take a ride to Montreal and go to Schwartz. If you want real good French Fries, go to Lafleur's while you're in Montreal and...