Datz Deli — Restaurant in New York

REPLY Owning no restaurant and not being jealous of a TikTok hyped restaurant, I guaranteed if you do a smidge of research outside of google reviews search you can see this review hits home for a lot of YOUR customers. Its shameful instead of taking accountability and improving business you'd rather slander your own customers. Have a field day claiming everyone is a jealous business owner.

Food: For the price point was not impressed. The individual ingredients did not taste well seasoned and the balance of the mac patties were unfortunate. For context I ordered the ox tail mac patty and the jerk chicken mac patty. The jerk chicken was loaded with protein and mad it difficult to enjoy the layers of each ingredient. The texture of the protein itself was soggy and unflavoured. Meanwhile, the oxtail lacked oxtail tremendously! To the point I forgot i was eating oxtail. The patty was assembled sloppily with concentrated areas of mac and cheese, sauces, beef patty meat, etc. Each bite was as though you were eating one ingredient a time. Not a full robust of flavour and profiles working together to make a memorable bite. Considering the price point, unacceptable! A huge contention for me was NOTHING was freshly made. Everything was pulled from a subway style line and assembled on a rather messy and unkept line. HIGHLY unacceptable as I could only imagine how long those ingredients have been there. For the price point, nothing is made to order and prices should reflect this. The ingredients did not taste fresh and the beef patty was most likely freezer bought, the meat was also unflavoured and was extremely concentrated in one area of the patty which made it extremely mush.

Service: When walking into this establishment you’re greeted with a sign that highlights the viral-ness of the business. For the amount of traffic it’s extremely unacceptable the lack of staffing there. It was one woman behind the counter taking orders and assembling sandwiches which made the wait time longer than necessary if appropriate staffing was employed for their “viral” location. Atmosphere: Adding to the wait time guest are crammed into this tight area with no seating provided nor central air. There is a sliding door style entrance which remained closed on a rather hot day. 90 F to be exact. The space provided to enter was a the fraction of the size of a normal sized door. WHY?!?! This absolutely cut off the circulation of the space making for a code violating and dangerous space if a necessary evacuation occurred. I felt extremely unsafe in the rather sketchy urban environment with little room for escape routes due to the tiny entrance. The CO2 built up from the guest made me dread waiting in this space. As customers waited in this sauna for the cashier/line cook in dead silence, you can notice the steam building on the surfaces and beads of sweat on customers forming, visible with a naked eye. Each minute felt like you were standing on the MTA, shoulder to shoulder, during rush hour minus the central air. Again unacceptable considering the price point!!

Overall this restaurant exudes how sensationalism and media presence takes the place of quality food and service. I would not recommend and more than ever will be wary of viral food.

UPDATE. After reading the replies of the owner on other complaint I can assume this establishment is benefiting from being viral and will probably degrade in the little quality they have over time. Moreover, will do little to improve their operations. It reflects greed, money grabbing, and poor customer service. Know who...

So I waited months to come to this place after seeing it on Instagram. I told myself this would be a “must have” next time I came to NYC from the West Coast. So I sit through a Broadway show purposely starving because I knew I’d be coming to Datz afterwards and I wanted to fully indulge.

After two subway trains, I finally get there, order the famous sandwich they’re known for (from the employee who kinda didn’t have the best customer service attitude), then once I finally get my order I’m ready to dig in. But, like I mentioned, I took two subway trains to get there, which means my hands have been touching railings, ticket machines, seats, etc., and I don’t want to share my sandwich with the billions of germs I’ve just been in contact with, so I ask the employee if they had any hand sanitizer. He said “no”. Then, I asked if I could quickly wash my hands at the sink that was literally in plain view at the rear of the restaurant, because again, I’m not finna eat my sandwich with dirty hands. He says “no, I can’t let anyone back here”. Ummm, okay cool, I get it. But y’all got LOTION of all things sitting right by the register, so you could at least have some hand sanitizer right there as well since I’m sure many people are coming from out-of-town like I am, and want to eat with clean hands.

So I basically take the L and realize I’m gonna have to eat my sandwich back at the hotel. I guess they get some credit for making the sandwich hot enough that it was at least luke warm enough for me to eat it and somewhat enjoy it when I got back to my hotel….40 mins later. And in fairness, the sandwich was pretty good.

But I guess if you got ashy hands, they got you covered! But if you got dirty hands, you’d better bring your own sanitizer or else you’ll...

Updated review 2/4/24

Great people and food, seemed to really have redeemed their quality and have everything available. Proud to say I’d now go back - their veggie patties are a hit, and service was on point!

Original Review: Meh. Wanted to like this place since it’s a great addition to the neighborhood. It’s also super close and convenient working from home. Unfortunately, the service has been lackluster with subpar food availability adding fuel to the fire. Went in yesterday with maybe one other customer in the store, wasn’t acknowledged to even order despite asking until 20 minutes later I left the store. Staff rolls their eyes at incoming patrons and sit in the back on their phones instead of tending to orders. I’ve only had a good experience maybe one time last month with a woman behind the counter, and the food was just okay when I had the chance to try(cold upon receiving, am not sure how this happens in a medium-scale restaurant operation). Although the interior is nice, you can definitely get better Caribbean food with better...