Mash Hoagies — Restaurant in Palm Bay

Mash Hoagies- Palm Bay- 3 Stars

As I left MASH Hoagies in Palm Bay, full but not completely satisfied, I couldn't help but think of the late, great Rodney Dangerfield who once said, "I get no respect, I tell ya. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician, I would be honest." That is exactly how Sonny, the owner of MASH Hoagie's struck me. He is an honest, hard-working fellow, who wants nothing but to make the best product he can for his customers.

Unfortunately, circumstances beyond his control prevent him from doing just that. Wanting to grasp the ever-elusive American Dream, Sonny purchased MASH Hoagies less than two months ago and is giving it the old college try. Sadly, it would appear, he is dying on the vine so to speak. Running a restaurant is a tough enough industry in which to find success, add to that buying a place with "meh" reviews to begin with and you have your work cut out for you. This eatery has everything you want in a casual dining experience: a clean, well lit, spacious dining area (including outdoor seating) and a friendly, helpful, motivated, on point staff. The only thing missing here is quality meats. I am sure that Sonny bought the place with the meat distributor already in place. Being a new owner, I don't blame him for sticking with them while he gets his feet wet in the marketplace. However, that time has long passed and it is time he moves beyond the shredded, pressed, sliced and processed meats (ala Subway and Jersey Mike's) and goes with a real meat distributor like Boar's Head or Deli Master's.

I ordered "The Colonel Blake" as I never really got over Radar's infamous line, "I have a message. Lieutenant Colonel ... Henry Blake's plane ... was shot down ... over the Sea of Japan. It spun in ... there were no survivors." and I felt I needed the closure. I continued small talk with the engaging owner as he handcrafted my sub so that I could, in my own small way, say,"Abyssinia," to Col. Blake.

The first thing that caught my eye was the way Sonny cuts the bread for his sandwiches; akin to how Subway originally cut theirs, he "scoops" out the top and makes a long bread bowl in which to ply his craft. He then expertly lays the ingredients down with care and genuine passion for his food. The green, crisp lettuce is placed on the bottom, followed by garden fresh tomatoes and then the whole kit and caboodle heads south with the introduction of the processed meat food product stacked high -- all topped off with your selection of sliced cheese. Everything was great, except, as noted before, the processed meats. If Sonny gets a new meat distributor I'll be back, meanwhile, The Big Boy says, "It's not bad if you're in a pinch and it has a great owner, but your food dollar would be better spent...

Edit: Took them up on the offer to remake the reuben on them. It was better. Not a slam dunk but a definite improvement. Increasing rating from a 3 to a 4! I truly would hand them a 4.5 but Google doesn't allow for half points.

What was once hype and rave has since let me down. Last week, my girlfriend and I stopped in just a tad before 7:30pm after coming back from Holmes, and it was a night before work, after working that day. We were counting on a good sub to take away the need to whip up something for dinner.

I had the club and she had the reuben. I can say that the club was worth its price, probably a 4 out of 5 on its own considering price to size and taste. The reuben would be a 0 out of 5, or speaking in Google's rating scale, a 1 out of 5.

I dont know if it is common for them to make the reuben the way they did but it is simply never worth it if that's the way it is. There wasn't much meat on it, with a meat to cheese ratio being nearly equal. That was weird. And did they run out of sauerkraut and thousand island dressing? There was little bits of cabbage in there here and there but for the most part, it left us wondering why bother putting any on at that point? The dressing wasn't spread all that well so you'd get globs of it in some bites and then nothing at all in others.

I offered to trade my girlfriend half of my club for half of her reuben to even things out a little but that wasn't going to make the experience better. The fact is we got a dud! Sorry Mash, but I guess we'll meet again one day and hopefully you'll do better when I decide I...

I placed a pick up order and by the time that we got there, it was almost done, so that was nice. I was assuming the food was hot and ready. When paying for the food, I had noticed that the camera that was watching the lobby and the cash register was literally following that employee every single step she took. If she moved to go make a sandwich, the camera followed her if she moved to the cash register, the camera followed her, very odd as if someone was back there controlling that camera. So, we get home with the food, we got the beer battered onion rings, two orders of curly fries, a Cuban sandwich, a chicken Parmesan sandwich and a meatball sub…. The beer battered onion rings literally looked like they were microwaved. They were soggy, and had zero look and feel as if they were fried. Mind you I lived four minutes down the road from this shop- they shouldn’t be cold or soggy. The french fries were so cold that we had to throw them back in the air fryer, And the cheese that was “ Melted “on top of the sandwiches looked like it was honestly put on top of the sandwich and microwaved. I paid $44 for three sandwiches and three sides and that was probably the worst $44. I think I...