Mad Greek Deli — Restaurant in Portland

I visited Mad Greek Deli for the first time, during Portland Mercury Magazine's Burger Week 2021, and I had their Papadopolous burger (pictured). I conquered 19 burgers, that week, and it was roughly tied, as the best.

The Papadopoulos featured an all-beef, char-broiled patty, a house-made Omega Sauce, grilled onions, candied bacon, feta cheese, and crispy fried pepperoncinis, on a butter bun. It was exceptional! Easily worth the Burger Week price of $6. I still would actually urge them to make it a regular menu item (presumably in the roughly $10-$12 range), though I do remember that the charbroiling was causing a bit of smokiness. It was so good, though - Fried pepperoncinis are now a new favorite burger topping of mine. Seriously.

I was sufficiently impressed during Burger Week, that I visited again, to try their normal menu; I had the Gyro Plate (pictured). It was a lot of food - roughly two full Gyros, I would say.

For those who are unfamiliar, gyro meat is a seasoned mixture of lamb and beef, and the white dip / sauce is tzatziki, which is yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, olive oil, herbs, and sometimes vinegar or lemon juice.

Between the seasoned, lightly salty gyro meat, the refreshing, cool tzatziki and tomatoes, the spicy raw onion and cayenne pepper, and the rich feta cheese, there were a lot of great, classic gyro flavors working well together. Both visits, my food was displayed beautifully, the customer service that I received was good. The Gyro Plate was reasonably priced, for the generous quantity of food.

Mad Greek Deli has both indoor and outdoor seating available, and the inside is kind of half classic deli, and half sports bar.

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So we've been coming here for years! And we have always loved it. They truly were mad Greeks and we got barked at a few time, but it was always worth it cause it was the best Greek around. We went today (10/29) and it started when we called to order. It was a bit confusing. But we thought maybe new employee. When we ran in to grab the order it was different people so we asked "is there a new owner?" Which they said yes. So to start BAM new owner, no longer the mad Greeks that we feared but loved. We got the $8 special for greek fries and Greek salad. Which we got 4 jojos that seemed undercooked and a small Greek salad which smelled rancid. Then the gyros were about half the size as the original owners. The pita size was probably the same but half the filling. Overall very sad. And now I have no reason to go back to Portland:( Edit: as they commented they are not new owners? But that's what the employee said and even told us that the old cook was there until last week. So maybe not new ownership? I'm not sure "whole story" they are referring to. We did return a chicken stick cause it was $8 for a few tiny pieces of chicken? Is that the whole story you wanted? Either way not trying to destroy a family business, we've always loved this place. Always a 10/10 other then being barked at here or there. But yesterday was really disappointing. 4 undercooked fries, old Greek salad (with lettuce which before you guys didn't seem to do before, which we liked. So another reason we chose to believethe employee) small gyros compared to normal. So idk maybe they had an off day. We were actually trying to defend the...

POS: Good food of mind boggling proportions, descent average-beer selection, clean establishment, and nice staff.

NEG: One bathroom with a single toilet. Last year they only had one cashier for the last TImbers game of the season. That seemed odd to me, but I think that it was purposeful to slow down the vib of the place. There were other things I noticed that slow the staff's ability to serve people, so I think it's a management decision to keep a chill feel to the place.

I re-added Mad Greek to my list of places to revisit during a slower time, so I went back a year later and that was my last time. The bartender was so sick that he was uncontrollably sneezing and coughing. The first couple times he washed his hands, but he kept rubbing his upper lip with his hands, so the hand-washing was pointless. When he grabbed glasses to serve people, he kept grabbing at the lip of the glass instead of down lower. I understand that people have to work, but all of us at the bar kept eyeing each other. Even if he wasn't contagious anymore, it was disgusting.

Mad Greek rates highly and always has people in for lunch, so my opinion is purely my own. I recommend checking the place out, just take the place for what it is and if you don't like it then go elsewhere; don't get all "show me your manager" on them like one of the guys at the bar did, it won't go well for you. There are so many other places in Portland who also want...