Palm Avenue Deli — Restaurant in Sarasota

I struggle with every review i do, because context is important.

If a $22 rueben sandwich [with 1 side of coleslaw or such] is cool with you - it was a delicious sandwich!

To this day in NY city deli’s the $25 Rueben sandwich would literally be twice as big and your first thought will be “how do i get this in my mouth?” No kidding.

And as a foodie, i can tell ya - it was an excellent sandwich - the rye bread fresh and flavorful, the cornbeef tender and deliciously seasoned when created, and the right amount of sauce and sauerkraut balancing everything expertly.

Many ruben’s are oversauced or over sauerkraut ed [is that a word lol?]. This one was perfect as Ruebens go.

My roommate had the “Turkey Dinner” and was very disappointed - and yes we totally tasted each other’s dishes.

Bland, the “stuffing” cooked in a flat pan and served like an overcooked corn muffin. The mashed potatoes were whipped within an inch of their life and runny - not fluffy as a good mash potato is.

The gravy? We are both completely sure it’s like a powdered gravy that they either didn’t make from scratch - with zero traces of actual turkey juices.

The tiny amount of cranberry sauce was good and also made us question if they made it from scratch in house. Our guess is prolly not.

The atmosphere was nice, i commented to the server that i loved the fresh plants in the upper windows… to which she laughed and said “those are not real”. Here’s to hoping they dust them often LOL.

You can see my struggle in reviewing this place. arghhhh. I guess 3 stars overall considering price, foodie quality and such?

would we go back? well we were there for the better part of a week and didnt go back, so...

With the closing of another place that had a wonderful Reuben sandwich, my girlfriend and I are now looking for another place to go for the best reuben in town. This led to us trying Palm Avenue Deli. My thoughts are as follows. It didn't start off very well. We spent 10 minutes trying to use a credit card to pay for parking at the spaces directly in front of the restraunt. Within 2 minutes of arriving, the parking police were already trying to give me a ticket. I shouted out to her that I was having trouble with the meter. We spent 5 to 10 more minutes trying to get it to work, only to learn that those meters haven't worked in a year plus. We had to drive away, park somewhere else, and walk back to the reatraunt. It's very frustrating!

After arriving back at the restaurant, we ordered a reuben, cheesecake, and beet soup. The reuben was good but not great. It was very, very pricey... The soup was not my thing. The ingredients tasted fresh, but the overall taste was not to my liking. I'm sure someone out there thinks it is great, but geez, that isn't me. It was also pricey. The cheesecake, however, was very, very good.

In summary this place has a really good atmosphere. If you are looking for a cool place to take someone from out of town, this would be a good choice. The decor inside is very interesting. However, this comes at a price. The price/value proposition is not good. The food isn't bad per se, but for the price, it is clear that you are paying for the location and atmosphere. I realize it's downtown, but paying for parking and trying to use meters that are broken but not marked as such is super...

Food is good but a big disappointment to see such an establishment having little to no service etiquette. It feels like they weren’t trained well or something. We first sat down and a waitress immediately comes over to ask us for drinks, when we just got the menus in our hands. Obviously, we said we need a few minutes. Server comes back around 2-3 minutes later to ask if we can order. 2-3 minutes is a little short for me and it made us feel like we were being rushed to order. The store wasn’t even busy yet. After the food came out, not a single person came by to check up on us. Didn’t have anyone ask how was our food or if we needed anything else. Our water jug was completely empty and no one came to refill it, I even put the empty bottle at the end of the table so servers can easily see and grab it, but no luck at all there. Meanwhile, our server’s going to tables left and right of us to take their orders. We even had to walk up and find a staff member to pay because no one was coming to our table. A little ironic given how 3 people came to our table at the beginning before we ordered and no after ordering. Sad to see a place with good food getting destroyed by bad employee service. I see that Kojo’s GM replies to some of these reviews. Been to Kojo a good amount of times, great service and food there but don’t know how the service fell off so much here at the Palm...