East Side Delicatessen

My FAVORITE sandwich place! Thank you for coming to Nopo. My dad visited from South Jersey (hoagie heaven) and he loves this place too!

Delicious, huge sandwiches every time. They’re fast, even when they’re busy. Every time I go there I know I won’t be disappointed. $ 7 for a six inch or $ 13 for a twelve inch. Not too expensive considering what you’re getting. I love this place.

Amazing sandwiches! I don’t think I need to say anything else.
This place is definitely an unsung gem in the neighborhood, and the owners, and everyone who works there, should be proud of the great food, service, and EXTREMELY chill environment that is provided!
The Commissary in NW Portland also makes killer sandwiches, which are mostly all unique… East Side however masters the basics and puts their own spin on each sandwich.
The ingredients are very fresh, and that easily comes through! I’ve been here a handful of times, and I will absolutely be back many times more!

Do yourself a favor and go here for lunch. Excellent music, great atmosphere, simply delicious food. I had the meatball sub and it was melty, saucy, meaty goodness. I tried the pulled pork too and it was equally yummy. I’ll be coming back!

Outstanding Italian sub, easily the best I’ve ever had. They stock a decent selection of beer and other beverages and the customer service is great. I would come back here again without any second thoughts. Highly recommend for a great sandwich. Also, the hot dogs looked tasty though I didn’t try one.

Friendly people, relatively quick take-​out order. But that’s about it. My review is going to focus on the negative… lack of cleanliness. The glass door to the entrance is mottled with smudgy finger-​prints. Same with the glass door to the beverage refrigerator. Tables went unwiped. Floors had food that hadn’t been swept up. Light fixtures and fan were covered in dust, nearly ¼th” thick. If the front of the house is this bad, I don’t want to see the kitchen.
Speaking of the food, mine was okay, but nothing special. I had a meatball sub. The meatballs are made of sausage and the bread wasn’t crispy enough so it got really soggy from the sauce. Meh. If I’m in a bind, I’d think about trying the other sandwiches, that is, IF the place gets a thorough scrub-​down first.
Kind of in shock that this is a ‘chain’. Where’s the ownership? Perhaps they don’t pay their workers enough to give a shit?

Unfortunately will lot be visiting this location anymore, after numerous screw ups including us having to drive back three times to fix a mistake the last one was the worst. Ordered two sandwiches clearly mine (the French dip) was WAY smaller than my boyfriends. We have been going here for forever and NEVER had a sandwich been this small. Just plane horrible service. not to mention they couldn’t get my name correct after 6 times of saying it.

East Side Deli has really, really good sandwiches. Their East Side Italian is absolutely delicious. The place has kind of a cool hippy vibe to it. Where I don’t like the décor is where they sell local artist’s paintings and there’s promiscuous paintings on the wall, paintings I fell are inappropriate for my kids. This means I don’t take them here. If they would resolve that I would give them a fifth star.

One of the best sandwiches in town! Quality meats and cheeses combined with great bread. The full size sandwich may be a bit much to wrestle in a single sitting.

My favorite sandwich place in Portland. Was craving a meatball sandwich and this place is the

Pretty straight forward. Inexpensive and quality sandwiches and salads. They are reasonably fast and never disappoint.
They will make you 2 sandwiches if you bring in your own gluten free bread for the price of 1!

Fast service. We’ve been to the other location as well. Maybe it was just the time of day, but this was was far less crowded, which made for a very short wait time. We ordered 12″ and were surprised to get two sandwiches. Oh my! Luckily they were wrapped separately.
There are menus on a bar table with dry eraser pens. You grab a vegetarian or meat eaters menu and mark up what you want. Don’t forget to put your name! Pay at the cashier and then wait for your food. Pretty simple.
Oh, and they have a good beer selection.

Such a weird experience at this place. I ordered a sort of customized sandwich and indicated «12 inch sour dough», which I was expecting to be a roll or baguette shaped bread. They actually have no such thing, so when you order 12 inch sourdough sandwich, they just make 2 gigantic sandwiches on flat sliced bread, which is fine I guess if you’re like a sumo wrestler, but no one told me that’s what I was getting, which was weird. When the sandwichs came out, there they were these 2 separate huge sandwiches which we thought were ours (mine and my boyfriend’s). When we unwrapped them they were 2 identical turkey sandwiches (what I ordered). We took one back confused as heck and were told that that’s what you get when you order a 12 inch which is bizarre. They were also EXCEEDINGLY RUDE about my confusion, the circus freak that’s probably the manager because Portland is a zoo was despicable. He was snippy, when I realized what was going on (my bf’s reuben hadn’t come out yet), I said «Oh well, can I have the other sandwich I paid for back? I will just eat it later» he wouldn’t give it to me and I had to get very sassy about it which I dont like doing in public because I am a lady.
I have serious concerns about the facial hair on that dude as well, but who knows Im no health inspector.
Overall I really do not get the hype about this place, it sucks. After all that it was just a very whatever sandwich in a city full of AMAZING food, like why?
Go here if you are basic and like super basic food and you will have a very basic time and possibly get sassed by a 6’5″ blue mohawked sasquach with braids dangling from his chin and at least $ 100 worth of plastic jamba juice symbols sticking out of the enormous droopy gauges in his ears.
It also took like 30 minutes to get our sammies, and there were like 6 people working behind the counter so that’s confusing to me.

The sandwiches here are large and tasty, with a load of variety. There’s something on the menu for everyone.
I was surprised to find that when I came in to pick up a take-​out order that I had placed over the phone that they had added an automatic 18% gratuity. For take-​out. This apparently applies to any order over 6 sandwiches, my order was 7. Of course I was planning to tip anyway, but man did I feel put on the spot when they rang me up with an additional double digit fee tacked on. Now you know!

Not sure what to tell you… I guess it’s alright if you’re not hungry and want to wait 45 minutes for a single hot dog. The hipster waiting game in this city is bit fucking much at times, especially when the dining room is empty. I may try this place again, but I think I’d rather take a gamble at Subway for a sandwich.

I love East Side Deli! I usually stop by more in the summer when it’s hot out and all you want is a nice, cold sandwich.
The price is amazing for the huge sandwich you get. I usually just pick my own toppings, but maybe next time I’ll try one of their combos.

I feel so conflicted. What a weird thing to say about a sandwich shop, especially after all the great reviews, and especially after what my friend, Ron, said. He loves it, and especially loves it because he’s trying to work on his health and eat better. I agree that they do provide the vegan and vegetarian options so that he has better choices, and they have in the past made him lettuce wraps with turkey and cheese instead of using bread. I applaud the whole thing, but I just can’t get there.
I do give them one star for their ordering system. They have laminated cards that you can mark up with your choice and name and hand off to the front register person and then pay. You can also pick up drinks and cookies and chips at the same time. This space is well designed and traffic flow is well managed. The inside of the shop had some tables and was very clean. We chose to go back out to the patio and go so busy talking that we forgot to check on our food (our bad), but I was a little surprised that they just left our food standing out on the counter and didn’t call out our names. I admit we should have been more vigilant. I found both the interior of the restaurant and also the patio to be attractive and very clean, so I will assign another star for that. I can see the patio as definitely a place to relax and enjoy the food on a summer’s evening.
I do give them one star for the freshness and presentation of my sandwich, nicely wrapped up by the way, but they made a real mess of Ron’s lettuce wrap sandwich, so no extra stars were given here. It looked like they had taken the meat and cheese and fashioned them into rolls that were sliced into pinwheels and placed on top of a bed of lettuce. He ordered turkey and got roast beef instead. After checking with him, he said they have made what he and I recognized as lettuce wraps at another visit, but they were not able to get it done the way he envisioned and had had in the past. I had a BLT on Asiago Cheese Bread.
And really this is where the conflict began. Not only was Ron’s sandwich a mess and had to be eaten with knife and fork, but my sandwich as as dull and bland as could be. I ate it without complaint because he paid for my lunch, but for a place with reviews like this, the blandness and lack of flavor was not a pleasant surprise. I can see coming here again, but with the knowledge that it will most likely be bland, and this is a bit of a sad comment with so many other sandwich shop options around the neighborhood and Portland who do extraordinary things with sandwiches. Ron is a real forgiver and knows that they will get his next lettuce wrap sandwich right, so he will be back, but I will not unless I come here with him again.

Second time was not a charm.
My guy and I ordered Spicy Italians. Mine on Assiago bread with no tomato.
His on wheat bread, no cheese.
We got sandwiches and drinks quickly. Mine on Wheat no cheese, his on Assiago, no tomato. Oh brother.
Can I say the ordering method is archaic? Way to time consuming.
But, that sandwiches were great, very filling at 6 inches and the price is right.
My guy opened his fountain soda to look inside and found what he thought was a fruit fly. I opened mine, and to my disgust found about 5 sugar ants floating in my drink, and about 2 hanging on for dear life to the inside.
I alerted a employee who told who maybe was the manager. They did say that with the weather the ants have come in and are crawling on the nozzles of the soda fountain. They offered us a bottled drink for free, which we accepted.
Definitely left me with no intention of ever coming back.

Really what can I say that hasn’t been said already?
My vegetarian brother came to town with my veggie niece and I did a quick Unilocal search to find veggie friendly food and landed on this place. Field roast?! in several versions? my bro loves that stuff.
Ok!
Brother mine wants to know why he «has to drive all the way from Seattle, where Field Roast comes from, to find a deli that knows how to use that product to its best advantage». He says to tell you his Field Roast dip sandwich rocked!
Whew.
The niece had a Big Fat Greek sandwich (she loves feta) and was satisfied.
My Princess built her own. Her usual odd grouping of ingredients. She was happy.
I had a turkey sandwich of my own construction which was very tasty except I got raw onions and no tomatoes. My advice is to be careful which boxes you mark and make sure there are no pen marks in the wrong place. This is not their fault. My bad. I just pulled the onions off and gave them to my brother.
The sandwiches are big, and not cheap, but the ingredients are fresh and lovely. I am enamored with how they have utterly equalized meat sammies and veggie/​vegan sammies. Its refreshing not to have one group have token items but the menus for both groups are utterly balanced and fair. No one felt cheated.
Made my cynical, prone to grouchiness, brother beam with joy. Thats a sweet thing.

Had sandwiches at the SE Hawthorne location. Was hankerin’ for hot dogs on this sunny Saturday and after a quick Unilocal search, this place popped up. The boyfriend and I ordered hot dogs with various toppings (they have everything!) and these were some of the best hot dogs I’ve ever had (they also have Field Roast vegan sausages). Mine came with cheddar cheese and pickles; the bf decided on olives, bacon, pickles, and cheddar cheese.
Great place for picky eaters because you can customize hot dogs, sandwiches and salads plus they have all the amazing sides you could ever want.