New York NY Fresh Deli

this restaurant will not be around in 6 months if they don’t get their act together.
the woman who took my order got it wrong. i chose not to say anything since it was relatively minor: «no lettuce, to go» was apparently translated as «on sourdough» and she looked a little ragged. she could have saved her self a bit of trouble if she’d repeated it back to me, though. by the time i left 30 minutes later, the line was out the door, and moving very slowly, so i’m thinking her day only got worse.
while waiting for my sandwich, i got a chance to observe the rest of the staff. at first, i thought having only two people preparing food was going to slow everything down, but i was wrong. they had one person working in the dining area. she was responsible for finishing the food assembly (adding the complimentary pasta salad, silverware, etc for both dine-​in and to-​go orders), running food to the tables, bussing the tables, and refilling the pitcher of water next to the soda fountain. she was not up to the task. her attitude was a bit blas, but really, it was entirely too much for a single person to do during the lunch rush and your options there are to explode or stop caring that you’re perpetually running back for the cup of pasta salad, or explaining that the food-​preppers got the order wrong. normally, i’m not a sanitation freak, but after i saw her go from clearing a table to wiping surfaces down with a well-​used rag to serving fresh food without switching gloves, even i got a little concerned.
and i started writing my Unilocal review. :)
i was hoping to end it with a «it might be better in a couple of months» but then i started looking at the space itself.
there is a very high wall between the food prep station and the rest of the restaurant. it may as well go up to the ceiling, for all the «visibility» it provides the customers. at the edge of this very high wall is a slightly shorter wall where the food that’s ready is placed. it’s cluttered with food prep stuff (the basin of prepared pasta salad cups, silverware, that rag), and has room for no more than 2 plates at a time. even with efficient workers, this is a poor design. also on the list of «bad ideas» is the couple of tubs for «trash» tucked into a corner. they need to either provide obvious and useful receptacles for the customers, or hire additional employees to do the work. Customers who want water with their meals have a single pitcher of water, ditto with those want non-​raspberry tea to drink.
i just … wow. for a place that’s been open for a few months, i would have expected a little less chaos and a bit better organization. i hope that they’re still transitioning to something better.
but the food, i thought, that will redeem it and let me give it 3 of 5 stars, hopefully.
well, you can see that it didn’t. the menu itself looks interesting enough. it’s a little light on the vegetarian fare, but no more than average. i ordered the roast beef with blue cheese sandwich (with no lettuce), and got what i ordered (with lettuce) and on sourdough bread instead of hearty 9grain wheat. no biggie, i thought. bread is bread and since the lettuce is a slice of romaine (vs. shredded, which is identified separately on other items), it should be easily picked off.
for a restaurant with «fresh» in the title, the ingredients really weren’t. the bread was thin toast that had been toasted several hours before, the tomatoes were pale and mushy, and my (surprise) shredded lettuce was yellow and soggy. the pasta salad in my cup was room temperature, so i didn’t even give it a taste. where i come from, pasta salad has mayo, and since the «sauce» was clear, i couldn’t tell if it was oil and vinegar or old mayo.
i will probably give the place another chance in a few months, but considering the variety of choices less than a block away, it’ll have to really impress me before i drop it completely off my radar.