Cafe Wilson

So I now work in the building where Café Wilson used to be and unfortunately they have closed :(…to be replaced with a gelato spot :/​. I mean seriously there’s an ice cream spot across the street and two frozen yogurt joints within a three block radius. This was my go to spot for breakfast. Now what am I going to do!

I loved this place. Sadly, they are gone. The place has been gutted, with no sign of what happened.

So-​so. I’ve tried the «Art Monk» (turkey Reuben) twice and was pretty satisfied. Shaving a few cents or a dollar off of the $ 6.75 price tag would have been more satisfying. Sure, it comes with chips and limp pickle slice, but the sandwich itself isn’t as stuffed full of turkey goodness as I was lead to believe. Good deli but not good enough to frequent.

I absolutely love their vegan sandwiches! It’s so close to the metro too, very convenient. I’ve been coming here since it was Big Belly Deli, my favorite is the veggie turkey bacon club, but I’ve also enjoyed the veggie BLT and the veggie chicken cheesesteak. One of these days I will have to get the reuben… as a near-​lifelong vegetarian, I’ve never had a reuben, and I can’t wait to try the one here!

I don’t know how this restaurant received all of these great reviews.
The breakfast foods are of really poor quality. They are often out of the basics — such as plain bagels, and there is a $ 5.00 minimum on debit cards.
As for the coffee — the iced caffe mocha I ordered was ice in a plastic cup, and consisted of milk and mocha syrup. They didn’t even stir it. While I could walk a few blocks down to starbucks, pay the same price and get much better quality.
Overpriced for sub-​par quality.

The nice thing about this place is that they have literally ANY vegan deli-​type products you want. That means you can get a fake Turkey And Bacon Club that tastes great. Unfortunately… that great sandwich they just made you? You could have pulled it off yourself by going to just about any local grocery store and buying some things off the vegan aisle. There isn’t anything there vegetarian-​wise that you couldn’t make at home if you bought 6 different meat-​replacement products at your local grocery store; it’s all store-​bought cold cuts, unlike a good meat eater’s deli.
I had a Vegan Turkey Reuben, though, and it *was* delicious — though it took a little bit to get over the idea of paying $ 8.75 for such a thin sandwich and drink. Not more than a quarter inch tall betwixt my nicely toasted slices of bread, that sandwich was! It needed a little needed more sauerkraut and definitely more than 2 thin slices of fake turkey to bring it up to par with the other delis in the area. But it was good. And I didn’t have to plunk down $ 15 to get all the pieces to put together a sandwich or two myself and then worry about how I’d eat that much extra fake meat before it went bad.
If you’re lacto-​ovo vegetarian, you may want to consider ordering with real cheese.
I love that this place exists. For a lark or a craving, Café Wilson is a great place to go. It’s not, however, quite as impressive as I was hoping. It would be 3 stars if its very existence weren’t so rare… it deserves only 3.5. But I’ll bump it up a bit more in the interest of Unilocal only have 5 rating levels.

I’ve been on a soft-​boiled egg kick lately. Not wanting to make them myself, I decided to hit up one of Clarendon’s brunches. After passing up a few options, I hungrily settled on Café Wilson. While scanning the menu at the counter, the staff was eating their lunch. The guy didn’t seem too happy that I was about to put money into the establishment’s pocket by ordering. However, the woman finished her meal and greeted me once assuming the cashier position. So when I tried to order soft-​boiled eggs as my «any-​style» choice, I got a confused question and when clarified a solid confirmation that they knew how to make them. It came with toast and fries. And I got a coffee. So my meal was done pretty quick and I notice a basket with some squeezable condiments to utilize. The chef quickly urged me over towards the napkin area where there were only packets. Personally, I’m a squeeze bottle guy. Packets are for carry-​out.
Anyway, the eggs were over-​easy. I tried to tell the guy who cooked it and he told me it was what i wanted. I figured at this point, it was not worth arguing over as I was hungry, my friend had been waiting and it was only a little deli spot so no big deal. Overall it was good. The toast had no butter nor the packets of butter but I didn’t ask so that’s whatever.
I heard this place was good for vegetarians which I was for the greater portion of last year so I can’t really hate this place, but liking it is another matter. Their customer service is wack so I guess the whole it being empty should have been a clear signal as to what was going on here.

I don’t know that I ever would have wandered into this unassuming little deli if it had not been for Unilocal.And having read reviews, I knew 2 things walking in.
1) I had to try the vegan chicken cheesesteak.
2) The staff may or may nor use gloves.
I did try the sandwich but with regular cheese– I just can’t get accustomed to the taste of its dairy-​free counterpart. It was pretty good. I wish I could say it was life altering (seriously, my hopes were that high when I walked in) but I’m not 100% convinced it was better than something I could have made at home. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly beats another lame veggie sandwich at any other deli.
I wish I had not read the comment about the gloves and the communal chip bag. I’m not the sort of person who usually notices this kind of thing but as I stood there waiting for my to go order I felt compelled by a higher power to watch their hands. There were 2 people preparing food and they each decided to wear only one latex glove. Perhaps it was a tribute to the late MJ? Who knows. What really matters here is that to my amazement they managed to ONLY touch my food with their ungloved hands. For example, they would grab my roll with their bare hand and the knife to slice it open with their gloved hand. They would open the condiment container with their gloved and grab my slice of cheese with their bare hand. On and on it went. Because I was so excited about trying this vegan cheesesteak I had to have a 10 minute «I’m sure they washed their hands and worse things happen in the closed kitchens of most restaurants» pep talk with myself before digging in.
All in all, this place probably only deserves 3 stars. But the fact that it is the ONLY veggie deli I know of within a 5 mile radius, it gets an extra star. I’ll be back to check out their other menu items but you can bet your bottom dollar I won’t be watching them make my food.

i’m not even a vegetarian, but their veggie chicken cheesesteaks are downright addictive. Everything else on the menu that I’ve had is really good, including the discord delight (fresh alfalfa sprouts and avocado top it off) but it’s hard not to keep ordering the veggie chicken cheesesteak over and over again…

I didn’t have much hope in the past that this place would be any good. I must’ve walked by it 100 times in the past and it never really stood out! The Unilocal reviews made me give it a try and I’m glad I did!
The menu looked good. It’s like a «NY Style Deli» as they say on their sign. I had the Corned Beef Reuben which was prepared well and tasted great. It came with a side of chips too which was fine. The sandwich was also nicely priced.
So, overall, the place looks crappy and unappealing but the food seems to be pretty good!

If your vegetarian then you will like the sandwiches at this place. I love the food for lunch, we order takeout from here all the time.

I had the spaghetti special for around $ 8 and wasn’t disappointed at all. it was half a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce and the other half of the plate was salad, and a drink was included. This is a great place for a good lunch.

Atmosphere: friendly atmosphere, very casual almost cafeteria-​like setting. Plentiful outdoor seating. The décor, if you can call it that, is colorful and informal. Very friendly staff, except for the young lady who is usually the one who takes the orders. She has been known to be a tad surly and tends to cut you off in the middle of placing your order. The place looks clean enough, but several people have told me that the employees use their bare hands too much with the food. As much of a germaphobe that I am, I have taken to watching them very carefully as they prepare my food. I have noticed, on one occasion, that they pulled my bagel out of the bag without gloves on. And I have seen the cashier put her bare hand in the communal potato chip bag to put chips in the bags. (They put the chips in these open wax bags and they give you a bag with your sandwich order.) Today my co-​worker told me that one time her chips were stale so she brought them back to this place and they all took a chip from her and insisted they were not stale. They did end up replacing the chips for her but they took her bag, added some chips to it, and put it back on the tray that holds all the open bags of chips for people. The very same bag that they all put their hands in. How gross is that?
(Vegetarian) Food: Breakfast is not too bad. They’re generous with the egg, but not with other ingredients. The bagels are pretty good but they don’t put enough cream cheese on. The so-​called home fries are so bland and boring that a few bites were all I could stand, even slathered with ketchup. Chopped onions and some seasoning would have done them a world of good. Overall, breakfast is decent but nothing to write home about. Lunch is better. The veggie chicken cheese steak is my favorite menu item. It is simply delicious. The veggie meatball sub is so-​so. The veggie dog is not good; they overcook the veggie dog and then place it on a sub roll, not a hot dog bun. The roll is more than big enough for two veggie dogs. Therefore, the filling to bread ratio is very uneven. The only thing good about the veggie dog is that it’s cheap, and I would definitely order it more often if it was decent. The veggie BLT is good but they don’t put enough mayo on it, so it’s a bit dry. If you order avocado on anything they don’t put enough. Most ingredients they are rather stingy with. You have to pay 50 cents a packet for jam if you take more than two.
This place is very vegetarian and vegan-​friendly; however, one very important thing to know is that they only have one (rather small) «grill» for hot food, meaning, they cook all the meat on the same surface as they cook the veggie bacon, veggie chicken, vegetables, potatoes, eggs, etc. If I was a stricter vegetarian then it would really bother me. Don’t get me wrong, it does bother me a little, but not enough to stop eating there. (I definitely don’t eat their chips anymore.) It is also very convenient to my place of employment. The smoothies are not good– too sweet and too watery. They have pre-​packaged vegan marshmallow crispy treats and cookies, which I have never tried because they are too expensive.
Price: a bit too expensive for all the business they’re getting and the quality of the food, or lack thereof. $ 2.00 is too much to pay for a so-​so bagel. The sandwiches are a bit pricey, but not terribly unreasonable.
They have vegan cream cheese, vegan bacon, vegan mayo, soy cheese.

After reading the reviews of Alexis G and Luther S, I decided I had to give the revamped deli, that I walk past almost every day, a try. Today I stopped by for a late, late lunch and ordered the vegan chicken cheese steak (no mushrooms). It came wrapped up with a crisp dill pickle and a small bag of chips (which was a welcomed addition). I walked back gingerly, eager to try my sandwich that came so highly recommended by Alexis, and nearly cried when I bit right into a mushroom. OH NO (I really detest mushrooms)! Consequently, I spent the next 10 minutes discarding every mushroom fragment I could find. Within moments of my first bite I was hooked. Now I fear I may be ‘stopping by’ far more often. Despite my sheer joy with the sandwich, I decided I had to call and let them know how my sandwich was riddled with mushrooms even though I specifically asked that they be excluded (and I even saw him write it down before he went back to cook it up). I wasn’t about to walk back; that is just a pet peeve of mine. Their response was the most gracious I have ever encountered, and is in part the reason for 5 stars. They even offered to make me another one some other day. I WILL take them up on that offer because I would like to experience enjoying the sandwich without paranoia of ingesting mushrooms. On that day though, I will be returning with friends! They have TONS of other things on the menu I want to try, something for everyone really. Besides breakfast and lunch options they also sell tons of sodas, teas and juices, candy bars, snack items and a wide selection of painkillers (seriously). Next item to try: the Greek-​a-​rito.

Café Wilson is a better alternative to sandwich chains like quiznos & subway. As a combination coffee and sandwich shop, they also offer a variety of worthy breakfast options, hot and cold. I prefer the salmon and eggs w/​hash browns. Although the shop changed its name to Café Wilson in 2005, it still makes its famous Big Belly Sandwich, an open faced roast beef culinary delight. Only Armands makes a sandwich as tasty. The outdoor seating available is icing on the experience.

This is a great deli in a convenient location near the Clarendon metro station. It used to be called «Big Belly Deli,» and I don’t think the menu has changed since the name did. They have an entire vegan menu, include delicious vegan treats like peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. They have «fake meat» here, and I would suggest the vegan chicken cheese steak. The food takes awhile to be made, but it’s worth the wait. The seating area is kind of cramped, but there is outside seating as well during the warmer months. They often have a sports game on the TV, which my male friend likes.