Cafe Mercato

Pretty sad to see this place closed :(We named our game studio Studio Mercato in honor of this place — we were doing the Global Game Jam and needed some place that had wifi, outlets, and was open 24 hours and Mercato fit the bill.
Four stars because it started off so promising — with great internet, tons of seating, any kind of food you could want, and even a bar (!) at the back — then slowly degraded. The internet got crappy, the bathroom door handle fell off, the bar turned into a sushi bar, and oh yeah the entire place shut down. So it goes!

Rest in peace Café Mercato, you will sorta be missed — well maybe. The thing you did best was that you were ever so slightly better than than the bodega across the street. Your goods were slightly overpriced, your floors were clean, and to your credit you did have seating unlike so many bodegas. Your service was mixed and featured everything from a smile to a grumpy sandwich dude who sort of mumbled like a muppet when asked if he was still serving breakfast. Your pizza and sushi were average, but your doors were always open late at night when the other shops on the street had long since closed their doors for the evening.

Seems to be defunct. Poster in window says seized by marshal on behalf of the landlord. Management must have been terrible, since there were always plenty of customers and the prices were high.
I loved this place. Right next door and perfect for a quick lunch. Now I’ll have to walk at least two blocks downtown for similar.

I come to Café Mercato when I can’t think of anything to eat. Then when I’m here, I can get 2 pieces of chicken, pay less than $ 5 and call it a day. (Munch on better food later.)
I like their huge salad and hot foods bar, lots of variety but the quality is not that good. Don’t get the udon, it does not taste like Japanese udon at all!
Service is pretty friendly, and the dining area in the back is very clean and seats are usually available.

They get angry when you ask for flavors. I was feigning some ice cream late in the evening and walked around for a while looking for someplace. It was late… 1am and they were open. So I went in and asked to taste 3 flavors and the Asian guy behind the counter looked like I was robbing the place. It was awkward. Anyway, they ice cream was good.

This place is a problem in my life.
I used to work in a building next door and Mercato is a money-​sucking vortex. They have EVERYTHING (baked goods, made to order salads, panini, udon). Like you could win Diddy’s Making the Band and find the rare breastmilk of a Cambodian woman here. Everything.
The fruit is super fresh. Always ripe and beautiful. They have a fair balance of healthy goodness and guilty pleasures. The mac and cheese is a little too good. Better yet, there’s always a soccer match playing on the TV in the back. Yes.
Some items on the self serve bar can be a little sketchy, but for the most part– never had anything memorably bad. On the other hand, the sushi is tolerable and enough to satisfy a basic craving, but that’s about it!
Their $ 5 credit card minimum is my major drawback. Han’s across the street has a $ 3 minimum so I sacrifice Mercato’s amazing variety to go there.

Eh, Mercato is pretty hit and miss and, well, it tends to be more miss than hit.
During most parts of the day they have a huge selection. A hot deli, a salad bar, pizza, sandwiches, etc. The problem is they don’t go through it quickly enough, so a lot the time a lot of the food will be oldish. Not ancient. Not rancid. Not disgustingly old. Just not fresh.
Most of the food tastes fine. It’s average. If you can’t make up your mind or are hung over, it’s a good choice.
Frankly, though, considering how fresh the food is, it’s a bit pricy. I think it’s $ 8/​lb, which is higher than nearby buffets. Yeah, the selection is huge, and yeah they have beer and wine, but that’s just not enough to make this worth the money.
If you really, really want a buffet in this area, hit up the Whole Foods on Houston and Bowrey. Yeah, it’s a big national chain of stores, but dammit if they don’t have just a ton of awesome and fresh food (with the traffic to make it work). Plus, at WF, they have more than just Chinese and whatever they feel like making, but they have a solid range of Chinese, Korean, Indian, etc.
Oh, and I think the WF buffet is like a buck cheaper per pound. Even if I’m mistaken, it’s worth the five minute walk vis-​a-​vis Mercato.
All of that being said, I would be remiss to point out that Mercato is at, like, the center of what make the NY gastronomical experience great. Nearby you have Michelin rated restaurants and cheap-​ass Halal carts, both of which can be entirely satisfying. You’re where NOHO meets SOHO meets Greenwich Village meets the East Village mets NOLITA and, well, you get the idea. You’re pretty much in the worlds most awesome buffet. It just happens to be that each cuisine occupies it’s own little space somewhere off of Houston or thereabouts.
In sum? Mercato is fine. The food tastes fine. It’s a bit pricy, especially given the mean quality and freshness. Given the neighborhood, unless you can’t make up your mind, forget the buffet (here, or at the aforementioned Whole Food, or anywhere else) and explore what this part of town has to offer.

This is a bare bones weekday work lunch place that satisfied my cravings. I can speak for the beef udon only and it was quite savoury for a place like that which serves all kinds of food from far-​reaching corners of the world. It was a filling portion. My stomach was happy.

If you are looking for lunch, you can find just about anything here!
I stopped in the other day, and I was really impressed by the soup selection. As I meandered further, I found a great serve-​yourself bar with anything from Chinese food to salad.
Grab yourself a to-​go dish and make yourself a plate. You will have trouble picking just one thing!
Look. This food isn’t amazing. I am not promising you that. But it is tasty, convenient, and has a super-​friendly staff.

It’s official — the C grade has been permanently posted. ‘Nuff said.

It’s a decent deli. It’s way more expensive than what the quality deserves but one might blame it on the location. Still, the salad bar had a varied choice is quite tasty. The sandwichs are served in big portions and they’re also pretty good. I was less impressed by their Asian food or prepared dishes but they provided a nice change from time to time. The very nice surprise of this deli is the really good (and rare!) German beers that they have on tap. I was really surprised the first time but then I frequently came back there to get a quick good beer with colleagues. Apart from that there’s no reason to eat in the noisy and crowded restaurant room of the Deli.
In the end it’s just a regular good though overpriced deli. Go there if you’re less than two blocks away…

This place is AWESOME. They have everything you could ever want from a local bodega. Salads, custom sandwiches, sushi, a hot/​salad bar bigger than I’ve seen anywhere in Greenwich, gelato, bagels, custom salads, everything.
Prices aren’t necessarily cheaper than anywhere else you’d find, but you will never be short of choices. You will be paralyzed by choice.
It’s always quick and friendly service. Dishes always look fresh and tasty and the facilities are clean.

I work in the building almost right next door and this place is SUPER sketchy about their health grades. They have had a C grade for several months, but the grade sign will be up for a couple of days and then replaced with a «Grade Pending» sign almost immediately. The C grade was up a week ago (half blocked by two other signs in the window so you only noticed it if you looked carefully), but only stayed up for two days before it was taken down again. Now there’s no sign at all, not even a «Grade Pending.» Check online for their current inspection grade before you eat there.
This place is convenient because they’ve got a lot of choices but it’s also really expensive compared to other comparable delis nearby. I used to eat there all the time but I hated how shady they were about their health code violations. Le Basket deli a block north has an A grade and is cheaper!

Great place to study if you don’t need Wi-​Fi. I bought a small ginger powdered tea for $ 2.25 and it tasted delicious. Awesome drink to keep your body warm as the winter comes. It’s also very soothing to the throat.
*NOTE* The Wi-​Fi here is not for customers. The man behind the cashier told me they did not have Wi-​Fi even though I saw on Unilocal that this place stated there was. I turned on my laptop anyway to double-​check. Low and behold, there was an unsecure Wi-​Fi network called «Café Mercato». However, this does not work. I have a feeling they must have blocked this for customers a few months ago because I could not connect to the internet even though I was on this network :(
Their sign is also a big fat lie. This place is not 24 hours. I wanted to study until 1am but they started placing the chairs on the table around 11:45pm and when I asked the man, he said the place closes at midnight. Why put up a «24 HOUR» sign for your store if you close then??? …
Apart from those two factors, this café is still a nice find on Broadway near the Lower East Side. It’s also a lovely getaway for me from home to just sit down and relax. I’d come back to utilize this place as a study environment again. :)

This place has everything, a lunch-​style bodega on steroids. Massive hot bar to serve yourself with everything from steam salmon to salad to chicken wings. Lots of meat and veggie choices as well. Huge sushi bar, made fresh in front of you by sushi chefs, a pizza bar where they’ll serve up pre-​made slices or make to order, and the grill serving a variety of breakfast items, burgers, wraps, traditional sandwiches, Asian and Indian choices. The market had an enormous selection of sodas, waters, teas and of course there’s every kind of snack you would want.
It’s expensive, NOT a bargain, and Mercato relies on that and a busy, anxious lunch crowd and passers-​by who no doubt don’t know the neighborhood very well.
Still, for variety it can’t be beat.

They have everything here!
Pizza, sushi, korean bimbimbap, beer, a good delicious range of deli cooked food (chill and hot), tasty pastries, macarons ($ 6.99), gelato, fruit juice bar, snacks.
Why not come and check it out y’all? This place. is. amazing.

Walked in here on my way to get food at my favorite spot in NY. I was looking for tea and coffee for my partner. They were just putting out the hot bar selections for the day and the food looked so good we now didn’t know if we wanted to pass this food up. We decided to have a little here and then leave some room for our real lunch. Fried eggplant and salad were soooo good! They have an awesome selection of vegan/​vegetarian fare. Sushi bar is in the bar and a nice amount of seats for customers.
This is definitely more like a deli than a café, so I can see how that may bother some. Overall, I’m looking forward to my next visit to Café Mercato!

This place rocks my world. There are only really two power outlets, but the competition for them is so sparse they’re plenty. A power strip and there will never be a question. The wifi works, they sell soda by the 2L, there’s nothing this place hasn’t got, and plenty of it, esp. space, peace, and quiet. And they’re 24-​hour. You’ll be grinding out code or mesh editing or texturemapping or whatever it is you do on your laptop all night like a champion.
About the only thing to watch out for is that some of the high-​level tables wobble. The low-​rise bench-​like tables are much steadier, but only one outlet is near those. The noise level is non-​negligible, but very easily tolerable. The music isn’t cranked, nor the football/​soccer or news on the TV’s. Headphones easily drown it out, and the bare minimum noise coping mechanisms for headsets suffices to make phone calls (BTW, cellphone reception is also good there: ⁴⁄₄ bars for me on Verizon).

Wow, this place can please everyone at any time. I came here post-​workout from NYSC and the variety for a 24hr place is amazing. Salads, yogurts, drinks, gelato, sandwich’s, etc. The list goes on and on. I will for sure be back here after my workouts to pick up quick and healthy veg friendly food. It was really nice to have the option to sit down for 5min too instead of shoveling food in my mouth on the subway ride home.
Was it cheap? No. Was it convenient? Yes. You get what you pay for. If you want cheaper hit up the place across the street with ¹⁄₃ the options and no seating.

It was several weeks ago that I stumbled upon the newly opened Café
Mercato a mere 2 blocks from my office. It was a bit surreal at first
– like a bizarro Café Duke’s (apparently Houston is the line between
alternate lunch realities).
There is so much to say about this place I’m going to do my first ever
list!
PROS:
— More variety and larger at the lunch buffet with unique dishes
appearing from time to time (Chinese pasta seafood dish, mini eggplant
veggie sandwiches, etc.)
— Pizza! And this medium crispy slice is a delicious and welcome
newcomer to the neighborhood
— Large seating area with comfy tables/​chairs and MSNBC playing above
— Nice décor and comfortable atmosphere — I can actually relax a
little during lunch
— The staff are fast at the registers but noticeably more polite (shout
out to the pizza guy). They do a good job with busing tables quickly.
— Open 24 hours
— Free Wi-​Fi
CONS & NEUTRAL COMMENTS:
— Prices are standard for the neighborhood and in most cases the same as Café Duke’s
— Udon is not as good as Café Duke’s (here the chicken is shredded,
although they have a shrimp shumai udon which I plan to try soon)
— Tables and stools in the back are really low and awkward in any
circumstance
— Pop music is kind of annoying
— They have a bar which I haven’t seen used yet (at lunch anyway). I’m
just not sure what the point is given the venue
All things considered, I’m a fan and definitely like eating here
over the old standard that is south of Houston.
Bonus points because I won’t bump into my Duke-​loving co-​workers here.