Zaro’s Bakery

In the passage outside my usual morning travels, I stopped by in hopes of checking out what baked goodies Zaro’s offers. Currently this Zaro’s location is hidden beneath scaffolding which can be easily missed. Yes, there are separate counters and order areas for sandwich, pita and prepared baked goodies. Zaro’s is a New York based bakery where all the baking and cooking are prepared on site. Staff appears robotic with cookie cutter service when taking orders from customers as I was truly undecided. «Next!» Staff shot me a sketchy dirty eye as if they never had an Asian customer patronizing their business. When studying the menu I ultimately decided on one apple turnover for $ 2.50 which was cold and the breading was somewhat stale. When I reached my workplace it was difficult to digest for the lack thereof apple slices imbedded and the bread flakes was completely dilapidated that it fell apart when bitten. Zaro’s Bakery does not uphold any substance of a good quality bakery.

Everyone in a bad mood, it’s running joke at work. Food is good, but takes a while, not organized. Probably poor management? I go as a last resort bc they are close to work.

First time here since I am visiting from out of town. I got the mochaccino and peanut butter cupcake. The mochaccino was made iced when I didn’t ask for it, it was 55 degrees this day, so I assumed a hot drink would be common sense. It tasted like bad coffee with a hint of coffee, not at all what I expected. The cupcake was dry and crumbly with bad frosting, but it was 1.99 so no big deal there. Only giving this place two stars because they have a large sandwich selection that looked decent, lack of wifi didn’t help to sway me with this place.

I have a very mixed opinion of Zaro’s. I have always bought their loaves of Italian bread at the grocery store as I personally think it’s the best of its kind when fresh. I live in the area and decided to try having lunch here as I have had such a great experience with their bread, but I was left a bit disappointed. I grabbed a prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, and roasted red pepper hero, and I expected that this would be on point as it is an Italian sandwich at at place that appears as Italian and it wasn’t very tasty. I could tell the bread was trying to be delicious, but it was soggy and the quality of what was inside wasn’t worth writing about as it was subpar. They had a wide selection of soups and I went with the chicken vegetable… I was also disappointed here as there was a major lack of taste and favor in such a simple soup. For a place that I went into with high hopes really let me down.

A surprisingly generous array of soups are offered, and at least the two we tried were very good. The service was friendly! I was greeted with a smile and told to have a nice day, a little thing that counts in my book, especially in restaurants. I sat at the marble counter and sipped away, watching the rainy world go by out the window. Great, affordable lunch plus good people watching. What else could you ask for?!?

What a crock! ‘Fresh’ orange juice is really from the box — so clear that it’s not actually made there. Lying scum — why don’t you at least advertise right instead of trying to fool the public?

I wandered in here looking for a breakfast sandwich as I am new to the area for work. The layout is way confusing but I finally figured out where I needed to be. I ordered a ham/​egg/​cheese on a whole wheat roll with salt and pepper — arguably the best breakfast sammie combo in NYC. The worker began cracking the eggs but then started grabbing little ham pieces and shredded cheddar and mixing everything together. When I told him no, I don’t want an omelette he said he knew and kept on going, including cooking the mixture in a mountain of olive oil on a tiny transportable skillet you could take camping. I was confused by the entire thing, and still am, especially since there were full cheese slices and other items in plain site. I ate it — dammit I was hungry — but it was meh at best. Would only return for a cookie, maybe.

Zaro’s has a variety of things so do not be fooled by «bread basket.» They have sandwiches, soups, pastas, salads, chips, drinks, pastries, so on and so forth. It is in fact a nice little deli.
The chicken tarragon sandwich is my favorite. I would get it all the time when I worked nearby. Their sandwiches/​wraps/​paninis are $ 5-​$ 7. Bagels and cappuccinos are delicious as well. Good quick service. Sufficient place in the hood for grab-​n-​go bfast/​lunch.

I’m here all the time because its convenient to where I work. The staff here is super friendly. As a regular, sometimes they even have my tea ready for me as I’m ordering my lunch! They are all so great and helpful.
I ONLY wish that they made custom sandwiches. What they offer is great, don’t get me wrong. And the fact that they bake bread on sight is even better. But sometimes I want to order a specific sandwich and they don’t do that. The soups are always really good here too. And the red velvet cookie is amazing!

I’m so surprised that Zaro’s has such a low rating! I’m here either almost every morning or every afternoon. The office is just two blocks away so I like to stop by here in the morning for some breakfast or lunch. I prefer their lunch — they have a great pasta section that I frequent a lot. You get your choice of pasta, sauce, and one meat topping. I like that they reheat the sauce with my pasta on the spot — it makes a piping hot lunch that’s big enough to eat for dinner too!
I also really love their sandwiches. They make amazing sandwiches and panini’s. My favorite is their mozzarella and pesto on hero. Ask for it toasted and you get a hot and chewy sandwich.
I’m not a big fan of their salad bar, since you pay per topping. I’m used to the deli by my school where you pay a flat rate for 4 toppings of your choice.
All in all, Zaro’s has been a staple in my lunch diet for the 3 months that I interned in the area.

Super slow service in the morning and they seemed to be out of everything. But they do offer very yummy ham and swiss on a croissant sandwiches.

More than the other handful of Zaro’s outposts, this «Bread Basket” – individuals seem to waver between naming this the «Bread Basket» and the «Bakery” – offers way more in the way of pita, sandwiches, pastas, soups, salads, chips, drinks, sweets, breads, and pretty much the whole 9 yards.
Except quality. Everything is extremely mediocre, including my iconic traveling snack/​breakfast/​lunch munchie: the muffin. Yeah, everything is pretty affordable and is decent enough for a tourist; you may notice that all satellites are set up in extremely strategic, i.e. tourist-​trapping, locations.
I went with my typical order: a banana nut muffin. It was extremely large and well-​priced, at a mere $ 2.25. Unfortunately, it was far too tough and dense to be classified as a tasty piece of baked good, with a muffin top. The top was chewy, and though there were many nuts to be found, the texture was unforgivable. The interior was dry, to say the least.
You will find many more things to indulge in here, but there is nothing that I know is worthy to simply allow the the sole attraction of convenience to reign true and drive you to enjoy this joint, in spite of the ridiculously «middle of the line» deli grub.

Not worth going to when the neighborhood is littered with coffee, bagel and salad shops.
Whenever I stop in with a coworker the employees act completely clueless when it’s time to pay for the order. There is nothing more annoying than the dysfunctional cashier muddling with the register for a bagel and a coffee for five minutes.

Bagels are «meh» at best. They must bake all of the flavors together, so unless you enjoy starting your day with a cinnamon bagel that has flecks of dried onion or garlic on it, not worth it. Their sandwiches/​salads are not worth it either, and I’ve found a bone in my chicken and a hair in my salad before.
The staff is also horribly rude all the time. I once thought «maybe it’s just because it’s the morning!» but believe me, the afternoon doesn’t improve anything.
Go to Ashby’s on 22^nd and 6^th for great sandwiches/​soups/​salads/​bagels.

all-​in-​all, pretty average.
decent soups. (stay away from the ‘Boston’ chowder — if you appreciate a good NE chowder)
decent wraps.
average drink selection.
slightly above average coffee though.
I’ll continue to come here, since it’s one of the closer deli’s to my office.

Disgusting.
I’ve had baked goods from all over the world and aside from pre-​frozen baked goods I’ve never had a croissant as bad as the one at Zaros, or a muffin as bad as theirs. The croissant was hard both inside and out, it was not what you expect, crisp and fluffy.
The muffin was oversweetened and disgusting. Worse than Otis Spunkmeyerr.
Go to one of the guys with the moveable breakfast carts instead of here, you’ll get better food for a third of the price; or if you’re looking for the best in breed head over 4 blocks to one of the top bakery’s in Manhattan, City Baker.

so gross.
my dad kept hinting that he had a good cake from here at a co-​workers birthday, so i came here to get him a cake for his birthday. sadly, this place is dirty as fuck and the cake was gross :(
the cake i got was $ 16 and the girl had a very hard time icing ‘happy birthday xoxo’ on it. when she spelled birthday wrong, she scraped the offending icing off with a splenda packet (so clean and so professional!) and then re-​iced it. but the damage was already done. it just felt dirty. plus there were little flies swarming me while i watched her ice which really made me sicky. anyways, she was also a bitch — never smiling or even talking. RUDE. i definitely wouldn’t come back.
* they have a B on their sanitary rating… aw shiiiit
** my dad likes his cake, but he doesn’t have refined taste like me so ignore his opinion. it’s an okay place to get cake but you could do A LOT better

Rude service. Inefficient management. Overpriced food.
The management here is eternally thankful for landing such a great location. Because I can’t imagine too many people making this place a staple in their daily meal consumption.
The staff is obnoxious. They never make eye contact. Is it so hard to say «Hello». and «Have a nice day».?
It’s as if they’re doing ME a favor.
I’m not giving them one star for the simple fact that the food is edible.

This place is a bit packed in the morning. I went in to grab some breakfast. They have a good selection of things with a reasonable price. I was surprised that they had fresh squeezed orange juice, still with a bit of pulp. It wasn’t bad for $ 2.75. I will definitely come in to try out more of the food.
They do have a make your own salad station, breads, cupcakes and paninis. So there is a always something to choose from.

I wanted to like Zaro’s. It seemed like a better option than the other creepy bodega breakfast sandwiches in the area. But now that I’m eating said «improved» breakfast sandwich I’m inclined to try my luck elsewhere.
First of all, the layout here is more confusing than most super delis I’ve been to. There are multiple sandwich counters, in addition to a separate pita counter? There’s no hot bar and I couldn’t find any soup either. The quality of the breakfast eats here is pretty dire. There were charred bits of grisly stuck to the outside of the bread on my sandwich. The cheese was nuclear (and I don’t usually have a problem with cheese) and the ham had a strange aluminum taste to it. And it was over $ 4.
On a side note, I noticed that they do offer free cake delivery for you office folk that have coworkers celebrating their birthdays. Worth a try if you’re in a pinch but otherwise keep walking.