Empire State Delicatessen

Friendly service, decent price. But ordered a bacon egg and cheese sandwich and bacon was hard, burnt and clearly pre cooked. Doesn’t take long to my to cook a couple strips of bacon for a sandwich.

I ordered a Catering for an event and the food was great as well as their professionalism and customer service. I highly recommend Empire State Deli for your event.

Great sandwiches with great Boars Head deli meat. Perfect for lunch. Quick service got me in and out on a short break I had.

Love the burger. I get it regularly. Great atmosphere for casual lunch. Service is friendly and food is prepared quickly. Definitely will go back again.

I don’t eat eggs or many breakfast foods, so instead of the proverbial grits and bacon, I got The Manhattan Project. I only have one thing to say:
God bless America.

Nice atmosphere, great music, quality food, decent prices. A nice option for a CBD lunch spot.

Empire deli is one of my go-​to lunch spots. They have simple, but tasty salads for days when I want something light and oh-​so-​delicious sandwiches for days when I feel like indulging. My favorites are the buffalo bill and the great bambino on the dark rye — thanks to the cashier for the recommendation. She is always so friendly, welcoming and helpful. I really enjoy talking to her every time I go in. The owner is also super nice. I’ve always been impressed that he knows my face, even after just one visit there. You can tell he takes a lot of pride in his business and wants to make his customers happy. The food is amazing, the people are great, you can’t go wrong here.

We haven’t even gotten our food yet but they’ve earned one star based on attitude alone. I’m from New York and have never dealt with such a rude cashier. We were tempted to cancel our order and leave before we even finished placing it. I doubt our Caesar salad and ham sandwich will be good enough to change our opinion.

Great spot for grabbing a quality good lunch. Especially a better alternative to the other restaurants in the building and nearby.
If you get hungry in the morning be sure and try out one of their breakfast burritos!

empire state delicateness has delicious food with a variety of choices. out of all the choices in the area, they have the freshest and tastiest food. with all of that their customer service is by far their biggest strength. they are super friendly and the owner Paul really gets what we as the paying customer really want. consider my a lifer!
Adam

So yummy, fresh, local and the onion rings are killer. Best sandwich hidden gem casual lunch spot in the CBD.

Empire Deli is a hidden gem of delicious in downtown New Orleans, and a sanctuary on the parade route during Carnival. Its at a super accessible location on St. Charles Ave across from the Intercontinental Hotel in the One Shell Square building and has an extensive menu that covers breakfast and lunch, including hearty, homemade daily lunch specials like pasta and meatloaf for around $ 10. Service is fast, friendly, and they strive to make your order perfect. Even though the restaurant bleeds New York; the hospitality is Southern all the way. You can always catch the Yankees game on the TVs or hear it on the sound system when they’re not playing awesome music from the kitchen. Which gives this place a fun and hip appeal compared to all the franchise options in the area.
The food, the food is crave inducing. The breakfast has delicious omelettes and sandwiches, real NY bagels, and the french toast is ridiculously good. But be warned, they stop serving it at 10, so go early. I usually order the same sandwiches, such as the San Gennaro which is like a Philly Cheese steak, but with Italian Sausage. The Rueben (Brooklyn Dodger) and Great Bambino is also my favorite with pastrami and corned beef. The Burger is excellent too. I love that they have sweet potato fries and those yummy San Pellegrino sodas. Also the homemade brownies and cookies are a nice guilty pleasure. The Boars Heads meats/​cheeses that they use guarantees a consistent product and the Vegetarian options including the secret recipe burger are impressive.
Do yourself a favor and see why this place has been around for 10 years.

I’ve been here a handful of times for lunch in the past 3 years and each time I’ve gone I’ve had a pleasant experience with fast service. The Buffalo Bill Sandwich is pretty good as well as the Yankee Clipper. I think the sweet potato fries are my favorite item on the whole menu though.

I needed a quick place to grab breakfast with the kids and we randomly ended up here. No one we spoke to in downtown New Orleans seemed to know anywhere to eat breakfast! Even though we missed their breakfast time the staff was great and served us breakfast anyways. The bagels were delicious! They saved the day for us!

Paul, I understand that you didn’t like my review especially of the CHILI (misspelled only once so apparently I know how to spell CHILI and it was simply a typo from typing with lightning fast fingers at 68+ wpm). Spelling correctly on Unilocal does not say anything about my intellect. My MBA and current career prove that.
Unilocal was created for people’s reviews based their experiences and opinions which is simply what I did in my review. Attempting to find fault in me personally was unnecessary and unprofessional.
Thank you for the suggestions on food selections (which was all I really needed in your response). Unfortunately based on your insulting statements regarding my intelligence, your selections do not have any value and confirm my decision of not returning to your establishment. My palate will continue going to The Store, Reuben’s, Ruby Slipper and others.
P. S. The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black. Incorrect verb tense, constant run-​on sentences, unnecessary commas and more are prevalent in your responses… just FYI. Guess that’s my true intellect working. Best wishes to you and your business.

My Girly and I have both eaten here at one point or another. The food is average at best, and is something to eat in an emergency. The last time she ate there was yesterday when it was too cold to leave the building. [Oops. I apologize. She went to Subway because she’d given up on Empire about 4 months ago. My bad]
Emergency food only.
What I do not like is the amazingly unprofessional manner of handling negative feedback.
Instead of taking it to heart and improving, they attack the reviewer. That’s really bad customer service and makes you look like you are just covering for your own short-​comings.
Your food is not great. Don’t expect everyone to like it. Some have different tastes and some just know good food and bad.
Don’t attack your customers. Word of mouth advertising can be good or bad depending on how you handle the customers.
In general, maybe spend more time working on making your business better and less time online arguing and trying to one-​up the reviews because you don’t like how they said what they said.
[Edit} You may choose to take my review as a compliment if you like. It wasn’t one but if it helps you sleep at night, cool. But your comment was exactly the problem. Maybe it would be better to hire an online media person to handle this stuff. He would probably not make you look as bad as you are looking.
You DO know that this isn’t helping, right? Take a breath, step away and let someone with tact help you out.
[edit 2]
Seriously. You are not looking like the good guy here no matter how you want to twist things. I didn’t review your business earlier because it was un-​remarkable and I didn’t want to hurt a small business for no reason. But your treatment of people leaves so much to be desired that it becomes a customer service issue.
You can blame anyone you like but it doesn’t make any difference if your food and attitude are not up to snuff. Attacking you? That’s like beating someone up for not liking your stuff and then blaming them when they say something.
It’s childish, churlish and below what a business owner should be.
And if you didn’t care about Unilocal,then there would be no reason for you to lash out at honest reviews because you don’t like what they have to say.
No one is hurting you but you. Seriously consider getting someone to handle your customer service. No one is picking on you. Quite the opposite. You have a big case of martyr syndrome.
A simple, Sorry your experience wasn’t stellar. We attempt to make everyone’s visit a good one and would be happy to handle any concerns you may have. Please let us know how to help.
Simple, easy and done. And it tells other potential customers (many who read Unilocal) what a caring and sincere business person you are and would go a long way to winning back customers who may not have had that stellar of a time.
What you are doing is lashing out like a hurt child, blaming everyone else and not accepting one simple fact… You don’t always produce great food or customer service. Work on that and you will be golden.

My favorite spot for Breakfast and Lunch in the CBD. Safe to say it’s the best bacon I’ve had in my entire life. The guys are so nice. They even have sprite zero. I’d eat here every day if I could.

I’ve been meaning to write a review for this place for a while now, and I’m finally getting to it. I first started eating here when I worked as a courier with a heavy downtown client list, just before the storm. They’ve remained consistent with their sandwiches over the years.
My favorite sandwich from them started as a special that was only offered occasionally, but now the All American has a well deserved spot on the full menu.
Every now and then (but it’s been a while now) they’ll get a great deal on shrimp and offer a very fresh twist on a Shrimp Poboy, if you’re ever there when it’s available, I highly recommend ordering it.
I’ve been trying to stop drinking soda, but these guys get bonus points in my book for having Cherry Coke on tap.

Empire State is solid. I’m not a big fan of the sandwiches on the giant french bread loaves (too much bread), but the other sandwiches are good (I really like the Manhattan Project). They can make any typical deli sandwiches, they have salads, and the red beans special on Monday will more than fill you up.
The wait times can be somewhat long for what feels like should be snappy quick food and in a location that should cater to quick lunches. I think they lose a lot of business to Subway for that reason. Although I personally find Subway to be completely disgusting (tastes like chemicals, not like food) so I’ll go for Empire State even when I want a quick sandwich.

$ 1.12 PER BITE!
Their Great Bambino (a gross misnomer) is essentially a «Rachel» and comes on standard-​sized bread so it’s only about a 9-​bite lunch. At $ 10.13 that’s roughly $ 1.12 per chew. By comparison, for $ 10.90 you can buy 2 footlong Cold Cut Combos from nearby Subway; or for $ 10.63 a large build-​your-​own burger and side at Phil’s Grill across the Square; and I will do the research soon but I’m sure that Welty’s (3 blocks away), Jimmy J’s on Chartres (4 blocks) and Reuben’s (3 blocks) serve substantially larger sandwiches at lower prices.
2ND STAR BECAUSE CHEF TUFARO IS HOT AS HELL!
BETTER PROPINQUITOUS PRICE/​VALUE: Welty’s Deli, Jimmy J’s, Carmo, City Greens, P&G, Ruby Slipper, La Casita, Phil’s Grill, eating your folding money…