Rado’s Gourmet Delicatessen

I love Rados! Carlos and Manuel are the best! Very reliable, and the food is always fresh!
I love their breakfast burritos!
I use them for catering breakfast and lunch orders at the firm I work at. They are my favorite!
Catering wise, I love them because they have the condiments, mustard, mayo etc. on the side. I am allergic to mayo and am soo surprised at how many places but mayo on EVERYTHING. So they are big winners in my book!
Yay Rado’s!

My good friend turned me on to this deli in the Financial District. Only because she orders catering for her firm. The sandwiches and the wraps are good and reasonably price. My favorite sandwich has to be the Tuna Melt. If the tuna is well seasoned, you can’t go wrong with tuna melt on whole wheat bread. They definitely made me a believer of a good tuna melt. If you need catering for you office and your office is in the Financial District, this is the place to call. They can do catering for breakast and lunch. And it won’t break the company budget. Not to mention they won’t skimp on the food, you will get what you pay for; and that’s good food.

Sandwhichs here are pretty standard but you gotta go for the wraps; these things are a size of a football and pretty damn awesome. You don’t eat a Rado’s wrap, you conquer it and when modern day manhood meets metro-​sexual-​fruity-​tooty-​SF-​dweller Matt, he can have an eating contest, but instead of chicken nuggets, you can eat a man sized veggie wrap.
Only knock — the standard pasta salad they give is f’n nasty man… why why why do you try to ruin the good meals with some crappy side dish?! I think they make it from the crapped out pieces at the bottoms of dry boxed pastas. It’s like 98% penne, but a few odds and ends curly pieces of pasta for no damn reason except to look like pubes… plus it just tastes crappy.
But hey, they got coke zero on the fountain!

Pretty standard FiDi lunch fare. The egg salad looked really good, but it was way too runny/​mayo-​ey. The carving station does look intriguing though. Might have to go back and give it another shot. What really weirded me out was the ambiance of this place. It’s like bingo hall meets college cafeteria.

Prosciutto sandwich with everything on seeded french please! This is my usual quick lunch run. Carlos is awesome and has even helped me in a couple of ruts for the office. They have accommodated last minute catering needs for my company which is hard to come by on the day of your event in the FiDi. Great prices and very friendly and knowledgeable staff.

Today I did a taste test:
Lee’s Deli vs. Rados — Rados came out victorious.
I can’t vouch for all the sandwiches Rados makes, but I can vouch for the BLT on Wheat because I have ordered it at least ten times. I am suprised that Rados got such poor reviews considering that in my opinion it beats Lee’s Deli by a landslide.
The Lee’s Deli version of my BLT contains stiff, hard to chew bacon, and lettuce that looks like its a few too many days old. Also, I got a strange look from the sandwich prof when I asked them to toast my bread…
Other pros of Rados over Lee’s include crowd control, seating, catchy names for their sandwiches, and Coca Cola on tap. They also give you a free sandwich after your 10^th though I only found out about it yesterday.
Overall, I say skip the lines and hassle of Lee’s and go to Rados if you’re looking for a quick bite in the Financial District.

********CLOSED UP SHOP on November 7, 2008*********
Efficient delights,
Give me the carving station,
Roast turkey and mashed.

WTF fools?! This place has a great breakfast burrito. I am not often found in FiDi but had a dental appointment this morning and stopped by after my clean mouth and hungry tummy were calling to me and Rado’s was just next door to Dr Urick’s so I stopped in.
I had been perusing options for breakfast burritos — a favorite staple of mine — recently on Unilocal and it clicked right when I saw the breakfast burrito options on the signage.
So I opted for the sausage version and it was just the right size (not Yeti sized) and tasted very good. I was not hungover for a change so this was a clearheaded analysis.
Reasonably priced as well and the place is pretty big and clean and you can even sit outside.

Oh, sad dim cave of clanging steel and squishing mops, half empty deli counters, lonely piles of precut meat and curt notices of new prices, a sandwich to weigh me down. If this is all the joy there is to eating, I will take up another way to pass the hour, wadding napkins is more fun, waste basketball, stealing bread slices from the office fridge, chasing pigeons, exploring new alleyways by midday downtown drizzle. I paid eight dollars and bought only discontent.

Why the four stars? Well, I minused one star because my coworker says they use industrial strength mayo in their tuna. I know he’s joking around, but it just makes me think about the quality of their ingredients. Yes, I wouldn’t say they have the freshest produce or nicest selection of sandwich breads — and I am a little peeved that they axed the teriyaki chicken rice plate — but I give Rado’s 4 stars for:
— Convenience: right, so this only applies to me and others near California and Battery
— Selection: sandwiches (hot and cold), a salad bar and even a turkey/​roast beef/​corned beef carving station. The «dinner meals» with carved meat and 2 sides are awesome for an unproductive afternoon
— Staff: the people here are very friendly and attentive — and they’ll throw in an extra pickle if ask for one.;)
— Credit cards: $ 5 purchase or more. Nice.
One thing to look forward to on Monday: carved turkey sandwich! *does not cause drowsiness, promise!

I work in downtown San Francisco, in the heart of the Financial District. It’s a pricey city to say the least, and there’s not many places a wage-​slave like me can go to get good, cheap eats on my lunch-​hour.
Rado’s happens to be within walking distance from where I work. So I’ve gone there a few times, and the food is good, and reasonably priced too. So what’s the problem? The atmosphere there!
This place is frequented by the Financial District Yuppie-​scum crowd. They’re rude, brusque, and just plain mean to those of us eating there, that are of a more humble station in life than they are. They’re pushy, and I even got yelled at by one irate ‘suit’, because the server behind the Deli counter got to me first. I couldn’t believe how disrespectful he was to me!
I complained to the cashier, who just shrugged-​off the guy’s bad behavior towards me. He said ‘many of the professional
crowd that eats here has attitude problems. You should have seen them during the
boom’.
Needless to say, the cashier’s stance towards the nasty Yuppie was not encouraging to me. So I complained to his Manager, who said he’d ‘look in to the matter’.
I told them I’m never going back there, due to the shabby way I was treated. I’m also an African-​American female, and noticed that there are usually never any other African-​Americans at Rado’s, whenever I’ve been there. Perhaps they’ve had bad experiences there too. Wouldn’t surprise me if they have!
This is NOT a place for the average person, if they want to feel welcome there. As far as I’m concerned, the Yuppies can have Rado’s. As for me, I plan on lunching at more down-​to-​earth eateries, during my lunch-​hours from now on.
Sonya.

Take this review with a grain of salt because I didn’t eat here. I wanted to eat here. I intended to eat here. But the buffet items looked like something from the history channel rather than the food network. I frankly found the place unappetizing and ended up at Harrington’s yet again.
It was 12:30 in the afternoon and, like a midweek A’s game, plenty of good seats available. That should have been a clue.

Salad Bar Review
The options aren’t endless but they have a good size offering and the ingredients are fresh. What I like best about the Rado’s salad bar is that they take the time to actually chop up the lettuce and vegetables so that you don’t find yourself putting whole tomatoes or chunks of bell pepper the size of your palm into your salad. At $ 5.80 a pound it’s on the pricier side.

Hof Brau.
Enough Said.
I run in and the great lil asian lady carves me some white meat turkey and I run out and eat meat at my desk all day long.
I don’t think I’d venture to get a normal deli sandwich and I’ve tried the soup and canned has done better.
I come here for the Turkey and the Turkey alone.
I’m so glad it’s next door to my building.

Edit 5÷21÷2007:
Okay so I finally had the chicken that they said they were going to make in Lieu of the potato salad. BOOOOO the potato salad was better than the chicken. poor move Rado’s, you are no longer my everything, and now you get only 2 stars (one for the All American Sandwich, one for the fresh corned beef).
Edit 4÷9÷2007:
Rado’s is dropping potato salad from their sandwich add on’s… so I’m dropping them to three stars until they get back on the wagon. The Pasta Salad is disappointing and the coleslaw is… well its cabbage… how good can that be.
Original Post:
In the last year I have eaten well over 50 times at Rado’s, and I know this because I have filled up 5 buy 10 get one free cards from them. Lately it seems like I’m here every day. If we were playing an all San Francisco game of Assasin, this where I would probably die… And I would probably have a fresh carved corn beef sandwhich, pickles, and potato salad in my hands when it happens. I think there are probably worse things than getting «killed» before getting to eat a fresh carved sandwich, but I honestly can’t think of what they may be.
I regularly alternate between the carver station, the California Club, and the Veggie, unless I want to go home from work early, then I get the buffalo chicken with loads of hot sauce… that gives me about 30 minutes until I physically look like I am ill from all the rooster sauce and can convince my coworkers that I «really need to lay down for a while».
Is this the best sandwich shop in town, no. (Mr. Pickles)
Is this the best sandwich shop in the financial district, no. (Birley’s in Embarcadero 4)
Is this the place I come back to again and again? Absolutely. I think that says it all.

Gourmet? Unless gourmet implies counter help, I wouldn’t call this place gourmet by any standard.
Two stars for a decent fresh carved roast turkey sandwich. Stuffing might be my favorite thing in the world, so anyplace that offer to put it on my sandwich gets points. There didn’t seem to be a lot of «extras» (like cranberry sauce) to add to a sandwich like this, but the turkey itself was fresh and juicy.
There are other fresh carved roasts (roast beef and it looked like corned beef) to choose from. You can pick between a plate and a sandwich.
Otherwise this place looks like a standard deli. I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here, but it is close to my office.

I wouldn’t say it’s «gourmet», but the fact that you can get hand carved meats and/​or a pretty hefty salad for fairly cheap has me singing it’s praises. You can eat Thanksgiving dinner every day if you really wanted to. But would you want to?
I have yet to try their proscuitto sandwich, but the front counter has a bit more upscale selection than say, their salad bar or meat station, obviously.
They have a very clean, casual, somewhat spacious place to dine, it’s fast, within walking distance of my office and my roommate works in the building upstairs! What more do I need? I can get a side of fresh turkey, a huge bed of greens/​veggies AND A drink for about $ 8.
Eat that, mixt greens.
And yes, they do willingly pass out extra pickles at your request.

I would seriously dispute the inclusion of «Gourmet» in the name. As far as I can see, there’s nothing gourmet about it. It’s just your run of the mill place to eat in FiDi — something of everything including salads, pastas, and soups.
The only reason to eat here are the Sunday roasts in the back next to the cash register. Real roasted meat served up in sandwiches, though I like my turkey classic style on an open faced sandwich (two slices of bread) and smothered in gravy with mash on the side. I only wish the gravy was more like real home made gravy and not like the really thickened up kind. But you get a lot for like $ 6.
The stars are only for the Sunday roasts.

I can only vouch for the turkey and the corn beef dinners over here. I’ve not had the sandwiches but my friend says that the chicken salad sandwich is the best around!
The turkey or cornbeef or roast beef or ham dinners are a GREAT deal! For $ 8.14 (tax included), you get a heaping amount of your choice of carved meats and 2 sides and bread. This is usually a 3 meal deal for me! For those of you on a slight budget (especially with tax time coming around), a $ 8 ticket split up into 3 meals is pretty darn great!

This place is right down the block from my office, so our crew eats there frequently.
Rado’s is pretty run of the mill — the only exceptional things about it is that they will give you multiple dill pickles with your sandwich if you ask & they offer «hauf brau» all day long w/​turkey, roast beef, corned beef and fixin’s. They also have Martenelli’s Sparkling Apple Juice and Orangina — two nectars of the gods — those make me happy.
I heart Orangina & Martenelli’s Sparkling Apple Juice.
Good food, relatively fast service, consistent… those things are important when you only have a half-​hour for lunch to run and get something quick to eat at your desk.
I had corned beef, cabbage & new potatoes today… pretty yum if you ask me.