Izzy’s Brooklyn Deli

**CLOSED FOR BUSINESS**
I discovered this the hard way today at lunchtime when I had a falafel fix and found the place was dark and empty. Only furniture inside. All signs have also been removed. Pretty obvious indications that this place is toast. (C.W.s review was not far off, saying the place looked like it was on life support). It’s too bad too, because they had excellent falafel and the pita bread was out-​of this-​world. Damn
I was thinking of giving Izzy’s 4 stars, so I will go ahead and award these in memorium. Sigh

When I read the other reviews, I wonder if we went to the same place. This place looks like it’s on life support. I went on a weekend morning and there were hardly any customers. (Unlike Izzy’s Palo Alto) The so-​so bagels were served in a bowl for $ 3.50. The cream cheese left a weird coating on my tongue. Bleah. Another bad sign: only one coffee carafe in a container that seats 3 carafes. The one coffee carafe serves up watery, stale coffee. Another bad sign: no coffee stirrers. Another bad sign: the menu — international vegetarian in a «brooklyn deli». You want Chinese noodles? Moroccan fish? Soup l’onion? Fish and chips? A vegetarian burrito? Lasagne, even?
It sounds like the falafels are really good, so I might go back for that some time. On the other hand, I might be scared to since a place that tries to save money by serving old coffee probably cuts a lot of corners.

Oy vey! I’ve died and gone to both bagel AND falafel heaven.
Bagels: boiled and then baked to perfection, the way they’re supposed to be. No cutting corners by steaming them instead like 95% of the bagelries around here do it. This means they have just the right texture. Anything else and you might as well be eating Wonder Bread. The flip side is boiled bagels don’t stay as fresh as long as steamed (that’s way most do it this way) so you need to eat them more quickly.
Falafel Sandwich: Fresh house-​baked pita with house made falafel + simple, chopped salad and a creamy tahini. A few french fries added for decoration and a potent hot sauce on the side. It will melt in your mouth.
«Deli» is a bit of a misnomer as it implies that they serve overstuffed pastrami on rye with huge pickles. I was a skosh disappointed when I arrived at lunch and there was no such *animal* on the menu. No meat products there, only fish. This allows them to maintain their kosher status which includes not mixing meat and milk. If you look closely at a kosher deli, they strictly separate the utensils and such that touch meat from the ones touching the dairy.
I was there at a bit before 1PM on a Monday and I was the only one in the place. One or two others trickled in after me. Ample parking in the strip mall complex. One last caveat: its nestled way in a nook in the middle of the complex, so its a bit hard to find on your first pass.
I was also thrilled at the chance to act as a Unilocal ambassador. The owner asked me how I found out about the place, what drew me to visiting, etc. «What,
; «No,
! Here, I’ll write it down for you. Check it out.»

Please note — this review is on the BAGELS, COFFEE and SERVICE only.
BAGELS: I try to limit myself to one bagel a day, and Izzy’s makes that a hard commitment. I love their bagels. Clearly, there’s something special about them. (Umm, they’re boiled, not steamed.) FIRM. Chewy. Crusty. TASTY. Not too big, not too small. Again, FIRM! Topped with lox or cream cheese, I could eat this everyday.
COFFEE: I’m delighted that I can finally buy a good bagel and good coffee at the same place at the same time. It’s always brewed fresh. They take pride in their Italian beans.
SERVICE: The place gets busy during lunchtime, and since it’s a sit-​down deli serving kosher foods (see other reviews for details), the wait can get long. My advice: GO EARLY. The kitchen gets hectic, but the people are friendly despite their need to run around cooking and serving people.
SUM: Without a doubt, this is my favorite bagel shop in the South Bay… or actually, my MOST favorite, in light of my my recent visits to Noah’s, House of Bagels, and Bagel Street Café.

Fabulous. I have a coworker visiting from Israel, and we needed a kashrut place for lunch. I’m positive they will be tired of us in 2 weeks time, but the menu is varied, and the food was delicious.
Minimal décor? Great! I want to pay for food, not decorations.
Everything was fresh and delicious. The staff is friendly. I am adding this to one of my favorite places for lunch now.

Went there for coffee once on Black Friday. I was really tired after standing in the shopping lines. Was hoping for some good coffee so went there and ordered a capuccino. It was all watery and tasteless. The muffin was better.

***This review is based on the bagel and table service***
FREE WIFI!
I really like Izzy’s Brooklyn Deli. I mean. it’s kosher and Leva (i think that’s how you pronounce it) the owner was very friendly. They offer a variety of spreads and bagels. Although it was not the best bagel I have eaten, it was really good. From what I understand, their Palo Alto location is busier… but this one is still worth your visit. It’s in that shopping center with the Marie Callender’s and Cold Stone. It’s kinda hidden and used to be the ol’ Noah’s bagels.
I ordered a jalapeño bagel with sun dried tomato spread. It was good. I noticed the menu offered lot’s of breakfast joints, a special pancake combo, and other kosher treats. You won’t find meat here, but you’ll find flavor. They also have sweet treats in a display case. They have baklava, HALVAH, and other interesting things that I want to try. The coffee is good, and they have secured free WI-​FI. Really nice spot to visit where you read the paper or surf online. I was hear on Sunday… and it was no zoo. Real chill.
Nice touch to have games and Israeli books in the shop. I still see some of the remnants of Noah’s…but this place is all it’s own.

Izzy’s is a reat treat. Great food, friendly service, and located right in the middle of the shopping center my wife and I frequent weekly. What makes Izzy’s special. It’s not rocket science. They provide a solid Kosher dining experience at affordable prices in a convenient location. Service is prompt but not rushed.
It’s become a bit our weekly routine, a respite during our weekend chores. Give’m a try.

The Brooklyn Jews have invaded Sunnyvale. It’s about F*ing time!
My car was in the shop and I was hungry. I was planning on walking over to Erik’s Deli Café and saw this place saying «FALAFEL» with an orthdox dude sitting outside. This place used to be a Noah’s Bagels, and I thought «hmmmm…do I take a chance? Falafel, in Sunnyvale? I’m not sure how I feel about that… this could lead to a very di-​sasterous situation.» But as I entered I noticed the Tofutti Cream Cheese options on the board and all worries washed away.
This place is the real deal. My Falafel was one of the juiciest and messiest I’ve ever had… and that is a great thing. Lower Haight Falafel whaaaa? It’s all about Sunnyvale now bitches. The Pita pocket was so fluffy and delightful… is pita normally fluffy and delightful? hell no. But that just goes to show how INSANELY DELICIOUS THIS FUCKING FALAFEL SANDWICH WAS!!!
The ingredients were all fresh, I was full halfway through the sandwich. If you like spice, then you should ask for hot sauce because there is no spicy with this thing (which sensitive stomach girl appreciates).
Can’t wait to go back. Now all Sunnyvale needs is some good Soul Food an I think all the cultures of the food world will be met.

Update:
They dropped their meat content due to excessive cost and became a dairy/​bakery deli. They have vastly improved their service and their prices are about the same. They offer more types of pastries. The food is still just as good. So I have raised my rating to reflect this.
I’ve been there twice^Hthrice now. The first time, I was really hungry, I had not eaten meat at a restaurant in a long time as I keep kosher to a degree. I got the California reuben. Yes, it was expensive, but that is what you pay for glatt kosher meat because it is very labor intensive to slaughter, inspect and produce. I did get sauerkraut on my sandwich, and it was *really* tasty. I thought the rye bread was good — it had a good texture and a good flavor, and was a substantial, thick bread. There was plenty of pastrami on the sandwich. The meat was cut thick and heated on the grill before putting it on the sandwich. The grilled onions are sweet caramelized onions, and are very good on the sandwich. I got potato salad with mine, which was very, very good. They use fresh dill in their potato salad, and they don’t drown it in dressing like a lot of places do. They also use red potatoes — I know this because they leave the skin on. The flavor was very nice, and it was not heavy.
I also bought some rugelach to take to a party. This was light and tasty, and not at all like the small bricks you typically get around here. The people at the party also liked the rugelach. I bought chocolate and cinnamon flavors. However, it was crescent shaped and not rugelach shaped, if that matters to you.
The second time, I got the falafel sandwich with cole slaw, and a piece of chocolate cake. The falafel is MUCH cheaper than the reuben — I think it was less than $ 6. The falafel was good, but it wasn’t the best falafel I’ve ever had. The pita was soft and thick. The falafel seemed like it was freshly made. It is comparable to Falafel Drive In’s falafel. They do not use a hot sauce like FDI, but they do use a good tahini dressing. There was plenty of falafel and plenty of greens in the pita. The cole slaw also was very good — and I am extremely picky about cole slaw. It tasted fresh, also used fresh dill, was not drowning in dressing as with the potato salad. The chocolate cake had a good flavor and was a generous size, but it was refrigerated; I don’t like cold cake — I think it makes the cake tough.
Well, enough about the food itself — now about the rest of the restaurant. Most of you don’t know what the kosher laws are, so there are things you might be annoyed at (like not being able to have cheese on your meat — that is a kosher NONO) so keep in mind these guys are kosher certified. That means there are all sorts of special things they have to do, so they have to either hire people who know, or train them to do it without error, and how to rekosher things if they mess it up. If they want to serve the Orthodox community, they have to keep their certification and do things properly.
This possibly explains why there are like 8 people behind the counter, and yet the service is really slow. At the same time, I observed that they made mistakes more than once when I was there those couple of times — doing something wrong on someone’s order, forgetting something, or bringing the order to the wrong person in spite of having an order number on the table. I also don’t understand why it took ten minutes to bring my slice of cake — there is nothing special that needs to be done, except possibly needing to find where the dairy utensils are to cut the cake, but whatever. And they are going to go out of business if they keep more people behind the counter than are in front, as was the case both times I was there. I hope that this is temporary, maybe just related to staff training. I also asked another customer there about his experience, and he also reported that the service was slow.
I would like to continue to have a kosher deli in the South Bay. I would much rather have them improve than go out of business, also since it is a locally owned business, and would likely just be replaced by some annoying corporate McGarbage. I think the food is good, so I encourage people to go and to give constructive feedback about what they can improve.

I absolutely loved this place. Kosher delis are very difficult to find so I was really excited to hear about this place. The food was great. I had a beef burger and absolutely loved it. The people were very friendly and made sure that I was enjoying my meal. Since it is kosher everything is made freshly there. Because of this they sometimes run out of things, but the quality of the food is so good it doesn’t matter.

This place is an absolute circus. I came here because it use to be a favorite bagel stop of mine. Low and behold, the bagel shop is gone and now it’s Izzy’s. Okay. I can live with that. Let’s give this place a try.
I order the american breakfast, which is suppose to come with an omlette, some veggies, some potatoes and a bagel. Instead, they don’t have any veggies and no potatoes. However, they decide that french fries would go well with this dish. The omlette, isn’t actually an omlette. It’s just an overdone egg. The bagel is plain and getting it toasted wasn’t even an option.
On top of that, the entire time I was there, I was holding my Starbucks drink (during ordering, while I was waiting for my food, and while I started to eat). As I’m eating, one of the waiters comes up to me and says that I can’t bring outside food in. I ask, «What do you want me to do?» He says, you can drink it quickly. Uh… it’s coffee.
That was pretty much it for me. If you’re not going to tell me I can’t bring outside food in when I walk in, or when I’m ordering, or even when the food is brought to me, then why then?
This place won’t last 1 month. I hope my bagel place comes back.

I wanted to like this place. I wanted there to be a bastion of New York deli goodness that I could use in any fight to defend the south bay’s food. But I am not sure I even know what I just ate. I have bounced back and forth between 2 and 3 stars a couple times as I write this. I feel woozy.
I get there and the place looks like a yamaka fashion show… This is a good sign I think, the fight is on I think.
Okay, Thursdays and Fridays they are supposed to have Kishke, today being Thursday, they of course don’t have it. Okay, take the punch, back pedal, get the ruben… I guess I should have been scared off by it being taged «California Reuben.» But this is Izzy’s Brooklyn Deli right?
They asked what kind of bread I wanted it on — just a little jab — no problem — «Rye please»
SO I get the sandwhich, California is the operative word. It has thick thick puffy rye bread, just a little bit of corned beef, grilled onions, cucumber, lettuce, no swiss (okay I can get that the swiss ain’t kosher), and get this… no, I REPEAT, no saurkraut! I asked for some and they brought it on the side. Let me say that it actually was not a bad sandwhich, but it in no way in any universe or reality resembled a reuben in any way shape or form. It was about as close to a rueben as a burrito. Oh yeah, it was 12 bucks!!! — right hook across the chin, down I go in a heap into the corner.
2.5 stars, its a shame shame shame. There has to be enough business in this area to support a decent deli, there has to be.

Starting today, Sunnyvale finally has a place to get nice kosher deli food — at exhorbitant cost. Piggybacking on the success of Izzy’s Brooklyn Bagels in Palo Alto, the Brooklyn deli edition offers a variety of sandwiches and breakfasts in addition to the bagel-​based fare. But unlike the vegetarian kosher Bagel shop, this Izzy’s is non-​dairy only, which means you can get «cheese» on your meaty sandwich only if you like the non-​dairy variety. Actually, that wasn’t a bad thing. A friend and I agreed that the «tofutti» quasi-​cream-​cheese spread was truly fantastic in taste and texture — enough to give real cream cheese a run for its money. So I wouldn’t be afraid to try any other dairy fakes here either. Our party enjoyed the «California reuben» (which was warm and toasted and included onions) more than the pastrami (which wasn’t and didn’t). But each one cost $ 11.99 for a not particularly large sandwich. The «wheat» and «rye» breads were indistinguishable (and light in color) which might be because the staff is still settling into the routine. The chocolate croissant was particularly good. This place has the potential to become a success once the wrinkles and prices get worked out.