Forest Hills Grocery

This place has been around forever. I used to get candy from here when I was in middle school.
Friendly staff.
Good sandwiches for reasonable price.
Good location.

When I want a amazing sandwich from a amazing deli I come here! These guys don’t hold back on the meat at all. If you ask me I say the meat they use is just as good as boar’s head lunch meat if not better. It also helps that their Cuban bread is brought in fresh daily! If your not a sandwich person it’s okay they have other things on the menu such as salads, crab cakes, wraps etc. You can also get out the door without going broke witch is a plus.
Most of the time and for sure on the weekends you may have to wait a bit. These guys do get really busy and it’s not the biggest store but I promise you it’s worth the wait. They do take call in orders so if your getting more then a couple things I’d suggest calling ahead to miss long lines.
With all that being said you’d think they earned a five start but no there is a few small problems. One I use come here when I was younger well over 18 years ago and the place hasn’t been updated since. Everything has a very old look to it and they can really use a good cleaning. That’s the only thing I can find that’s bad about this place.
I’ll always continue to visit these guys for a sandwich and I highly suggest you try them as well.

As a Tampa visitor, I was initially apprehensive about ordering food from this establishment. The location is run down and definitely wasn’t the cleanest store I’ve ever visited.
The location is more of a convenience store/​deli and less of an actual grocery store. You’ll find most items that are typically available at a local gas station. The deli offers an expansive selection of sandwiches and wraps.
I ordered a ham & cheese sandwich on a hoagie roll. The meat was generously proportioned and high quality. It was quite tasty and honesty exceeded my expectations. The full size sandwich is quite large so I only ate half of it. I placed the remaining half in the refrigerator and ate it the following day. It was just as good too. To my surprise the bread didn’t get soggy or anything.
The staff was extremely friendly and professional as well.
Ignore the hole-​in-​the-​wall vibe this place gives and go for a sandwich. It’s worth it.

great Cuban sandwiches. they also have a good meat dept. friendly staff. normally it’s packed for lunch so go early or late.

If you live close enough to use this place as your walking distance or «I don’t want to drive all the way to Publix» grocery store, perhaps it’s more like four stars from a convenience perspective. Or, if you visit during slow hours, perhaps three stars because their sandwiches use freshly sliced deli meat; not what Subway serves that’s been sitting around for a day. Other than that, Forest Hills Grocery is the dictionary definition of inefficiency and lack of planning and management, so so prices, no real redeeming qualities.
I live close by, so I tend to go in for lunch from time to time. Sometimes I just really want a deli sandwich so I suffer though this process. Their sandwiches are great from a deli meat perspective. They’re fresh, typically they give you a pretty hefty helping and most sandwiches fall in the $ 5 to $ 7 range. They have hoagies too if you prefer a ton of bread. Where they fall short on a sandwich perspective is toppings; those are fairly limited outside of your common ones like lettuce, tomato, banana peppers, onions, etc. Garlic? No. Spicy mustard? Nope. Oil & vinegar? Nope. Jalapenos? Nope. They can toast the sandwiches though so there’s that.
Other than sandwiches, they do have a full assortment of essential grocery items like pasta, canned fish, soup, sauces, a very small assortment of produce, and a full selection of beef, etc.
The place is not particularly clean, so your mileage may vary on whether your significant other drags you back out of the place. It’s been there a long time and very clearly shows it. Sometimes you see less than ideal things, such as deli meat and cheeses randomly stacked on parts of the prep line you didn’t expect to find them. Or sandwiches left in the press for five or ten minutes. Or pricing stickers applied across the part of the soda can you drink from, along with dirt.
Now, here’s what you need to know if you’re ordering to-​go at lunch time:
1) Plan to waste at least 20 minutes of your day from turning your car off to turning it back on. The reason for this is because the person who takes your order will handle your order from start to finish. There will typically be from three to six people performing this job function and they’ll all be constantly stepping on each other and bumping into each other while trying to get at the same area of the prep line in very cramped quarters. For example, if one person has 20 of the same thing to make for a big order and they need an ingredient for each item from each of five places on the prep line, well, they’re going to go up and down the line over and over getting those ingredients. The staff won’t join together to put one thing on and pass it down to the next person; that would make way too much sense. Instead they’ll create five times more work to ensure nothing gets done quickly. Also expect to hear them bitching about when their five minute smoke break is coming; apparently during lunch rush each employee gets a five minute smoke allocation to ensure they have enough nicotine to make it through till 1pm.
2) Once you’re inside, the place has random hand written signs, printed signs, stickers and everything else scattered all over the counters, aisles, hanging from the ceiling, etc. Some of these may be important, so waste your time looking at all of them so you don’t make the mistake of doing something you shouldn’t and being forced to start over.
3) If you see patrons randomly standing around, they may be in one of three states; waiting to order, waiting to pay, waiting for food they’ve paid for. You’ll have absolutely no way of knowing what state of progress these people are in, so you should ask or you could lose your place in the line that may or may not exist and may or may not be obvious. Look for people with plastic bags in their hands; those are typically the ones who have already paid.
4) About a year ago, they did add a hanging sign from the ceiling that says «Order Deli Here»; it only took them «32 years in business» (which the owner loves to mention) to add that sign, but because the line forms in front of the same counter you order meat from, you have no way of knowing if someone is or isn’t in line for deli until you ask everyone reasonably close to the sign.
5) If you attempt to order from a location not near the deli ordering sign, there are three possible outcomes. A nice employee who knows there is no line will take your order anyway, probably ruining your next visit when you attempt to do the same thing again. A grizzled employee who looks and talks like they smoke about a pack a day will yell at you for not getting in the line you couldn’t tell existed because people are standing everywhere. A customer will yell at you for cutting the line even though they were nowhere near the sign that you missed because there are random signs everywhere.
6) Order deli sandwiches from under the ceiling mounted sign; see above if confused.

The first time I had went to the Forest Hills Grocery I was a little icked out by the exterior. I have to say, it’s not in the best section of town but it was close to my job and I needed to grab a quick lunch for my boyfriend and I. He had the chef salad and I had the greek one. Just a heads up they are already premade and they tasted like it.
About 2 weeks later one of my supervisors was buying lunch for a few of us on my team and said he was ordering us sandwiches from this deli. We are both from NJ and know what a real sandwich/​sub/​hoagie (whatever you call it) tastes like and he swore to me they were one of the best down here in Tampa. I went ahead and ordered a chicken breast sub with mayo, greek dressing (side note, they do not have oil and vinegar which I thought was bizarre), tomato, lettuce, onion, and provolone cheese. I haven’t found any good sub places down here and this takes the cake. The chicken breast meat was the best cold cut meat I have found (tasted even better then Boars Head). It was that nice cold cut chicken breast meat that was dry (not wet or slimy) and I kid you not this was the biggest sub I have ever seen and it was so good that I actually forced myself to eat the entire thing.
Bottom line: Won’t go back for the premade salads but the subs are amazing!

Don’t be decieved by the exterior. Inside you’ll find typical corner store grabs, but you’ll also discover that FHD has the most scrumptious deli sandwiches in town. They also offer hot cubans (which are just OK, hit up Gaspars for better), delicious devil crabs, freshly made salads and more. I love their turkey on pumpernickel. The wait is usually long, so be prepared (or call your orders in).