The Prime Shoppe

Prime Rib Cheese Steak with onions and peppers was super good. Roast beef melt less so, but I also wasn’t really in the mood for a cold sandwich. People complaining that servers are rude don’t spend much time in Boston I’m guessing, because they’re fine.

Awful, just bloody awful. Meat was 90% fat. What meat was smothered in foul tasting bbq sauce. Potatoes were gritty, beans flavorless. Had to buy a second lunch because I could only stomach a couple of bites. Avoid at all costs.

Don’t even bother eating here, these guys sure know how to make their food look 100 times better than it tastes. I ordered the beef rib and it came with rice and 2 sides. The mashed potatos tasted like the flakes in a box you add water too, very bland. The rice was also very bland and had no flavor. The beef rib was dry and chewy and who knows how long it’s been sitting there to get that dry. After two three bites I could not even eat the food was too grossed out the meat was grey and full of fat. Do yourself a favor and skip this place I don’t know how they’ve been in business serving up this nasty food. Also I went with a co-​worker and he ordered chicken and sausage which was equally as disgusting. Neither of us expected a restaurant in Faneuil Hall charging premium dollar would serve up something this awful. Whoever owns this place has no pride in their food and certainly no interest in satisfying their customers. Sad.

If I could give The Prime Shoppe one point of one star, I would. Being a Greater Boston native, I’ve come to Quincy Market with guests from the US and abroad over the decades because it has a good and earned reputation for great food. The Prime Shoppe tarnishes this image.
I went there with a co-​worker yesterday. I ordered the chicken and sausage while my colleague ordered the rib. The first hint I should have taken was that the display dishes looked NOTHING like what was actually served.
I should have know better and followed my instincts, especially since the server’s emphasis was on giving me a lot (read extra bland rice) for my money. I paid $ 16 (I almost passed out from the shock) for my meal including a Nantucket Nectar.
Now if the food was typical Quincy Market-​great, I would have lived with having paid $ 16, but the chicken tasted like par-​burned, rubber cubes and the sausage, some overcooked, some undercooked. The rice looked and tasted parboiled but then overcooked. I don’t even know how you pull that off. Like someone had cooked the entire meal 60% of the way, three days earlier, and then put it on the grill for 60 seconds before serving.
Three bites in, I was done. My colleague had to give his meal away. I kept mine and saved it for today* to try to fix it (my job is helping to fixing things). I ended up encouraging my colleague to join me at Cookie Monstah as a consolation.
So to fix the disaster today I added salt and cracked pepper and then COOKED it (in the microwave on super high) for two-​and-​a-​half minutes. Only then was the meal edible. Skip this joint and go to the Japanese place across from it instead.

First and foremost, the food here is awful tasting! I literally took two bites and had to buy something else to eat. And I was hungry. Service is on the rude side, but so is many of the other places in Faneuil Hall. I suppose knowing it’s a «tourist trap» I was mentally ready for to pay for an overpriced meal, but the what they serve is not even edible.

Food was average for the price. Service was a bit on the curt side. There are better places to eat here. I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.

The food was nasty. Worse use of 10 dollars ever.
The service was equally nasty.
The corn had a vinegar flavor too it.
Do you know how hard it is to make corn taste bad???

I really like meat — and I really like a juicy cut of prime rib. So as I browsed through all the food, I kept coming back to look at the juicy cut of prime rib on display. I eventually settled for their prime rib special for $ 9.95, which includes 2 sides, a medium drink, and the prime rib. It’s a fairly decent deal.
The food, however, was just ok. The prime rib was slightly overcooked and it was drenched in sauce. Instead of just allowing the flavor of the meat come through, the saltiness of the sauce really overpowered my palette. Surprisingly, the meat, being overdone, didn’t even fall off the rib bone easily. As for the sides, the corn was ok, but the green beans had absolutely no flavor. I’ll probably come back and try some of the other meats, but definitely with lowered expectations.

Complete waste of money. I ordered a pastrami reuben and when the sub was placed on the counter for me to take, I looked at it and thought to myself that I got a great deal because the sub looked huge… but then I picked it up and immediately felt ripped off, it was light as a feather. Gets worse. I finally found a place to sit and eat and took a bite and there was no sauerkraut or thousand island dressing, only pastrami and two measly pieces of Swiss cheese. I ordered a freakin reuben people! I had to walk all the way back and have them add it. Even with the toppings the sub sucked. Bread was stale and pastrami was sub par never mind the fact that there was barely any of it. Never again.

Sunday, April 21, 2013, afternoon — One of the best turkey sandwiches ever. Turkey sliced right from the turkey breast with lettuce, tomato, and mayo on a roll. Excellent.

The staff was very pushy and kinda rude. I was looking at one of the fake dishes on display when they said: one beef? while getting the plate as if I already said yes.(which I unfortunately did) Doesn’t really make you look forward for your food, eating something that has been pushed into your hands. There were 4 dishes on display and one price: 7.99. Upon payment for the ribs the man asked for almost 11 dollars. When I said the tag says 7.99 he said it only referred to one of the dishes. He even moved it behind the right dish. This just feels like cheap conning.
And the food? Not very good. Rice and vegetables were bland. The ribs were dry and chewy. Not indelible but by no means good. For the food alone I would have given 2 stars but combined with the service there’s just no way I’ll ever go there again.
Overall: a tourist trap. I’m sure you can find better.

Whenever I eat at Quincy Market I usually end up really happy and full. But after buying my meal here I was so pissed and sad. $ 10 wasted. I got their ribs plate that included rice and two sides (I got corns and roasted potatoes). Omg… the ribs were so freaking tough and dry are you kidding me!!! And the sauce over it just made it worse!!! It made the rice inedible since the rice soaked up all that nastiness. The sides were decent though. I finished all the corn and potatoes but left everything else. Probably never coming back. Staff here isn’t friendly at all either and are not attentive and super slow as well!

I don’t understand why everyone else gave this place such a bad review. Maybe you have to get there early? I was always there at about noon. It is a little bit pricey as far as drinks and stuff goes, but what else can you expect from a touristy destination in the middle of a big city?
I have been here 3 times now and every time it was absolutely delicious. I always got the Thanksgiving Toasted and my bf got the prime rib I believe. We both love it, and any time we’re close to the area (we live in CT) we head straight there. (Even if by close I mean an hour away.) I would definatley give this place a shot if I were you.

this review is for the THANKSGIVING SANDWICH ONLY:
has turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and others. was good.
would have given one more star but the kid literally filled my medium drink to the TOP with ice, literally. i was done after like 7 sips. for $ 2 they can give me some more soda. don’t be cheap like that.
sandwich (small which was about 6 inches) was about $ 8, pricey.

I bought a rib here. Half the rib was fat. I hate these people.

Looked so much better than it was.
Their store front in the Quincy market is all bright and their food options are all nicely laid out, but keep in mind that the food is sitting out for a long time. I ordered the beef ribs, I guess I was starving for some meat or somethin. The employees were all nice and very convincing, I think that’s how these stores in the quincy market survive, they need to pull people in with having good food visuals and loud, convincing «talk» to reel people in because there’s just so many choices for people to choose from.
But they took the beef ribs and cut the meat off and re-​cooked the meat on the grill. They put it over some rice and I was good to go. I took this back home to eat and it was nasty. It wasn’t dry but it was salty and not tasty. Maybe there other meats are better but the beef ribs weren’t that good at all. But I think I’ll be skipping this place from now on.

This pertains to sandwiches. This would receive 4 stars, but for the pitfalls I mention below.
The lure of this place is that, apart from the fresh platters, they have sandwiches, particular using «fresh» turkey and Prime Roast Beef (they have other meat as well).
Pitfall 1. You have to push to get fresh, rare, roastbeef — especially in the winter. They usually have two rare (you can have them heat/​cook it more) juicy prime roast beefs out. You have to demand they cut your meat from that.
If you fail to demand that they give you the meat they show you, they will either grab an ancient, dry, and sometimes partially spoiled roast from below — or they just leave it out on the meat slicer all day. This is most likely to happen during the winter, when they have the fewest customers and thus the slowest meat «turn around.»
I just made the mistake of looking away for a moment after ordering. They had cut the oldest, most well-​done, end of a roast into slices and put it on my sandwich. Yuck! Dry and unappetizing.
Still, when you manage to get them to give you fresh roast beef, and if you can convince them to give you the toppings you ordered (see below), it’s one of the best sandwiches in the area.
Pitfall 2. Some servers are completely incapable of getting your order right. No matter how many times you ask for a certain cheese, or some other ingredient, they will just put mayo, lettuce, and tomato on. You can’t even get their attention because they’re busy chatting it up with eachother.
Pitfall 3. They don’t always wear gloves. They have servers work while sick (ie, just before he took my money, the guy who had made my sandwich sneezed into his arm and sniffled — obviously looking like he was coming down with something.)

I’m not sure why this food stand is listed as grocery.
Since it was a nice evening outside, I took an evening trip into Downtown Boston to get some exercise, I walked through Quincy Market to find someplace to eat, plenty of food options here. I walked over to The Prime Shoppe which had a nice display of roasted meats such as chicken, turkey, BBQ ribs, prime rib, and sausages. The menu offers platters, sandwiches, wraps, salads, kids meals, Coke beverages, and Vitamin Water. The prices are fair with most platters are $ 6.95-$ 10.95. They had some of the platters on display including some specials (only for specific items, not on all display items) such as the pulled BBQ turkey with corn & green beans over rice for $ 6.95.
I opted for the Chicken & Sausage with peppers & onions over rice ($ 9.95 plus tax), which was grilled and cooked to order. I went outside to eat my dinner on a warm muggy night. The chicken & sausage were very tender and spicy, but the good portion of rice was a bit salty tasting. A small bird flew next to me and ate some of the rice from the platter.
The food was filling and just right. I skipped the gelato and continued on my walk through the City and along the Harbor.