Schlesinger’s

A very old world style deli with all the typical deli fare, including great looking prepared items, meats, cold cuts, baked goods, and marinated specialities, oh and not to forget pickles! Not fancy, but basic and clean, lots of display counters
We came for breakfast and I had one of my all time favorite deli breakfasts, bagel and lox with all the accompanying stuff– onion, tomato, lettuce, cucumber, cream cheese and all. And the best part was a wide selectio nof fish for the bagel, not just lox. I had white fish and it was delicious. Coffee was fresh and well brewed, with endless cups served.
If this place was around the corner I’d be a perpetual patron, Loved it and hope that places like this never go away.

Cute place but way overpriced for average food in my opinion, if recommend going elsewhere for lunch

I’ve been in bed since Thursday recovering from a back injury, and I have a constant craving for their entire menu. The food is amazing, yummy pickle bar, desserts! I want it all! When I can walk again, Schlesinger’s will be my first visit!
Their sandwiches are yummy and I love their soups — all of them!

I was very excited to came here for breakfast and I was utterly disappointed. I ordered a cheese omelet… The eggs were overlooked and the egg to cheese ratio seemed off (too much egg). I didn’t love the hash browns. Thankfully I ordered a side of potato latkes which were hot and tasted delicious. If I return it will be just to eat the latkes.

Corn beef sandwich came highly recommended from the cashier.
It was pretty disappointing as it was mostly dry and unfulfilling. Won’t be back to try the pastrami.

The quality on their food is not as good as it used to, same with the service. I use to order chicken soup, the last two times I haven´t got any chicken pieces at all in my soup… Very disappointed! And the cream cheese sometimes are dried out, with hard edges, ugh! They have hired som new girls that is not so friendly, bad attitude and are not even smiling when you are making your order. Can NOT recommend anymore!

There’s a self-​serve pickle bar. That should pretty much speak for itself!
Came here around 1pm on a Sunday — just 2 people. It was pretty crowded, but I think part of the problem was a large party that consumed abut 3 – 4 tables and just kind of chilled in their spot. There was also a group kind of blocking the door as they waited for a table, which didn’t help anyone inside or outside.
It took maybe 10 – 15 minutes to get a seat and I ended up sitting next to this ridiculous woman who must have poured on 14oz of 30-​year old perfume that morning. Her husband asked if they had pork bacon. Seriously? It’s a kosher diner/​deli… I’m not faulting the restaurant here. Just a comment on the type of clientele they seem to have.
Anyway.
Aside from the seating situation, the food was good. I had a small bowl of vegetable soup which was delicious, and we partook (?) in the pickle bar, which was awesome. Service was great — the girls were running all over being super attentive and the bus.
I’d come back, but only when it’s not busy. Takeout would probably be a good option since the food was pretty good. For takeout, the pickle bar is not complimentary though, unfortunately.

Came here recently on a Sunday morning with some friends from out of town. Diners seem hard to come by in Philly, so I figured that this would be a good alternative. Waited about 20 min for a table for 4 which was no big deal.
We got here at noon, so I opted for the whitefish salad on a bagel. Ive had this at some Jewish deli’s in NYC, but unfortunately there was no comparison. Too much mayo, and not enough fish.
My friend had the breakfast corned beef hash which sounded amazing on paper, but we weren’t a huge fan of that either.
On a brighter note, I managed to snag a bite of the Arlene Ruben with pastrami that another friend of mine had ordered. Real good. Next time ill stick with the lunch meats. The pickle bar is pretty sweet too, so be sure to check that out.
Ive also been here previously and can vouch highly for 1500 Locust Wrap. Grilled chicken, romaine, feta, onion, and greek dressing on a wheat wrap.

I am finally over this place and the sad thing is it isn’t because of the food. The service has been on a fairly steady decline over the years, but my most recent experience was inexcusable.
We got to the restaurant at 8:20pm on Friday night. They are open until 9pm. We were given menus and sat at a table, then told that we could only get takeout because they were closing early due to slow business. And they wonder why business is slow.
Such a shame, because the food is great, but after multiple bad service experiences, we are done here.

The corned beef sandwich was so good that I’m putting this as my number 1 place in Philadelphia to get a sandwich. It was so tasty it melted in my mouth. I brought a friend down to try it and she loved it also. Only problem is the office I went to across street from them has moved to city line ave. leaving me no reason to be in town. I’m going to catch train in town just to get one or two of those delicious sandwiches.

I ate lunch here today, I had the Asian Chicken Salad which was okay, I think it would have been much better on Romaine lettuce, instead of Iceberg. The dressing on the side was good, and the grilled chicken was tasty. I also had a cup of coffee which was good but a suggestion of mine is for them to carry skim milk. The service was okay, the waiter was friendly. I think I would go back perhaps with a friend or family.

Yum! It’s a deli in the best sense of the word. Great food, good people, and a place to sit, eat, and watch the traffic go by. I had the Parc Rittenhouse special, and it was delicious. Great approach to a Reuben. My favorite part was the pickle bar. Literally. A bar for pickles. It’s walking to distance to just about anything you’d want to do in downtown Philly.

I’ve walked past this place so many times, but we finally tried it on a Sunday night for dinner. When we walked in, there were a lot of people standing at the counter waiting for take out orders, and only one or two tables eating in. We placed our orders and then checked out the pickle bar, which is included when you dine in. It had a few kinds of pickles, some pasta salad, and potato salad. Pretty good.
The matzah ball soup was awesome. Both the broth and matzah ball had really good flavor. I also had a pastrami sandwich, which was also very good. It wasn’t the leanest pastrami I’d ever had, but it was still good and a decent portion (without the ridiculous price tag that comes with most pastrami sandwiches). My girlfriend had the Santa Fe chicken salad, which she seemed to enjoy.
They also have a huge case full of some pretty nice looking desserts, although we didn’t get any this time. We’ll definitely be back whenever we are craving some solid deli food.

Things I enjoyed: PICKLE BAR! My Cranberry-​turkey sandwich, friendly waitress
Things that were not enjoyed: Matzo ball soup, chocolate cake.
The soup was flavorless and I did not like how they added pasta to the soup in addition to the matzo ball. My understanding is that everyone makes it a different way and it is by design, a bland soup. Well, I did not enjoy this one. The chocolate cake was decadent (really good icing) but you could tell it had that «been in the fridge a while» stale taste.

I like pancakes. There just a amazing breakfast food. There tasty and syrup makes it all the better. That’s why I went here and was pleasantly surprised. The place was pretty good. I ordered the pancakes (big surprise) and a orange juice. The orange juice tasted very fresh and it had a good amount of pulp in it. Then I got the pancakes they were light and fluffy and had 3 all stacked up on each other. My biggest complaint was the syrup and butter from a package. I absolutely hate when it’s like this and not it some sort of bottle because:
A. It’s harder to pour
And
B. It is disgusting to have something straight from a plastic box
And she just threw it on the table it wasn’t on the side of the plate we just had 10 packets of syrup lying around. They also gave us packets of butter. Get rid of the packets! It’s gross and ultimately can ruin anybody’s appetite.

You know how sometimes, the food at a given place is decent, but the service is so abysmal that you can’t even taste the food? That’s Schlesinger’s.
My friend and I came in to satiate our hankering for bagels, and we walked up to the counter to order. The girl behind the counter was having a conversation with another employee… and she completely ignored us. So we waited… and waited… for several minutes, until she finished her conversation and finally decided we were worth her time. She took our order, and we waited at an empty table for our food to be ready. When it arrived, we decided to open up our to-​go bags and have a few bites of food before heading out — only to have a waitress come over and rudely remark that the section was reserved for table service only, and that if we were going to dirty up her tables by eating on them, we should at least leave a tip. We stared at her and finally asked if she wanted us to leave. She barked, «No, it’s fine, but just know for next time.»
So, two things. First, I’ve been a waitress before, and I would NEVER speak this way to my customers, no matter what. Second, the restaurant was empty, so it’s not like we were taking up a potential revenue space for her — it shouldn’t have mattered that we sat down for a few minutes, and the restaurant should have made it clear that certain areas were restricted for table service.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it here — I’ll take my business to a restaurant that wants it, thank you very much.
Oh, and the bagels weren’t even good.
[Drops mic]

Hmm. What was good? I had a Reuben and it was ok. The sauerkraut was ok, the meat was ok, the dressing just ok, and the bread and cheese? You guessed it. Just ok.
It was a warm booth to jump into after walking around a fair bit that day. The waitresses were more interested in talking about their purchases at Starbucks than to help me figure out what was in their dessert display. Probably good deli food, but they could lose the New York attitude. It just didn’t appeal to me.

I love Schlesingers and stop in whenever I’m in Philadelphia. The service is ALWAYS phenomenol and the food is great. The sandwich and desert portions are so large it borders on ridiculous and the bagels are perfection.
Saturday and Sundays are very busy, but they keep up. Prepare to wait a few minutes. Weekdays — usually immediate seating.

Review is based on a bagel and a coffee, but I got what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted. So that’s why this is four stars.
While coming back from a gorgeous run along the Schuylkill River, I knew I needed coffee and a bagel. The young lady at the counter was friendly and efficient, and didn’t even seem to notice that I was still dripping with sweat and probably smelled like the back seat of a 74 Impala after a road trip from New Mexico to Arkansas.
She took my order, immediately got my iced coffee (which was great) and before I knew it, I also had my tasty toasted bagel with veggie cream cheese. I was in and out before I could create too large a puddle on the floor so I would say I’m pro-Schlesinger’s.

Great deli. I really enjoy the pickle bar that comes with every meal for free. It has a variety of pickles, sauerkraut, macaroni and potato salad. I have to say as much as I enjoy it I am usually a but disappointed about the pickles. They’re not always that great. And as a huge pickle fan it’s important to me.
I’ve had a breakfast bagel which was really good. The Reuben was really good. The fries are good they are like steak fries. Lol. The list goes on and on. Quality deli.
Never really a wait either. Unless busy brunch time. If only they had mimosas it’d e the best brunch spot.