Cheesesteak Nirvana

Still love this place. Amoroso buns are delicious and his philly cheese steaks are my favorite in Portland.

This place is so fukn bomb I have no clue what these jabronis are talking about, I would eat their cheese steaks over shut up and eat any day. Yeah it doesn’t look that classy but your buying a cheesesteak for goodness sakes ! Just put it in yo mouth whining babies.

Husband was craving for Philly cheesesteak last Friday. It was 5:30 pm, the sign at the window says «sold out»! Came back tonight and same it was close, this time no sign.

Great spot. I always try to come here… WHEN HE’s OPEN!
Don’t trust the posted hours sign… Either you come early and you gotta wait or he closes early…
Hope he figures it out.
Other than that. Been trying to come the past 3 times but I’m either too early or late… Feed me!!!

The owner is really rude. When asked a simple question he interrupts and responded rudely. We didnt even bother to order.

My mom is a huge fan!!!
I always order the 6 inch fundamentalist and it is always good.
The owner/​operator is always fast and efficient.
Prices are reasonable, too.

2^nd time there at best was mediocre. Service suck under season meat guy was an ass. ask if a can speak and under stand English? wow really nice start treating people better and with more curtsey. will not come back.

Rude, rude, rude! Wow, rarely have I experienced such horrible customer service. The man working at the cart couldn’t even be bothered to turn around to speak to me when I tried to place my order. Super mediocre food as well. I will never be back. There are plenty of other wonder carts at Cartlandia.

Small portion. I ordered the 6 in. fundamentalist and maybe I have a glutinous idea of what a cheese steak sandwich should be but the sandwich was a warmed hoagie style hot dog bun with about 4 pieces of cheese steak and melted cheese. When the guy handed the food to me it felt like he handed me an empty hot dog bun wrapped in aluminum foil. The meat was pretty flavorful. I got hints of onion and I guess there were sopposed to be mushrooms but I didn’t get that. The guys service was not the best nor the worst. He said it would be ready in about 7 min. I waited at the tables a while then decided to wait in front of the door, he then opened the door and handed me my sad little cheesesteak sammy. If you are looking for a bomb cheesesteak, look elsewhere. Not worth the value.

I’m thoroughly disappointed in the food and the customer service. When I walked up to the window to order, the owner (shown in the photos on Unilocal) was lurking in a poorly lit cart and didn’t approach the window. From the dark shadows, he asked for my order. When I asked for fries, he blankly stared at me, then told me that some story he was only there for a few hours, someone was moving… blah, blah, blah. Needless to say he said if I wanted fries I needed to go a couple carts down and the guy there could make me some… ummm, okay?!
I ordered a 6″ Philly, with caramelized onions and cheese. When I attempted to unwrap my sandwich I had trouble because all of the cheese was melted to the aluminum foil. My sandwich appeared as though it was thrown together with no care or concern (I was the only one in line), and the meat was bone dry!
I will never eat at this place again. Also, it doesn’t look to appealing to your customers when your sink is chock-​full of dirty dishes. It is also unappealing when you can’t smile at the folks who are patronizing your business!!!

According to Briana W., the commenter below me, I am too sensitive and that’s why I’m giving this dickhead 1 star. Actually, Briana, the truth is, I’m not sensitive at all. In fact, I’m pretty easy going when it comes to people’s attitudes. I get it: work sucks. But the way this guy treats his customers is in a league of its own. I have never been treated so outright disrespectfully by a cook, waiter, retail worker, — you name it. And I’ve seen a lot of assholes, I live in Portland, Or: home of the privileged Californian. I have seen every pretentious, hipster, holier than thou attitude under our cloud covered sun, but this guy takes the cake.
I go here once a week, and have done so for a long time (off and on). This is the only DECENT steak sandwich near my house, so I keep going back. But, let’s be honest, they are not worth $ 10. Period. They aren’t that great. They are simply located in a convenient location. But whatever, $ 10 ya ya ya, like I said, I’m used to it in this town where people think their food is so damn good.
Every time I go, I get treated with the same annoyance as before. For some reason, this guy opened a food cart but he hates making food and helping customers. Weird. And it shows. It gleams through like a sun beam.
This week though, i’m fucking done with this asshole. I waited 10 mins for him to turn his back and fucking acknowledge me– I get it: he had a few customers before me– they ordered about 6 sandwiches. I’m not complaining about the wait time, I’m complaining that this dick head didn’t even turn around to let me know that he’ll be with me shortly. I wouldn’t even normally care about this, but closing time was looming, and I didn’t want to piss this guy off anymore than he already generally is. I waited and kept waiting– he took the payment from the customers. I was really excited to finally place my order. The customers walk away and he grabs his window and slams it shut then places the closed sign up.
What the fuk? didn’t he see me? So i knock on the window. «hi, is there anyway you can make one more? I’ve been waiting for 10 mins.» He looks at me and says. «fine, what do you want?» So i tell him my order and hand him my VISA (which he accepts EVERY SINGLE TIME using his Square slider) — he says «sorry, we don’t take cards here»
I almost started arguing with him since he literally had just taken a card before my very eyes, but I realized that he simply just wanted to go home and not work anymore. Can’t blame him for that. But he can’t blame me for telling everyone I can what a complete asshole this guy is. I wasn’t a bit surprised to visit the Unilocal page and find that I am only 1 of many, many voices who find this guy to be a complete and utter prick to people.
I have some advice for you and the rest of you fucking asshole pricks from the east coast, florida and california (especially those of you who are being bankrolled to live here by your rich parents– I’m looking at you LA Hipsters) — GO HOME!!! if you don’t fucking like it here, LEAVE/​If you don’t like «having to be fake» then fuck off. Because, in the PNW, we don’t FAKE being nice. We are genuinely nice, and we used to be a LOT nicer before all you assholes showed up after 2000. But now, our land is tarnished by pretentious hipsters who came here willingly, but accidentally brought your awful, rude and pious culture here with you.
Please do not patronize this guy any longer. There are food cart owners that genuinely love what they do and they struggle everyday to make ends meet. There are food cart owners who appreciate customers and appreciate the value of good service. Send this guy back to the East Coast where he belongs and get him out of this beautiful land. the only way to do that is to vote with your $, smoky go to the food cart next to him and get a philly steak and cheese from the really happy and appreciative Mexican dude instead.

Let’s get this straight: the cheesesteak is worth five stars.
No, the owner isn’t always chipper, but he doesn’t wear a fake smile either. East coast style… Blunt, quick, done.
If you frequent this cart like I seem to have to do, the owner will acknowledge your business and offer you genuine appreciation, short and sweet.
His sandwiches are worth any unhappy vibe you might get. Stop being so sensitive and appreciate his fine creations! I am sticking up for him on this one.

This guy is an asshole and does not care about anyone. It’s not a bad day. He’s like this every time. I’ve gone multiple times to get s cheesesteak, and end up walking away every time. I finally (after 6 attempts/​chances given) decided to say screw it and try his food. His food is not good enough for his attitude, and how slow he goes. There was one person in front of me, and freezing outside– it took him 25 minutes. I am a cook myself, and it does not take that long especially when there are no customers at all. I gave him a 50 cent tip because I felt bad for the guy. Don’t go here unless you want to be treated like an animal. Like I said before, his food is not good enough for his attitude. Try rock house grill for a cheesesteak and good service, they are two carts down.

I won’t even attempt to make excuses for the one star: this guy is a dick. And, given the number of reviews saying the same thing, I’ll venture to guess he’s not just having a bad day.
I went there tonight and waited at the window while he was working. A lot of food cart workers are in there alone doing everything themselves so I had no problem waiting until he was finished. I work in the food industry and I know it gets crazy. After a few minutes, he yelled from the cart that he was ready whenever I was. He never actually looked at me while saying this so I just yelled back that I was ready (it’s loud on 82^nd…) and waited for him to come to the window… which he didn’t do. I figured he was just finishing up. Nope. He made some nasty comment about how he won’t know what I want until I tell him. No shit. To this, I apologized (still yelling so he could hear me as he wandered all over the place in the cart, still not bothering to even LOOK at me) and said I was just waiting for him to come to the window. At that point, I got some defensive BS about how he needs to keep working, blah, blah, blah. Are you kidding me? You know what helps to keep you working? CUSTOMERS. I then replied, «Good luck with that» and left.
I can’t even base this review on the food which is too bad because I’ve been looking for decent cheesesteaks in Portland. It looks like he has a good menu. I mean, he’s got whiz!
I’m from Jersey and I can put up with a LOT of East Coast attitude; I have a bit of it myself. But this guy was over-​the-​top rude. Unfortunately for him, I’ll never be able to review his food on here because I won’t be giving my money to someone who treats potential customers like crap. There’re a lot of professions out there, man. You should pick a new one.

I stopped by Cartlandia and decided to try this place. It was a rather cold day and when I placed my order the guy working offered to deliver it to my car so I could wait in warmth! I didn’t want to make him go out of his way to do that since there were quite a few orders in and he was the only one working. He insisted and my car was parked rather close. Great customer service!
I ordered the Fundamentalist with Tillamook cheddar cheese. It was so delicious! The bread is nice and airy. The meat is outstanding and has tons of flavor. The cheese was melted perfectly. This cheesesteak is one of my new favorites in Portland. Seriously yyyuuummm!!!

Delicious! Shared a 12″ plain with cheese and onions with my boyfriend (immediate regret, we should have BOTH bought a foot long!) The cook brought it out to our table for us, pulled it in half and gave us the best melty-​cheese-​being-​pulled-​apart show. My mouth watered for those 2 seconds. The food was delicious! Lots of flavour, even in their «less-​loaded» sandwich. The cook (owner?) was a cool guy, didn’t have the fryer on at about 8:30 though so no fries but pointed us in the direction of another food cart with some. We will definitely be back!

Honestly I didn’t go to cartlandia to get a cheesesteak. I went to go get some doller tacos but they were closed. I wondered around for a few minutes trying to decide what I wanted. My buddy who owns The Coop right next to them has told me he has great cheesesteak. I figured what the hell why not. I ordered the standard cheesesteak with cheese whiz.
It was pretty damn good. I’m glad I ended up getting one. Service was great. The guy seemed friendly. There is no reason not to check it out

The cheesesteak is good, the service is awful. Have been here a few times hoping each the service would be better– i can surely say the guy running the cart is rude, nasty and just plain unpleasant to deal with.
Cartlandia needs a new cheesesteak cart. one with a much better attitude.

Been going here for years. He makes a great over priced cheese steak. It’s really good.
The guy is a complete asshole! Multiple times he forgot my order. He don’t give a fuck that I am there or that I want to pay him for food. His last response was «well guess I forgot to write it down. Want your money back.»
Not supporting this kind of person. Try smokin rome’s or the papusa place. Much better

We have had the cheesesteak sandwich here going on for 2 years now. The quality is excellent, especially considering a simple food cart sources such premium ingredients is hard to do and execution is always great. If your wondering why the 2 stars, service. In those two years between my mom, bf and myself I’m guessing if all purchases were combined, 25 sandwiches. If the the sandwich is $ 10 for the bigger that’s a nice $ 250 my «family» has contributed to the cart. The last time we visited the oner, same guy every time was outright hostile and dismissive. Maybe it was a bad day for him. Maybe it was hot. It’s not okay to have a temper tantrum one of your guests, especially a loyal customer.
It’s a great sandwich folks. You can’t go wrong. We will be choosing a different cheesesteak sandwich place. I wish him well.