Kenny & Zuke’s Bagelworks

This is a great stop for a quick breakfast/​brunch. Self-​serve coffee and a good selection of bagels with different adds to make for breakfast sandwiches or open-​face bagel scramble combos. A regular stop when I want to get something quickly on the weekend.

My coworker recommended Kenny and Zukes as a good place to grab lunch. She was absolutely right!
I got the Something Fishy on a sesame bagel. Cream cheese, lox, capers, served with lettace and tomato on the side. You get a huge portion of lox on the bagel.
It tastes a lot like salmon bruschetta which I’ve had at fancy restaurants before.
It was incredible! I had never tried lox before and I regret every time I thought it was weird. I think the Something Fishy is my favorite food now.

OMG SO DELICIOUS! I got the Big Shot which is a typical breakfast sandwich but they add pastrami it was so amazing. The guy at the counter recommended I get Russian dressing (1000 island) on it and it made it even better. They were quick to take out order and made it really quick too. Best bagels and breakfast sandwiches in Portland by far!

Tried and didn’t like the sandwiches with really dry meat but the bagels sounded good so I might need to try those instead…

Ordered the onion bagel with scrambled egg, cheese and bacon. It was sooo delicious! They used some sort of delicious white cheddar, and the bacon seemed endless overflowing out of the bagel! The guys were super friendly and personable, and the service was quick. And they gave me a free 20 oz ice water with a lid to go. That’s pretty rare in P-​town joints. Well done Kenny and Zukes!

Their pastrami is always pretty darn tasty if you ask me. I hadn’t been to K&Z’s for a long time, and forgot how much I love their food. Convenient location for the offices and businesses in the area. I can’t become a regular though, until I get a raise! $ 17 for a pastrami sandwich and a soda.

These cats make good whitefish spread. Better than good. Service is super friendly. For you folks who don’t like the prices, get the day olds, you probably don’t have the tastebuds to notice the difference anyway. Either way the bagels are great — always baked perfectly and a little chewy like they should be — a fabulous runner up to true Montréal style.
BTW — Had the Cubano the other day… son of a b#$%h — smokin delish!

I am a huge bagel fan. As I’ve mentioned in my other bagel reviews, though, I’m not from the east coast, so please spare me the «Portland doesn’t know how to make a real bagel» comments. Kenny and Zuke’s is one of my favorites in town, and I think they have one of the best, if not the best, lox plates. The pickled onions turn it up a few notches. The man is an avid consumer of their bagel and eggs scramble on an everything bagel, which he typically adds beef pastrami or bacon to, but even just a bagel with butter is super tasty. I live in the area, so we almost always order ahead and take our bagels home. I really, really like this place. One thing I’m not crazy about: why charge extra for me to get a teaspoon or half teaspoon of Aardvark sauce? I highly doubt it’s that expensive to keep it in stock for those who just want to put a little drop of it on sandwiches.

My mom, wife and I had a nice lunch. My mom had a kosher salami sandwich on white with chips and sprite. My wife had chopped salad, bagel with cheese and water. I had the Ken’s special with potato salad and root beer. They were out of knishes.
I am not a fan of ordering at a counter and eating at a picnic table. This might not bother some but is worth pointing out. I think that the arrangement of the tables made it a bit cramped and difficult to navigate. My wife is blind and the counter ordering and seating obstacle course was amplified by this. My mom has trouble with her knees and sitting on a bench would have been awkward if the place was fuller.
We all enjoyed our meal. Not having previously tried chopped liver, I would say that I do not need to try it again. However, I think this is an acquired taste and not a deficiency. It was rich for me, but I liked the airiness. The pastrami was excellent, as was the bread.
My mom raved over the salami. She did not offer a bite, which is a clear indication that she liked it. She ate all her chips.
My wife mentioned a desire to return. She was tempted to buy some bagels to take with us.
The star of the meal was the potato salad. Unanimously, we liked the vinegary, tangy flavor, which is atypical to the restaurant potato salad experiences of other restaurants that present a 50 50 blend of potato and mayo.
The service was super. Not having knishes received an apology and suggestions. Not having avocado for the chopped salad received an apology and a list of three substitutions that were all up-​sale at no extra cost. Forgetting to bring the chopped salad until prompted received an apology and near immediate remedy with personal delivery by the cook.
Great portion sizes, by the way.
I think the prices were reasonable for the portion size and food quality. It is possible that we received the chopped salad at no charge, which caused the delay, but I don’t know for certain.
We cannot choose our neighbors, but it might be important to some to point out that there is a recreational marijuana store next door. I cannot confirm with absolute certainty, but I think the folks sitting out front were partaking in the outdoor seating area on the qt. If you are sensitive to this type of thing, I would suggest approaching the restaurant from the other direction and briefly holding your breath rather than not visiting. It is worth the effort.

Not worth it. $ 7 for a hard bagel and an equivalent of one scrambled egg and some cheese. I was pretty shocked when it was delivered. $ 7 is a fine price but there should be 4x the eggs.

Nothing makes me miss the east coast like a mediocre, overpriced bagel. I keep coming back hoping to satisfy the craving, but every time I do I regret spending $ 6.50 on a bagel and eggs. The bagel is ok, the eggs are scrambled, and the cheese is mixed in (or possibly nonexistent). Overall, not terrible, but not worth that price tag.
Also, service here is typically insanely slow. I take back my previous statement, that’s one other thing that makes me really miss the east coast.

Kenny & Zuke’s cures and smokes their own pastrami, and the result is pretty tasty. I like to go to their Bagelworks in NW Portland because they have a Reuben Slider on the menu which is smaller than a regular sandwich and is just the right size for lunch for me. (Their main restaurant downtown doesn’t have sliders, and it’s harder to find a parking spot too!) OK, I’m not a Reuben «purist» because I always order it without sauerkraut, but I do love the rest of it: hearty, smoky, flavorful pastrami with melty Swiss cheese and Russian dressing all grilled nice and brown on rye. Anyway, this review and rating is based solely on their Reuben Slider.. .because I like it so much that actually I’ve never ordered anything else there. I should probably try some other item there one of these days.

It’s not lunch it’s not time for dinner but I had missed breakfast and lunch and needed some fuel.
The menu is big. It’s printed and on a chalkboard, it’s a big overwhelming maze. Thankfully the counter guy was helpful and understanding of my situation. I was getting hangrey. So I found a bagel and cream cheese only to find out there were more options to choose from. OLIVE SPREAD!!! Say what? Bam! This stuff is the dope! Rounded my meal with a Montucky Cold Snack. Delicious.
Located a seat out on the sidewalk, relaxed smacked on my bagel, which came with the best pineapple ever. A cold snack and had a wonderful conversation with a stranger. Not a bad way to spend my afternoon break.

Had the Pastrami Reuben with a friend who raved about it. He’s a New Yorker so i trusted his judgement. Boy was I disappointed. First the size of the sandwich for $ 12.95. Are you kidding my like 5 slices of pastrami hardly any kraut cheese UH? 3 oz. of kettle chips and a pickle. Pastrami was fatty not just a little fat but a lot. Just OK flavor. I have been to many deli’s and have never paid this much for that little of a sandwich. NEVER AGAIN.

Meh.
Stopped by here for lunch with a friend the other day. It was fine, but nothing to rave about.
There are a ton of picnic bench seats inside, but they are crowed too close together. The ambiance is not great.

I just ate one of saddest veggie reubens. It consisted of: oily sauteed onions, mushrooms, swiss, and thinly sliced zucchini on rye with kraut and russian dressing. The present components didn’t taste bad. The sandwich contents were impossible to contain between the bread slices, but were otherwise ok.
My grievance is this: though I’m normally not fanatical about fake meat, I feel that a veggie reuben should have some sort of faux pastrami-​ish component for texture, especially if it costs $ 11+
The bagels here are pretty decent, to be fair. I realize that it’s weird to be hung up on this one lackluster sandwich experience — but dat ish is quite literally my favorite food. So very disappoint.

I rarely ever give a place a one-​star, but Kenny & Zuke’s Bagelworks has disappointed yet again. I am done giving them chances.
A few weeks ago, my partner went to pick me up a bagel and cream cheese. He said there was maybe 3 people ahead of him and yet it took 20+ minutes to take their orders! Huh? Then after placing our order another 20 minutes went by… at this point he was not happy with a 45 minute trip to get a bagel, he went back up to the counter to find that they had «lost» his ticket?! Lost from the register to 2 steps away?
And did they offer to buy his coffee or refund his money? No. He swore he’d never go back.
As I work in the service industry, I am always willing to give places more than one chance. I went for a bagel this morning. Bagel, toasted, cream cheese. How hard can that be???
I get my bagel and return to my office… yeah…there was NO toasting done on this bagel. Seriously? What the hell? It was NOT busy. What is going on with the staff at this place??? It’s a BAGEL!!! How does one f-​up a simple bagel???
Well…they managed to do just that!

I was so excited to come here after some health tests. I mean, what’s better to eat thank a big ol’ bagel after fasting and trying to think «light thoughts»? It just kind of meh experience. Bagel was on the smallish side which is alright since they’re probably too large in general at other places. The everything bagel was so chewy! Just a bit too much for me. And at $ 3 for bagel plus cream cheese, it’s kind of expensive. I was just in NYC where I went to a bagel shop and it was not even close in comparison. This bagel was ok but I wouldn’t be making a special trip out to get it.

Kenny and Zuke’s breakfast bagels are out of this world.
I usually add onions, bacon, nova lox, and mushrooms to my scramble. All for $ 6.45!
In the photo you can see that there is so much egg scramble on top that you can’t even see the bagel!

The double decker sandwiches are amazing, but require a truly massive appetite. For real, this is a single sandwich that is composed of the makings for four sandwiches. Be hungry!
Whenever I’ve come here, it’s always been pretty quick service. On days when I’m not eating for four, I go for the Cubano sandwich. It’s very good, the to-​go containers they use keep it warm for the four block walk back to work, and it comes with some potato chips that are quite possibly made on site.