Vegan matzo ball soup just doesn't work. It's tasteless as is vegan egg salad . The taste is not there.
Jason V.
There are a lot of bagel places in Portland. This is one of them.My wife and I crossed town to check out Kenny & Zuke's based on a menu posted online, which was sadly a little different than the one currently in operation, and the entrée most interesting to me being, of course, no longer available. C'est la vie, I guess.Instead, my wife ordered the Nova Lox and a chai, and for myself, the Deviled Egg Salad on a bagel, and a glass of lemonade. We grabbed a patio table and waited, but not for long...all four items arrived lightning quick, although in honestly, it wasn't particularly busy at all. Disappointingly though, neither of us were particularly wowed by either of the sandwiches; the Deviled egg salad was surprisingly sin-less (re: bland), and my wife, no stranger to lox bagels, didn't feel the need to finish the second half of hers, nor take it home - highly unusual for her! She also remarked that the chai was more milk than anything else, to the point of near dilution.The above analysis sounds a little harsh, so let me be clear: yes, they were tasty enough, but each of them seemed to lack something that made them stand out above the pack. Great? No. Good? Eh...sure. Bad? Certainly not. Somewhere in the Goldilocks zone, straddling the line between competence and mediocrity. Perhaps it is just our personal taste; your mileage may vary.The patio is cute, although several of the tables hadn't been wiped down thoroughly, despite it being relatively early in the morning. The interior décor and layout of the restaurant itself is somewhat Spartan and uninspiring as well, furthering the overall aura of "meh" that pervaded throughout our visit.Kenny, Zuke...you're not far off the mark, but...something is missing. Some sort of spark, essence, a touch of personality. Your establishment isn't advocating loud enough on your behalf. It could. It should. I hope the inspiration finds you and urges you to embrace something a little more radical, rebellious, maybe even antagonistic. Don't settle for the status quo: pursue the status excelsior!
Terry S.
8/29 10:30 Fresh pastrami egg sandwich. Coffee so wonderful.I miss the bustle of the old location but here the menu is streamlined.Limited street parking but worth the walk if you can't park close.The End
Hash S.
I've let this go for a decade, but then I came here and saw this bullshit: "Pastrami better than NYC Katz's Deli. Pass up NYC entirely and go to PDX's Kenny & Zuke's."Lady, you wouldn't know a fucking pastrami sandwich if the Stage and Carnegie delis rose from the grave, opened on each side of Russ and Daughters, formed alliances with Canter's in L.A. and Schwartz's in Montreal and buried you under a stack of sissel and half sours.This fuckin' place. When we first moved here, K&Z had multiple locations and a bagel plant producing sandwiches and bagels that were... fine? I guess? Listen, you'll hear dozens of stories in this town of bagel shops making the long trek out to NYC, watching the masters at work, taking all of their tips, bringing them back to Portland and then doing... absolutely nothing with that information. Almost willfully ignoring those instructions in favor of either spongy bagel-shaped bread, modestly boiled bagels that they'll pat themselves on the backs for ("THEY'RE BOILED!") or some ludicrous Portland concoction that sullies the name of bagels in general.K&Z bagels always fell squarely in the middle of that pack and succeeded largely for lack of competition. Can you be a truly shitty bagel if Kettleman's is the high bar and the low is whatever atrocity Einstein or Spielman's is pumping out? No, you're a mediocre bagel that would be a supermarket bagel in an good bagel town.But the sandwiches here... I have no idea what you're doing to these meats that's drying them out with such impunity or draining them of all seasoning, but Kornblatt's, Goose Hollow and Ben and Esther's have been right there. Beetroot, Jacob and Sons... any of these people could've told you what you were doing wrong and tweaked the recipe. But no: This place is long past caring.Zuke hasn't been around in a long time, and that's likely for the best. Kenny is in pseudo retirement and the kids have gone to their Ivy League schools. The bagel plant is long gone, the airport shop closed and the downtown spot is history. This place on Williams is scarcely trying for the old deli aesthetic anymore and seems to be coasting off of the fumes of stale IP and and desiccated $18 sandwiches. What even is the rest of this menu? A bad meatball sub? A tuna sandwich? A Cubano? Burger sliders? Peppers and eggs is a hard thing to fuck up, but at $14 without real eggs, K&Z found a way.When the only people who think you're doing a bang-up New York job on your fake deli are from Beaverton, it's time to pack it in. There may have been something to Kenny and Zuke's at one point, but at this stage it's doing a bad impersonation of the delis that Ben & Esther's and Jacob & Sons are working so hard to get right. Much as Henry Higgins Boiled isn't H&H Bagels, Kenny and Zuke's isn't Katz's: It's Sally Albright at a Katz's table faking it as loudly as possible hoping someone still wants to have what she's having.
Claire C.
My hubby's very delicious lox bagel with schmear. I'm excited to come back to try the chicken salad.
N. V.
Underwhelming, flavorless. unauthentic, bordering on nasty. My 91 year old Mom would give them a half a star for the pickled onions. Never again!
Ben C.
Three stars is good.Walking in, the decor is... uninteresting. Clean but plain & basic.Service ~ plenty of staff. Bored looks when asking about the menu. Meh.Bagels ~ good. Toppings are very salty. Very pricey.Not sure why there is giant tip suggestions when ordering at the counter especially with no smiles. When we are pretty much self serving ourselves and staff is not enthusiastic, this makes a tiring morning start. You do not come here to wake up leisurely and enjoy the aesthetics of a morning cafe. You do not come here for bright sunny service. You come because you are very hungry and just want a pastrami sandwich.*Good amount of shared outdoor picnic tables with the neighboring eateries.
Jane G.
Best bagels ever! Rye bagel is better than K&Z's previous rye bread. The service was spot on for my Husband's B day. Pastrami better than NYC Katz's Deli. Pass up NYC entirely and go to PDX's Kenny & Zuke's. New location is set up perfectly. Come for "THE KZ Bagel Works Experience"!!!
Tom A.
This his location is CLOSED!!! We went there, paid parking went through sleet and it's CLOSED.
Dylan On The Radio
I can’t speak on the food, because unfortunately we weren’t able to try it. But this is by far, was the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. We came for lunch, excited to try the Pastrami, and were refused service when someone in our party asked for a custom order. The kid behind the counter said “I’m not comfortable with making that so I’m going to refuse service, and you can go leave a bad review if you want” so here I am.
Food is great. Probably the best Jewish deli in Portland. Sometimes they just decide not to be open. And today they’re playing loud speed metal at Saturday brunch. Which is a little random. And disturbing.
Anthony C.
Yummy food - cool food. Free drip coffee. Door corner location with lots of windows. I could go here a lot if I wasn't so strict on carbs. It's a bread place which is heaven unless you're running from the beauty of bread because you want to be a model or not have IBS or something. They seem TK have gluten free options but it's hard to tell and they don't work hard to let you know. Has that "the product is awesome so we don't need to over communicate " vibe. Mostly that's ok The service isn't full Star. As a first timer it was confusing and I didn't really get everything there or how it worked and the staff wasn't going out of their way to lead and guide me. No one feels awesome feeling like an idiot so better customer service would change the whole day and since I could tell there was a lot of cool stuff there, I'd have tried a lot more and they'd have made more money off me. Fortunately my friends knew this place and so I got inside track after fumbling through an awkward searching order - they'd ordered some cool stuff - a huge poutine like place of strips of maple waffles covered in cheese and stuff like breakfast nachos you've only dreamed of. I'll go back and feel less like a noob. Hope they do better at inviting people into their great and yummy world.
Toby Chicago
This used to be an excellent restaurant, but their prices have gone too high too quickly. The staff seems to be upset when you ask them for something and service has gotten progressively slower. Nice menu but the prices are just way too high. Just my opinion folks.
Tammy McCurry
This used to be a great spot for breakfast and lunch, but not anymore. The menu is very limited, the space has no vibe and the service is terrible. The staff are not happy. Maybe a new owner? Maybe COVID? In general, Portland is not the same place. We used to come from Canada every year in October pre-COVID. We won’t be back again. It’s really sad.
Ann Culligan
What happened to this place? COVID? Change of owners? Hadn't been here in several years, and it's just not what I remember. Stripped down menu, iffy (though friendly!) service... It's just not the awesome deli it once was. Such a bummer.However, bagels were good, and that's a pretty big win, so...
Vegan matzo ball soup just doesn't work. It's tasteless as is vegan egg salad . The taste is not there.
There are a lot of bagel places in Portland. This is one of them.My wife and I crossed town to check out Kenny & Zuke's based on a menu posted online, which was sadly a little different than the one currently in operation, and the entrée most interesting to me being, of course, no longer available. C'est la vie, I guess.Instead, my wife ordered the Nova Lox and a chai, and for myself, the Deviled Egg Salad on a bagel, and a glass of lemonade. We grabbed a patio table and waited, but not for long...all four items arrived lightning quick, although in honestly, it wasn't particularly busy at all. Disappointingly though, neither of us were particularly wowed by either of the sandwiches; the Deviled egg salad was surprisingly sin-less (re: bland), and my wife, no stranger to lox bagels, didn't feel the need to finish the second half of hers, nor take it home - highly unusual for her! She also remarked that the chai was more milk than anything else, to the point of near dilution.The above analysis sounds a little harsh, so let me be clear: yes, they were tasty enough, but each of them seemed to lack something that made them stand out above the pack. Great? No. Good? Eh...sure. Bad? Certainly not. Somewhere in the Goldilocks zone, straddling the line between competence and mediocrity. Perhaps it is just our personal taste; your mileage may vary.The patio is cute, although several of the tables hadn't been wiped down thoroughly, despite it being relatively early in the morning. The interior décor and layout of the restaurant itself is somewhat Spartan and uninspiring as well, furthering the overall aura of "meh" that pervaded throughout our visit.Kenny, Zuke...you're not far off the mark, but...something is missing. Some sort of spark, essence, a touch of personality. Your establishment isn't advocating loud enough on your behalf. It could. It should. I hope the inspiration finds you and urges you to embrace something a little more radical, rebellious, maybe even antagonistic. Don't settle for the status quo: pursue the status excelsior!
8/29 10:30 Fresh pastrami egg sandwich. Coffee so wonderful.I miss the bustle of the old location but here the menu is streamlined.Limited street parking but worth the walk if you can't park close.The End
I've let this go for a decade, but then I came here and saw this bullshit: "Pastrami better than NYC Katz's Deli. Pass up NYC entirely and go to PDX's Kenny & Zuke's."Lady, you wouldn't know a fucking pastrami sandwich if the Stage and Carnegie delis rose from the grave, opened on each side of Russ and Daughters, formed alliances with Canter's in L.A. and Schwartz's in Montreal and buried you under a stack of sissel and half sours.This fuckin' place. When we first moved here, K&Z had multiple locations and a bagel plant producing sandwiches and bagels that were... fine? I guess? Listen, you'll hear dozens of stories in this town of bagel shops making the long trek out to NYC, watching the masters at work, taking all of their tips, bringing them back to Portland and then doing... absolutely nothing with that information. Almost willfully ignoring those instructions in favor of either spongy bagel-shaped bread, modestly boiled bagels that they'll pat themselves on the backs for ("THEY'RE BOILED!") or some ludicrous Portland concoction that sullies the name of bagels in general.K&Z bagels always fell squarely in the middle of that pack and succeeded largely for lack of competition. Can you be a truly shitty bagel if Kettleman's is the high bar and the low is whatever atrocity Einstein or Spielman's is pumping out? No, you're a mediocre bagel that would be a supermarket bagel in an good bagel town.But the sandwiches here... I have no idea what you're doing to these meats that's drying them out with such impunity or draining them of all seasoning, but Kornblatt's, Goose Hollow and Ben and Esther's have been right there. Beetroot, Jacob and Sons... any of these people could've told you what you were doing wrong and tweaked the recipe. But no: This place is long past caring.Zuke hasn't been around in a long time, and that's likely for the best. Kenny is in pseudo retirement and the kids have gone to their Ivy League schools. The bagel plant is long gone, the airport shop closed and the downtown spot is history. This place on Williams is scarcely trying for the old deli aesthetic anymore and seems to be coasting off of the fumes of stale IP and and desiccated $18 sandwiches. What even is the rest of this menu? A bad meatball sub? A tuna sandwich? A Cubano? Burger sliders? Peppers and eggs is a hard thing to fuck up, but at $14 without real eggs, K&Z found a way.When the only people who think you're doing a bang-up New York job on your fake deli are from Beaverton, it's time to pack it in. There may have been something to Kenny and Zuke's at one point, but at this stage it's doing a bad impersonation of the delis that Ben & Esther's and Jacob & Sons are working so hard to get right. Much as Henry Higgins Boiled isn't H&H Bagels, Kenny and Zuke's isn't Katz's: It's Sally Albright at a Katz's table faking it as loudly as possible hoping someone still wants to have what she's having.
My hubby's very delicious lox bagel with schmear. I'm excited to come back to try the chicken salad.
Underwhelming, flavorless. unauthentic, bordering on nasty. My 91 year old Mom would give them a half a star for the pickled onions. Never again!
Three stars is good.Walking in, the decor is... uninteresting. Clean but plain & basic.Service ~ plenty of staff. Bored looks when asking about the menu. Meh.Bagels ~ good. Toppings are very salty. Very pricey.Not sure why there is giant tip suggestions when ordering at the counter especially with no smiles. When we are pretty much self serving ourselves and staff is not enthusiastic, this makes a tiring morning start. You do not come here to wake up leisurely and enjoy the aesthetics of a morning cafe. You do not come here for bright sunny service. You come because you are very hungry and just want a pastrami sandwich.*Good amount of shared outdoor picnic tables with the neighboring eateries.
Best bagels ever! Rye bagel is better than K&Z's previous rye bread. The service was spot on for my Husband's B day. Pastrami better than NYC Katz's Deli. Pass up NYC entirely and go to PDX's Kenny & Zuke's. New location is set up perfectly. Come for "THE KZ Bagel Works Experience"!!!
This his location is CLOSED!!! We went there, paid parking went through sleet and it's CLOSED.
I can’t speak on the food, because unfortunately we weren’t able to try it. But this is by far, was the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. We came for lunch, excited to try the Pastrami, and were refused service when someone in our party asked for a custom order. The kid behind the counter said “I’m not comfortable with making that so I’m going to refuse service, and you can go leave a bad review if you want” so here I am.
Restaurantji Recommends
Food is great. Probably the best Jewish deli in Portland. Sometimes they just decide not to be open. And today they’re playing loud speed metal at Saturday brunch. Which is a little random. And disturbing.
Yummy food - cool food. Free drip coffee. Door corner location with lots of windows. I could go here a lot if I wasn't so strict on carbs. It's a bread place which is heaven unless you're running from the beauty of bread because you want to be a model or not have IBS or something. They seem TK have gluten free options but it's hard to tell and they don't work hard to let you know. Has that "the product is awesome so we don't need to over communicate " vibe. Mostly that's ok The service isn't full Star. As a first timer it was confusing and I didn't really get everything there or how it worked and the staff wasn't going out of their way to lead and guide me. No one feels awesome feeling like an idiot so better customer service would change the whole day and since I could tell there was a lot of cool stuff there, I'd have tried a lot more and they'd have made more money off me. Fortunately my friends knew this place and so I got inside track after fumbling through an awkward searching order - they'd ordered some cool stuff - a huge poutine like place of strips of maple waffles covered in cheese and stuff like breakfast nachos you've only dreamed of. I'll go back and feel less like a noob. Hope they do better at inviting people into their great and yummy world.
This used to be an excellent restaurant, but their prices have gone too high too quickly. The staff seems to be upset when you ask them for something and service has gotten progressively slower. Nice menu but the prices are just way too high. Just my opinion folks.
This used to be a great spot for breakfast and lunch, but not anymore. The menu is very limited, the space has no vibe and the service is terrible. The staff are not happy. Maybe a new owner? Maybe COVID? In general, Portland is not the same place. We used to come from Canada every year in October pre-COVID. We won’t be back again. It’s really sad.
What happened to this place? COVID? Change of owners? Hadn't been here in several years, and it's just not what I remember. Stripped down menu, iffy (though friendly!) service... It's just not the awesome deli it once was. Such a bummer.However, bagels were good, and that's a pretty big win, so...