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I ordered food for my entire office- everyone had their own entree. And then i ordered chips and quesadillas for us to share. Stating that it was 15 people to share, and to order a few orders of each. When the order came - they gave us 15 orders of each...charging over $150 for quesadillas, and $120 for chips and guac! absolutely ridiculous - i didn't order one order per each person, I said to share. And a few orders of each...meaning 3-4. My company orders lunch 3 times a week and we will never patronize this place again, nor would I recommend it to anyone. Poor communication, and they didn't accomodate us at all.

I've eaten many times from the salad bar and ordered hot sandwiches and pasta a few times. The food is all tolerably good, but just the wrong side of their price point. I always feel like I'm paying slightly too much for just not that great a meal. The prices on the salads end up at around $12-13 once you add chicken, more if you add shrimp or salmon, and that's a little too much for what you get. However, the main killer for this place is the service. The guys behind the counter all seem upset with something and generally not happy to be there. At the coffee point, I've seen the female cashiers have numerous arguments with well-meaning customers and not apologize for it. I don't think I've ever seen a smile from any one of the staff or a courteous word. The staff is mainly Hispanic, which isn't a problem, but some speak little English and you can never be sure they have your order right! I grudgingly go there as it's right below my apartment and I'm a sucker for convenience, but this isn't how I'd run my restaurant.

So on my latest trip to NYC I wanted somewhere to go where they do grits with breakfast instead of potato or hash browns. Benvenuto do it so there we went on our 2nd day. I'm now wishing we didn't. Firstly, the service was not good. Coming from the UK we're used to that kind of service here but out in New York, you know you get treated well on the whole. Unfortunately not today. So I ordered an omlette. Mushroom and cheese - that's all. And instead of potato I wanted grits. Eventually the food arrived via my surly waiter. No Grits. I asked where they were and he said I didn't order any, then walked away. Being English we just don't complain too much, mainly because we don't want anything else we haven't ordered in the replaced meal. So I tuck into my Mushroom and Cheese Omlette. Well, I wasn't expecting all the onion too, and the green pepper. The thing was I was completely polite the whole time, always with please and thank you. I've worked in restaurants myself and know how difficult customers can be so am always pleasant and polite. So I don't understand how my meal was so wrong. Anyway, I still ate it all, but when the bill came I wrote on there about the wrong order coming. Let's hope they sort that out as the bill had the correct order on it!

I ordered a cajun roast beef sandwich (about $9) and a can of soda. The lady charged me for a 20 oz bottle on purpose and told me she did. I wans't happy about that. Be sure you check your receipt.

Simply put, a terrific place. I must begin with the caveat that since I don't eat unkosher meat, I can't comment on the deli, but I will say that fellow office workers swear by it. Pasta dishes, vegetarian and fish sandwiches are excellent, but best for me are the cheese-free piazzas. (Cheese, like meat, must be kosher, and Ben's isn't.) Where other joints simply bake some dough, sling on some marinara sauce and a sprinkling of loosev vegetables. Benvenuto's cheese-free pies have the veggies baked in, and the whole package is so good that I don't spend my time there hungrily eyeing someone else's lunch. The service is fine, too, and I've known the delivery guys to go gone through hail, sleet and snow to bring me my order.

The food is fine, but if I want more than 2 things on my sandwich/salad, I always end up paying upwards of $12-$15. Which is far too much for a nothing-special deli sandwich.

Living in New York for 48 years, and I STILL think that this is the best food in town. (hence, I did the catering from Benvenuto for my son's conformation here a while back). Love the staff members, ambiance, and wide selection- when I'm not making dinner, I call delivery!