With one location in Columbus and another in Cleveland, Danny’s Deli is a metropolitan paradise of crowded tables and mile-high sandwiches evocative of only the biggest cities in America. The place offers cuisine ever city slicker should be well-familiar with — pastrami and corned beef and club sandwiches. Tasty and juicy, the mountains of meat and bread are served with piled-high sides of delicious city food. Columbus isn’t known for its corned beef — that’s kind of an east-coast thing — but a town like this is a delicious alternative to the more classic foods on the menu around here.
So the deli lives up to its name; it’s almost exclusively a sandwich shop which serves only at lunch. Most of the crowd here consists of downtown workers and day laborers; they pack every table and send the line out the door at peak hours. I suggest giving it a wide berth during the busy noon to 12:30 hour; the wait is prohibitive. Instead, try to show up a little early or late, and plan on grabbing food to-go, since there is so much traffic it can be frustrating to try to find a seat.
The corned beef is excellent; moist and tasty. It’s served on a very pungent rye bread and altogether comes with a very good savory flavor. The sides are well-executed, from crisp fries to traditional deli alternatives like potato salad and macaroni, the sides are almost worth a visit in and of themselves. Make no mistake, it’s just a little more food than will leave you full, so watch out or you’ll stuff yourself and trust me: all that tasty beef just tastes miserable if you stuff yourself. Seriously, though, the portions here will kill your diet. You’ve been warned. I should also say that, though everything on the menu is good, the beef is the best by far, so the other options just don’t match up by comparison.
The service is great; there’s a counter to order food to-go, but at the same time it’s got a dining room where servers take care of your orders. Both are great, and I would say the experience is great regardless of which option you pick. Danny’s Deli does a lot of things right and it makes for an overall delicious experience. Prices are high normal for a lunch, as sandwiches in the upper $6.00 range. All told though, this is the type of place that once you decide to give it a try, you’ll want to come back again and again.
Recommendations
- The meat sandwiches are absolutely outstanding – you won’t find corned beef this good anywhere else downtown.
- Try to avoid the lunch rush; it’s particularly bad for this place. If you have to come in during the rush, you’ll probably want to consider getting the food to go.
- Typically the deli is open for breakfast and lunch exclusively; its Cleveland location closes at 2:30 and its Columbus location at 3:00.
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