Let’s Review McAlister’s Deli!

Let’s review McAlister’s Deli!

McAlister’s Deli is a fast casual chain that was founded in 1989 in Oxford, Mississippi. Their main focus is sandwiches, soups, salads, big baked potatoes and their tea. With over 450 locations in the United States, there are two in Wichita, KS: one at 21st & Greenwich and another at Maple & Ridge Road.

For the purpose of this review, we stopped by the west side location that sits in the same strip center as Ecclesia Coffee & Community, Weirdough Bakery and Chipotle.

On our visit, we ordered their club with a pecan berry salad, the reuben with mac & cheese, and a cup of chili.

The club and pecan berry salad, I was told was OK. The club was more of a “club light”. It was a fairly thin sandwich with not much going on. The salad was more enjoyable especially with the light vinaigrette; nothing to write home about here though.

Meanwhile, the reuben was a letdown. On the bright side, the sandwich was packed with tons of corned beef. Unfortunately, there was what looked like a scoop of sauerkraut placed in the middle of the sandwich and a slight sliver of thousand island dressing. The overabundance of corned beef made the whole experience pretty dry.

The picture doesn’t do it justice but the chili was surprisingly above average. At first glance, I was like “Are you serious?” but the cup of chili had big chunks of beef inside with a small amount of beans. There was a subtle sweetness to it as well. For a national chain chili, I would have given it a 6.5 on a 10 scale.

Of course no stop to McAlister’s Deli would be complete without their sweet tea. We ordered their sweet tea and unsweetened tea since I believe unsweet tea is the only way to go. I’ve heard all the comments that McAllister’s Deli has the best tea ever. To me, tea is tea and perhaps my taste buds aren’t trained to detect the differences. While I thoroughly enjoyed my unsweet tea, I don’t think I could tell the difference between the unsweet tea at McAllister’s versus any other establishment.

Overall our visit to McAllister’s Deli was more on the “meh” side. We didn’t leave unsatisfied, and we certainly were not impressed. It’s one of those places we could go to again out of convenience but wouldn’t go out of our way for.

Happy Dining,
Eddy

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