Simit + Smith

I had a coffee with a pastry during my visit to federal plaza. Clean and modern looking place. Service and food were exceptional.
I will recommend to people if anyone ask about coffee shop
Enjoy

Prices were OK. I had the lamb sandwich. The sandwich had good flavor, but the lamb was dry and kind of tough. For $ 11.00 I don’t think I will order it again.

A nice surprise. This eatery was pretty darn good. I had the Doner Sandwich without the cheese on wheat bread. The bread was very fresh, the sandwich warm, and the ingredients of the sandwich were mixed together in mouth satisfying blend. Go again. Yes, I will. Also a nice and warm place on a cold day while many lunch spots feel drafty.

It was awesome until the recent re-​org. They had a ready-​made kale salad that was amazing. you just grab it from the case, pay & go. Now you have to wait and have a guy make your salad to order, just like every single other place around here. The veggie sandwich is fantastic but overpriced. Cappuchino is yummm
I got the lentil soup. Undercooked and oversalted… now I’m super bloated and farting like crazy… and I have to go to a board meeting. Thanks, Simit.

Greed is good. My favorite place just changed the menu and the prices. I was planning to write a review, and tell you how much I love this place: Great breads, nice sandwiches, nice service, low volume music, best lentil soup in town etc. It was nice to see wedding parties coming straight from the civil service ceremony to get a bite here. Then I got on a stupid «no bread» diet, and didn’t dare even pass by knowing that those nice, sesame seed covered, Turkish loafs will lure me in. The diet is over (didn’t work miracles) and where do I go — to Simit and Smith for a nice soup and piece of that heavenly bread.
Surprise. The menu changed, there is a salad bar (just like in any other place around here), the prices are up, the combo (soup and half of sandwich that would keep you full all day) is gone. Add to it the same crappy music as everywhere else in this town (it seems like somewhere above NYC the radio dial got stuck on the «screaming songs» station). I am disappointed.
Got the soup (with a whole Turkish ring «included») that cost me +6 $. It was as good as always, but I am not sure I will come back.

Dropped in to redeem their Unilocal checkin deal for a free glass of Turkish tea, but was told they were 5 minutes from closing, so they could offer a medium or large tea bag instead — nice guy brewed up a too-​hot Mighty Leaf green tea tropical, but appreciate the service.

Perfectly serviceable lunch spot with meat and veggie options in what is a bit of dead area for good, quick and inexpensive sandwich and salad spots. Ingredients are always fresh, the bread is baked daily and better than what you’ll find at the two delis on either side of this place, and the prices are reasonable. The service can be a little hit or miss but usually that’s because you have to remind them to charge you for your food, so not the worst complaint. I might have given this place 3 stars under other circumstances, but the current 2.5 star rating is way too low to be accurate, especially with the usual Unilocal grade inflation, so trying to bring up the average.

The interior is nice the cinnamon fresh-​bakery smells are intoxicating. Their «Simit» flats are pretty freshly baked, but the positives stop there.
I suspect there is a lot of skimping on quality ingredients, or even par ingredients. Case-​in-​point: the breakfast sandwich had okay bacon, cheese more generic than kraft, and an «egg» that had the look, feel, and taste of a sponge.
Business was slow when I was there. I honestly don’t know how they are getting by when virtually EVERY store on that block is a café or deli with breakfast and coffee (including a Starbucks). It’s a buyer’s market in that complex: keep walking by and select any one of the other places that also advertise morning goodness.

Got a grilled cheese with tomato and pesto panini. What I got was sliced bread with cheese, tomato and pesto spread. It was probably on the panini press for one minute. The bread doesn’t taste toasted and The cheese is not even slightly melted. Very disappointed. Sandwich was $ 4.90. Better off getting it from neighboring deli.

Love this place usually, came here at noon on Saturday even though it was supposed to be open. This is not the first time this is happening either

What a joke this place is. It wasn’t super crowded, but it was still a cluster with people not really knowing where to stand. It made it difficult to figure out where the line was and where to stand while waiting for our food.
Every single time someone moved their chair, it made the loudest, most obnoxious noise that resonated thru your head. Really annoying.
The worst part was the food. I ordered the grilled cheese panini. This consisted of a piece of bread, cut in half (that was LOADED with sesame seeds to the point of not being able to taste anything besides sesame seeds) and 2 very thin slices of cheese. It wasn’t grilled, it wasn’t warm, the cheese wasn’t melted, there was no butter or condiment of any kind. Just a big sesame bun with a little (and I do mean a little) cold cheese.
I also ordered a piece of cake loaf. One side was fresh and the other side was hard. It had clearly been out since the day before and the exposed side was stale. It tasted good, but I picked off the hard side.
I do not recommend this spot for lunch and will not return.

I’ve been here twice and even with 3 different people asking me to repeat my order in a nearly empty shop, they’ve managed to get it wrong each time. The menu looks interesting, but the actual sandwiches lack any real flavor and are on the small side. For the same price point, I can buy an entire 6″ sub two doors over at the deli and enjoy each bite (without repeating myself several times only to get the wrong sandwich made BOTH times I’ve been here). Twice is two times too many.

My food was unacceptable. I ordered a grilled cheese and pesto sandwich. I was given the wrong sandwich at first and would have walked off with it if it hadn’t been for a coworker I ran into that delayed me long enough for them to make the switch. I brought my sandwich back to the office and found out it was cold. A grilled cheese is a hot sandwich that goes on a grill. My cheese wasn’t even melted. I would have taken it back but I have a job that requires me to take minimal breaks and I didn’t have time to get lunch from somewhere else. I ended up microwaving it and choking it down. I really don’t like Civic Deli’s (the deli next door) B health rating, but at least they grill their grilled cheese. I’ll be going next door from now on. Avoid Simit + Smith at all costs.

My lunch was in a rut, so it was time to explore. This happens every once in a while in the hope of adding to my stable of reliable lunch spots near the office.
While searching Unilocal for an eatery I hadn’t tried, I came across a fancy sandwich shop called Simit & Smith. I had walked by it several times but the name led me to believe it was a brokerage or something. No money to invest, I had been ignoring the place. My bad.
I picked up carry out last week and ate in yesterday. Tueesday’s special was roast beef and gruyère with spicy mustard, which I had on multigrain along with sea salt chips and a diet Coke, all for about $ 9. The sandwich came cut and wrapped ready to eat.
I sat along the window on one of half a dozen or so tall chairs — very modern seating. There are also a number of small tables for seating. The place was quite busy but I found a spot where I could use my pad and munch. Note that the store window gets full sun so there is quite a glare. It would be good to provide window treatments of some sort.
Service starts on the right as you walk in. Someone will take your order by the breads and you’ll proceed towards the left to the register. My food was completed by the time I got to the cashier. Be sure to pick up your soda and chips before you order.
S&S is delicious and convenient. Give it a try.

Simit + Smith
NY: Manhattan: Tribeca
8am Saturday 30^th August 2014
Four Stars
Very Convenient Location. I had a fresh just out-​of-​the-​oven Croissant with Egg Salad for $ 4.50. The pastry was warm, flaky, and buttery. The egg salad was good– the whites were intact and the yolks properly mixed with the requisite amount of mayo. The service was polite and relatively expedient for such an early morning weekend hour.

Its a welcome addition to a neighborhood that needs easy quick lunch places. They need to add more salads with protein for those who don’t want to carbload at lunch! Smoothies would be a nice addition too.

Last week, I bought a homeless man a sandwich from this place and put it on a table in the store for him to get out of the cold and get something good to eat.
Today, I accompanied some friends who enjoy this place (I haven’t eaten here, as it seems like nothing more than an attempt to be an «upscale» Panera), and the middle-​aged woman who works at the register asked me to «never do that again» as she «couldn’t get him out fast enough.»
I was shocked not only by her rudeness, but also by her lack of compassion. I would imagine that working in the service industry can be very frustrating, but to take it out on what was once a paying customer is certainly not a way to run a business.

I was waiting for this place to open in my neighborhood since I saw the signs and the article on NY Times about the UWS location.
I entered at 8:45 am and the place was pretty quiet. There were a few people sitting at the tables. The service was prompt, helpful, and friendly. I ordered 2 simits (original) and 2 pogacas (a kind of turkish pastry with cheese inside.) The lady kindly asked me if I’d liked the simits toasted and the pogacas warmed. Since I was taking them to go to eat later, I said no.
For those not familiar with Simit and pogaca, these are ideal as breakfast items. However, in Turkey, they are eaten as snacks throughout the day.
The simits were very tasty. The pogacas were soft and delicious. When comparing to other simits you can find in New York, they are pretty good, and the price is reasonable. ($ 1.81 for a plain one.)
The place was very clean and is in a location in need of more food options. I welcome Simit + Smith to my neighborhood and I hope to visit and try some of the other items soon! «Hayirli olsun!» to the brave owners!
I only wish that they were open after 6 pm so that local residents can also enjoy their food.

Okay is the best way to describe my experience here.
First of all, I think I should include a disclaimer in this rating. I believe that they just opened and I went during the lunch rush.
Located smack in the civic center, you can expect long lines of the government and law crowd during lunch. When I went in, it was incredibly disorganized and they clearly did not have their act together yet. No one in line knew where or from whom to order. In addition, after ordering, I had no idea when I was supposed to pay, and from whom to get my meal. It is somewhat of a Starbucks-​like ordering process, although you order from a different person than the cashier. When I received my order, it felt light and I quickly noticed that they ommitted part of my meal, but when I brought it to their attention, they handed it to me.
I ordered the ricotta, fig, walnut, and honey sandwich. The bread was freshly made as was the sanwich. It was very tasty. However, the mint lemonade was pretty awful. It was not sweet, overly sour, and had only two mint leaves with no mint flavor. I’m not sure I would go again.

Great for a quick bite and would be even better for breakfast! The nickname «Turkish bagel» doesn’t do the simit full justice, but it sets you up on the right track :]
Also the sample I had of the pogaca with cheese was delicious! (And that’s coming from a lactose intolerant girl)