Cafe Duke

Ask for a receipt because depending on which cashier you get, they make up the prices.
Sometimes they charge tax, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they make up the prices entirely. Café Duke makes it easy for cashiers to fabricate prices because some items (cookies) do not have price tags on them. So, one day it’s 5.99 with tax, sometimes it’s 6.99 without tax, and sometimes it’s 7.99 with and without tax! Btw, the mgr told me the cookies are 5.99 and tax should not be charged.
Another deli did the exact same thing, The cashiers made up the prices entirely, didn’t ring up the items at the register and pocketed the amount. I let the manager know what was going on and it went out of business.
Ask for a receipt so you have proof if they incorrectly mark up the items.

The only good thing about this place is the check out service. The line moves so fast, you’re done in a blink of an eye.
They have everything! Cuisines from around the world. I’ve tried their flatbread sandwiches, Pad Thai, Vietnamese Noodle soup and pastas and they’re all off in flavor. I wouldn’t go back to try anything else.
The cooks (if you would even call them that) are all rude.

It has become an unintentional tradition that I have breakfast at Café Duke the morning that I leave NYC. The first time I think the only reason I went in was because I went to Duquesne so the name stuck out.
This time I knew it was somewhere close to my hotel so I figured I would stop in on Monday, October 19, 2014. I did notice on the way out that they had a C health inspection rating. Expiration dates and ratings are sometimes like religious scripture to me, but what can I say I ate there and didn’t get sick so it is ok. Also half of the line was asked «you want your usual» so I feel enough people consistently go there that I can reasonably be comfortable with it.
For ease of ordering I got the same thing as what my mom was ordering: a bacon omelet which comes with home fries and bread. Keep in mind the omelet itself is huge then you get all of that all for around $ 5 a person. Service is meh, but for a place that low end/​busy I wasn’t expecting anything else. The omelet was great unfinishable in size, so you certainly get your money worth. The home fries were good, but not great a bit too potato tasting for me, but if I have the choice I rarely order home fries so that could have played a part in my decision.
If you want quick service and cheap food this is the place to go.

Okay, so I manage a restaurant nearby and stopped in to grab some coffee and breakfast. I usually hit the Starbucks across the street but their prices were starting to get to me. ($ 6 for a medium mocha guys? Really?) Anyway that’s besides the point. After picking up my breakfast I got in line to pay for that and my coffee.
Incredibly rude service.
I asked one question and that wad too much to handle. I told the cashier (Old Asian dude) I didn’t need a bag so he can save it and he threw it on the floor. Ok douche great job.
On top of that after the barista told me there was no soy milk, I went to get a refund for the coffee and the yelling match begun. Not really a match since at 7 o’clock in the morning I don’t have the energy to raise my voice. But this guys anger absolutely took the cake. Disrespect to the maximum.
Here’s a tip to management: from manager to manager, customers are absolutely EVERYTHING. Regardless on how great your product is, I’ll never be back because of how I was treated, I’ll stick to Starbucks heavy prices and all. You’d be wise to rethink your business strategy.

Excellent breakfast prepared quickly and at a great price! Couldn’t have asked for more…

This place has a ton of food! I got their udon and they were definitely not skimpy about making it spicy, yay.
The dumplings were pretty terrible though, fyi-​and they price the hot food based on weight, eh.

Café Duke is my default lunch place. I usually get: combination udon, spicy chicken on rice, soft tofu soup (soondubu), or the buffet table. I like the wide variety of food they offer. Check out is also very fast which is important.

Just stopped in after the gym to get some grilled chicken salad. Didn’t quite work out. It was 2pm and the salad bar looked done. I don’t know if they took stuff away or what but it’s not like it was 10pm… They had one row of trays that included lettuce and a few toppings. No grilled chicken. I asked and they pointed me toward the hot buffet bar. Nothing was labeled but I managed to figure out which one the chicken was. Some dude next to me was confused to me, wondering if it was pork or turkey. I asked to make sure it was chicken. It wasn’t grilled but it did the trick. It was pretty dry and uninspiring. I know they have other options like sushi and udon, which might be good, but on the salad front — they suck.
I also noticed their GRADE PENDING rating and someone had just told me they shut down for for health violations and just opened back up. No thanks, I’ll find another place.
Staff was unfriendly.
$ 5 minimum for credit cards.

I have only ever been there at night.
Café Duke in the evenings is quiet, largely empty, cool, and clean. There are lots of places to sit. It’s in a neighborhood I loathe (Times Sq) but where I sometimes have to be.
And when I am there it is a welcome sanctuary from the empty and hyper tourist energy /​atmosphere in the area.
I understand during the day its mobbed but at night most of their food stations are closed. I have never seen udon there or anything like that.
They have a wonderful and HUGE and high quality assortment of chilled beverages. They have chips, cookies, chocolates, popcorn, and imported European candy bars. And stuff like that.
And they have premade sushi, a regular deli for coldcuts and cheese and sandwiches type stuff, and they have a buffet.
Most of the food is dried up, overheated and crusty in the buffet bar by night time. Or just gone. But I have never held that against Café Duke because I understand it was all made at lunch time and probably looked great THEN. It has been kept really hot to avoid germs and that dries it out.
However there are usuallly a few unwilted greens or grilled veggies that look pretty good, and the dumplings, mac & cheese, & sésame noodles are usually still quite tasty! Tonight I also had some scrumptious seasoned cauliflower (wish I knew the seasonings).
I passed on 95% of the buffet but still had a full plate of good food which I ate at a clean table in complete quiet and relative privacy with a cold San Pellegrino and a ginger beer to go.
Can’t beat it when you need it.
Deducted one star for high prices.
The fact is that Café Duke has so much food that even picking over the leftovers at the end of the day has never failed to yield me a respectable dinner.

Same old cookie cutter NYC deli that I’ve complained about before. In the morning it’s roasting in here, a little AC please. Not a fan but will stop here out of convenience.

Health Grade: C (used to have an A…)
It’s hard to find a decently priced, good lunch spot near times square. My coworkers and I come back here quite often. Sometimes we eat inside and when the weather is better, we eat at bryant park. There’s a large variety of food and most of it’s pretty good.

I end up going here almost once a week sometimes and thats only cause its quick and convenient. The place is pretty much a food court, they have anything from flat bread sandwiches to full salad bar, pre made sushis, udon, ramen, variety of European cookies, chocolates etc.
I usually go for the Fried tofu or Shrimp Sumai udon with Soba noodles. Taste is nothing to die for and the price is midtown standard.

The salad bar is HUGE and it’s quality is a bit better than usual deli salad bars, but it gets expensive quick! Stroll through it all before you purchase! The salad bad is my favorite, but their other items made in the store are good quality and expensive too.
— Large seating area available
— Lines move quick
— A bit expensive!

This place is absolutely disgusting. The bathroom smelled so bad it made the eating area smell of a urinal. The breakfast «food» was in a small case and looked horrible. Sausages looked undercooked and disgusting. The hash browns had carrots and wilted lettuce on it… yup, you read that correctly.
Avoid this place.

Screw these guys — They now have a B rating, anyway. Anything less than an A — gross.
The staff behind the counters who are serving the food are very rude and get impatient with an order if it is not something they are used to making. I have gotten my order wrong several times and it seems to be that they are just plain lazy.
Mixed greens is not spinach. You repeated my order to me, so you know I wanted spinach. You must have seen the green leafs you were putting on my sandwich — which was not spinach.
I found that they are also too lazy to wait the few seconds it takes for you to run my bread through the toaster. Again, my order was repeated to me but was not fulfilled correctly.

Whaaaat?! How did I not write a review yet?
Café Duke is one of my favorite places to go in this area. The coolest part, is that I am 99.57% certain you could bring anyone here — regardless of what their tastebuds like — and succeed. In over five visits, I never got something remotely close to what I ate the last time.
The only dilemma is, even if you are the most decisive human on Earth, unless you steal a pair of blinders from a carriage pony, you’re going to end up looking like the most indecisive person after 10 seconds.

If you work around Times Square, and are looking for some place to grab a quick lunch, then you’ll probably eventually end up coming to Café Duke. Right on 41^st and Broadway, you’ll find this bustling lunch spot. As far as variety, Café Duke does serve up a whole bunch of stuff. From made to order sandwiches, to the hot bar, noodles, and other items, the selection is seemingly endless. However, most of the stuff here mediocre at best, which definitely brings down that excitement level.
Once you enter, you’ll quickly realize that this place is pretty much similar to a food court. There is a hot bar in which you pay $ 7.99/lb of whatever your heart desires. From random Korean dishes to fake Chinese food, the selection is endless, but the food quality is that of a dingy fast food joint. For example, take the broccoli beef. The broccoli looks so withered that it seems it was microwaved 30x. If you’re going bang for your buck in terms of sheer weight, then I guess this is your best bet, but then again, your meal is still going to run you $ 10 – 15. For myself, I’ve been playing it save and sticking to their made to order sandwiches. For $ 7 you can pretty much get any sandwich, made the way you want. This option is the safest, being that I can avoid the dirtiness as much as possible. I’ve only tried these two options, but there are other areas such as a noodle bar, etc that I’ve kind of tried to steer away from.
Even so, this place is incredibly packed during lunchtime. Expect your wait for food to be roughly 5 minutes or so to get your food made. In the end Café Duke wins the 5 minute lunch challenge. It’s quick and ready, but at the same time, it’s just not that appetizing as well. On top of that, it’s not necessarily cheaper than anything else around the area. Thus, every time I come here, I feel a little worse about myself.

Decent cup of Joe for midtown. I mainly go to Duke for breakfast. The guys making your breakfast sandwich are very efficient and fast. I sometimes walk in and the line is super long line, but it moves quickly. The cashiers are also quick. They have a system that gets customers through quickly.
I stay away from the lunch because I am not a fan of buffet style food. The few times I had lunch there, it was fine.
My only beef is the $ 10 minimum to use debit.

This is a typical midtown mega deli. They do have everything here, from salads to udon to sandwiches. They have both a hot and cold buffet.
These places are what they are, and they thrive on variety and convenience. I give two stars because this place just isn’t that convenient. The layout is so odd that during busy times, it’s difficult to even walk through the store.
There are lines for everything, and the lines are longer than at most lunch spots.
Lots of the sandwiches are made hours in advance. Stop by in the morning and you’ll see the deli guys assembling sandwiches.
I’m also turned off by the salad counter. The guys are so busy making salads that they never have a chance to clean up. Toppings are flying everywhere and mixing together.

I was hoping this place would suck because I was thinking in my mind of the bad reviews that I could possibly write.
Café Duke is right, more like Café Dookie.
Actually it wasn’t so bad. I had a sandwich from here. While I’ve had better, I didn’t think it was terrible. While the workers could be friendlier, its no big deal. There’s a reason why chipotle and subway assemble everything in front of you. I ordered a sandwich and the guy gave me attitude about how I need to tell him how to make it. Duh? I never been here before and have no idea what topping or meats you have. I do like the fact that my roasted turkey was sliced fresh, but the lettuce and sliced tomatoes have seen better days. Also note that the price is just a starting point, and everything costs extra (different style bread, tomatoes, cheese, peppers, etc)
I don’t think I’d try their udon that everyone is raving about. It is just the frozen stuff you can get at Hmart or any asian mart with some broth.

Gosh I love this place.
It’s clean, huge variety and very busy (which means stuff doesn’t lay around for hours)
Where else can you find a variety of grilled mushrooms, bok choy & brussel sprouts.
They have a tremendous variety of meats, salads, sushi and the list goes on and on.