Vanoos Grillette

Hadn’t been back since it opened on mission Blvd. Just as great as before and as expected. Tried a pastrami and Swiss sandwich and it was great without the dressing. I recommend this place!

Writing a review for this place is long overdue considering how many times I have eaten here. I am always torn between ordering the Chicken Shawarma wrap and the Chicken Shawarma salad. Till date I havent been able to finish one wrap by myself, or in one sitting. To say they are generous with their portions is an understatement. The chicken salad is such a huge serving I end up sharing it with a couple more people always. Everyone who is behind the counter is super friendly and you know they are cooking with their heart when u tuck into the food served in front of you. Having eaten here so often, this is almost turning into some sort of comfort food for me. Definite thumbsup. Parking can be tricky, but since I was a local here, I never ran into that problem.

This place has big, beautiful wraps and other delicious, clean eats. If your style is large portions of healthy foods suited for the fit and health conscious, this is your place. I came here hungover and the large portions paired with healthy options brought me back to live. I loved their Grilled Chicken Lemon Wrap, it was divine. –1 star because the location is kind of eh, I think if they renovated the inside and made it more comfortable they would have much more dine– in business.

Holy moly… HUGE portions!
I ordered the Greek salad w/​chicken to go & it was amazing.
So fresh, TONS of chicken (worth $ 17) and great as leftover the next day for lunch AND dinner.
Only con would be parking. It’s right on mission and literally never any parking– you can risk in it in the urban outfitters parking lot if you are getting it to go!
Can’t wait to come back & try out the gyros :)

Forget Sandwich Chains, Best Sandwich In Pacific Beach! Had the Pastrami and Swiss and it was as good or better than any I have had, anywhere! Lovingly made with superior pastrami, fresh bread roll, spicy mustard and good Swiss, it was excellent! Service is prompt, professional and what you would expect from a family owned store: On Point!
Try it! You will Like It!

Amazing amazing Mediterranean food! My friend and I were looking for a last minute take out place on a rainy evening and we happened upon this place and loved it. We split the gyro and a shawarma chicken salad and loved both dishes! We will definitely be back

Surprised by the reviews, this one is based off their gyros, they taste disgusting, any Greek place in PB has better gyros, they are super greasy, and half they pita bread soaks up all the grease, I’m sure you the owner wouldn’t have finished it either

I came here with one goal in mind: eat a salad bigger than the size of my head! My plan was perfect-​leg day at the gym and then come here for lunch!
Tip #1: Tell yourself: «the purple sign with the butterfly»! I kept forgetting the name of Vanoos… so good tip if you are forgetful like myself.
I was kind of hesitant on entering, because it was pretty empty and the space was small. BUT DON’T A BOOK BY IT’S COVER! We were somewhat greeted/​glared at by the lady when we asked about the Build-​Your-​Own-​Salad. The price is really up to what you want in the salad… but at this point we just wanted food.
We ordered:
–1 chicken shawarma salad: $ 12.99 AND TOTALLY WORTH IT. SO WORTH IT. Fries are on point-​piping hot and not burnt! The chicken was AMAZING. Well marinated, huge portion and delicious! I kept digging into it even though I told myself to slow down… MUST GET!
Pros:
–Good portion size! Plenty for two. Or even one person, if you were starving like me!
–Amazing flavors! YES. It might have been a bit too saucy for me, but mix it in with all your salad… YUMYUMYUM.
–A good selection! Pretty extensive menu! I’m also super glad they don’t sell desserts/​sweets here because they are trying to maintain the quality of their food.
Cons:
–Parking? It doesn’t affect me but if you’re hungry + road rage… you might find it annoying.
Tips/​Observations:
–Tip #2: No parking at all! A friend dropped us off, so luckily we did not have to face the horrors of street parking.
–I love that you pay AFTER you eat! It’s such a trust system, but also feels like «home» instead of just a «service». (Well…I don’t pay my mom… but you get what I mean.)
Of course, I am only giving a 4 stars on my experience here with a «salad». But really-​the more basic the dish, the harder it is to rank! If they got the basics down, I can’t imagine how delicious their other food items are!

Fresh, hot, delicious gyro. The yogurt sauce was perfectly flavored. Not greasy at all. A very delicious sandwich!

Little hole in the wall! Easy to walk right by but I recommend you head in!
Kabob wrap — 2 stars — my husband ordered this and felt it was too meaty!
Chicken Shwarma — 4.5 stars — I thought this was amazing! It was so flavorful! Lots of yummy sauce! Hard to eat but well worth it.
Gyro — 4 stars — very good balance of flavored and ingredients.
The portions are large! I could split my Shwarma with someone and still get enough to eat!

Came in here and had a lamb shawarma and man was it good. It was very hot when it came out and oh so flavorful. The meat was perfectly tender and laffa (pita bread) they put it on was soft and fluffy. Just the way it is in israel.
I also got a hummus to start and it was very good as well. Very smooth with lots of flavor. They give you a couple of pieces of a laffa but a few more pieces couldn’t hurt.

This is easily my favorite place to eat in PB. The place with the carne asada fries is really good too, but my memory is a bit too… blurred… to properly give a rundown on them.
At first, I was rather devastated when Pita Pit moved out of its location off Mission Blvd. Now where was I going to fuel myself before a long PB night? After an old Unilocal search (trusty, as always) and a refusal to sink as low as Denny’s, I came across this place. Spoiler apart: it truly saddens me to think of the number of weekends I spent here before knowing about this place.
This is your «fast food» style type Greek food, with 100% authentic taste. I’d even go as bold as to say this is one of my top favorite plates of Greek food around. It’s a hole in the wall/​divey place, with super friendly and accommodating service, complete with the owner’s adorable little girl riding her bike around and singing cute little songs to accompany your meal. It has a homey type feel that I really love.
First off, I can’t come here without getting the hummus appetizer. The pita comes out piping hot, and I’m a SUCKER for good pita. The hummus itself is out of this world. The texture is so smooth and light and creamy, with olive oil drizzled on top. I literally dip my fork in it and eat it that way when the pita gets low. Since I admitted this act of chubbiness, that makes it ok.
The gyro wrap is flawless. I was used to the «taco» style gyro before this. However, this wrap style makes it easier to get huge bites in your mouth, because you totally want to after the first bite. Once again, I’ll admit that I take my fork and slather hummus on my bites of gyro. I can sacrifice a little pride to express taste. :) Overall, the tzatziki is perfectly balanced with tanginess and creaminess to compliment the grilled gyro meat between the fresh pita, topped with chopped lettuce and tomatoes. So. Flipping. Good.
I’ve had their dolmades, which are divine as well. I’m so hooked on the hummus that it’s hard to choose between these two appetizers. But let it be known that the dolmades are definitely worth trying. The falafel wrap has been on my plate before too — another tasty plate definitely worth trying. The falafel is perfectly seasoned and is neither too mushy or too crunchy. Of course, with hummus for slathering and dipping. What can I say? I can’t stop.
They don’t have to-​go boxes, but rather foil to wrap your food in. Which is fine with me, because I usually don’t need a leftover box here.

Holy cow. I eat Mediterranean food quite often, and have been to most of the good spots in San Diego as far north as victors in RB and as far south as Canada steak burger. I gotta say, the schwarama + gyro combo plate is hands down the best of any dish I’ve had
They make everything by hand, including their gyro meat (not sliced off a huge premade slab). The ingredients were super fresh and high quality, no fat on the chicken, crispy fresh mixed greens, perfectly colored veggies. The sauces had a very home made quality to them, perfectly complimenting the meats without overpowering. Their pita bread was toasted just the right amount to be lightly crispy yet soft on the inside.

I usually visit a restaurant 3 – 4 time before I leave a glowing review, but this time, I’m sold after only 2 visits.
My background is middle eastern and I’ve been back to the middle east a few times, so I speak from experience when I say this place is the REAL DEAL. From their salads to their shwarmas, this place knows how to prepare an amazing middle eastern meal.
Their FELAFEL SANDWICH are truly amazing! With every bite I take, tahini drips down my hands and I proceed to lick it off. Their falafel balls are not small like most restaurants, they are massive, if I had to guess I would say 2″ in diameter.
Their hand made GRAPE LEAVES are freaking amazing! The wife-​owner individually makes each grape leave fresh. They are not canned like you would get from other restaurants. They have an option of meat or vegetarian — both are orgasmic.
Their GREEK SALAD feeds two people. It’s huge!!! And it’s only $ 9.99. The salad dressing that comes with the salad is delicious! It has sesame seeds and zatar in it. Their salad dressing is made fresh, just like everything else in the restaurant.
Their KABOB WRAP was out of this world! They put hummus and tabuli inside the wrap in addition to the meat and it all just melted in your mouth.
Whoever has the chance to go to this place and doesn’t, is missing out on life.
Best middle eastern food in San Diego!!!

This place has great food accompanied by a great FEEL to the restaurant. I’m assuming that it is ran by a husband and wife but I could be wrong. A young child ran out to her father to tell him «we are busy, people are here», when we had arrived.
I decided to order the walnut salad and the Hot pastrami sandwich. Both of these items were delicious. The salad was massive by the way.
Will definitely be coming here again to further explore the menu.

I’m sorry, what? Why do people like this place? It does seem incredibly authentic considering the family seems like they recently hopped off a boat from Greece, but authentic or not, my sandwich was gross. I ordered the Mediterranean Sandwich because it seemed like a reasonable order — pita bread is normally fabulous and lamb is a stereotypical meat to eat at a greek restaurant.
Upon first glance, I noticed the excessive amount of liquid oozing from the foil wrapped sandwich. I apologize if oozing is a disgusting word to describe food, but frankly it was nauseating. There was way too much tabulli salad spilling out of the pita, and the lamb reminded me of oily beef jerky. The fillings-​to-​bread ratio was way too high, which resulted in me loosing most of the sandwich’s guts. Also, I probably used at least 7 napkins due to its deterioration and extreme amount of grease.
I’m a strong believer in the accuracy of Unilocal ratings, so I might (I wish I could write that in italics) give Vanoos a second try… Possibly… if i happen to be passing by and am absolutely starving and everything else is closed (that is a bit of an exaggeration). Hopefully, I just ordered the wrong thing because people seem to love it.

This place doesn’t deserve a 4.5 star rating. It is a total hole in the wall without the charm cleanliness or friendliness that might make up for it. The tabouli was almost inedible because it had so much lemon juice in it. Gyro sandwich was the best thing we ordered. Falafel sandwich was interesting — red pepper flavored falafel.
So, What ticked us off? We were the only people in the whole place and we waited at least fifteen minutes for our food. And, when we went to pay they told us their credit card machine was out (AFTER we had eaten), so we were forced to pay cash. Had we known the machine was down, we probably would have eaten elsewhere.
Conclusion: give this place a miss

As you may know by now, I consider myself a sandwich connoisseur. So I am still on my never ending mission to find the perfect sandwich! So I came across this fine establishment.
I had to try the PB Classic sub, as I am a fellow PB resident! I got the 7″ because I didn’t think I needed the large 14″. The smaller sub was still too much for me to eat. The sandwich had tons of meat and cheese which was great. But, there may have been a little too much brown mustard and vinegar. The strong sour/​vinegar taste was overpowering the taste of the sandwich. All the ingredients were very fresh, and the meat and cheese were deli sliced to order.
My lovely boyfriend had the hot pastrami! He thought the sandwich was delicious. He did agree that the mustard was a little too overwhelming on his sandwich as well. The pastrami was very flavorful and the bread was fresh! We both went for the baguette for the sandwiches instead of the rye that was recommended.
We will be back to try the shawarma and falafel! Made fresh daily!

I really wanted to like this place, especially after all of the great ratings on Unilocal,but I suppose my expectations were too high. Cam and I came here for dinner and I was so hungry that I ordered more than I should have. We decided to split the order between the two of us. Although we walked here, I took note of the parking situation, which is just street parking on Mission Blvd.
When we entered the restaurant, the person behind the counter immediately took our order and asked us to take a seat anywhere as we would pay after eating. We decided to sit outside, but since it’s right on Mission Blvd., it’s not a very pleasant place to sit since there’s not much of a view and there are a lot of pedestrians.
Hummus 8oz. Cam absolutely loved this hummus. He said it was rich and creamy, and it reminded him of eating cheese (without the cheese). The hummus is plain and served with olive oil and 3 olives. I thought the hummus was just okay, but I really enjoyed the toasted pita bread slices. This dish only comes with 4 pita bread slices, so even after ample applications of hummus to our pita, we still had a lot of hummus. Cam asked for more pita bread and the staff was more than happy to give us another 4 pieces ($ 1 charge).
Kabob Wrap. I should have ordered the gyro pita, but I wanted to try something new, so I went with this wrap based on the Unilocal reviews. It is a wrap stuffed with a beef and lamb kabob, onions, parsley, tabouli, and hummus. Though it wasn’t dry, I just wasn’t a fan. There were foil pieces in the wrap from when it was cut in half, the wrap itself didn’t add any flavor to the dish as a whole, and everything was really wet. I also don’t think I’m a fan of tabouli in general, not just this tabouli. I ended up just eating the kabob part and leaving the wrap and tabouli and other fillings. I also ate the salad that came with the wrap — the leaves were fresh, but the dressing was a mediocre vinaigrette.
French Fries, small. I liked these, but it’s hard to mess up french fries. I don’t think these are freshly cut fries, but I liked that they seasoned them. It was also served pipping hot, so at least they weren’t sitting around in a warmer.
Overall, the staff was friendly enough and the food was just okay. We may come back to try other dishes, but I’m feeling kind of sick from all the food and it’s not the «oh my gosh I just ate so much great food» type of sick, it’s more of a «I wish I hadn’t spent $ 20.49 on all this food» type of sick

Great little mom and pop shop! There are about 4 tables for 4 inside and 2 – 3 tables for 2 outside. Order first, they prepare the order, and then you pay when the food is ready (sit down or take to-​go).
I got the cobb wrap for $ 8.99 + tax. It came with a side salad. The salad had a nice dressing. The cobb wrap was full and thick, so I could only eat half. They put generous amounts of meat, egg, avocado, and other ingredients. It was delicious and filling. I hate onions, but how they made the wrap made the onions bearable. I didn’t even notice the onions, probably due to the honey mustard sauce. It’s perfect to eat at the shop, take to-​go to have on the beach, or take home.