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For lunch today, Moody, Nathan and I decided to try out Capistrano's Italian Deli on Warner Road in Tempe. We hadn't been there before, and had been interested in trying it out ever since spotting the place a few weeks ago. We're always up for trying something new, and a good sandwich shop is always a plus.

Unfortunately, Capistrano's turned out to be one big disappointment. The deli is housed in what can only be described as a warehouse. While this works fine for brewpubs, it doesn't really seem to work for a deli. The space was industrial and felt, well, like eating in a warehouse. Moody remarked that he kept waiting for a forklift to drive on through.

Decor aside, the food wasn't any more impressive. Deli is a loose term here. The place consisted of a small counter for ordering where they had a very small selection of Boar's Head meats and cheeses on display. We all opted to try the soup and 1/2 sandwich combo. I was in the mood for a turkey and Swiss on marble with a little mayo. While they had turkey, Swiss cheese, and mayo, they did not have marble bread. In fact, they didn't have any bread at all. They only had a choice of white or wheat rolls for all sandwiches. The rolls aren't made on site, and they were pretty small to boot. What kind of deli doesn't have bread? When I opened my sandwich, there was barely any meat on it - certainly not what I would expect from a deli sandwich. It tasted ok, but then again, it's pretty hard to mess up a simple turkey sandwich.

The soup of the day was tomato basil with ravioli. Both Nathan and I had the soup. I didn't detect any basil. The ravioli tasted just like Chef Boyardee from a can. In fact, the soup tasted like a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli from the can with some water added to thin it out. Totally tasteless.

Nathan had a three cheese sandwich. When I asked him what cheeses it had, he replied that as best he could tell, it had three colors of cheddar. He wasn't impressed either.

Moody opted for a hot pastrami sandwich with a side of coleslaw. Again, the sandwich was served on a roll, and was stingy on the meat. He described the coleslaw as the worst he had ever had - as if it had been made with Crisco instead of mayo.

There is absolutely nothing to distinguish this place from the deli counter at your local grocery store. In fact, there isn't anything about the place that distinguishes it from my refrigerator. We were trying to figure out how they stayed in business with such disappointing fare when a perfectly good alternative, Jason's Deli, was less than 2 miles down the street. The only thing we came up with was Moody's suggestion that having a large Honeywell plant directly across the street was probably the answer. I guess people will eat crap when it's right in front of them rather than seek out a better alternative only a short drive away.