I ordered delivery from Beyrouth Bistro back on July 30th, 2017, through Deliveroo. The food itself was mediocre Middle Eastern food, nothing special. The reason I am writing this review is to warn potential customers about the lack of proper hygiene procedures at this restaurant. I was going to attach a photo of the disgusting surprise I found at the bottom of our box of french fries, but I guess the Yelp format doesn't support photos. Anyway, after eating about half the fries in the box, we found a big pubic hair (or maybe beard hair) plastered to the bottom of the box. Needless to say, this was quite upsetting, especially to my wife, who was really sick to her stomach. What made it even worse was that it was hard to see how this could have been an accident. Sure, stray hairs sometimes find their way into food, but generally not pubic hairs (to be generous, I guess it could have been a long beard hair), and generally not plastered to the bottom of a takeout container. In the most benign scenario I can imagine, the hair must have somehow(!?) gotten attached to the empty box, and then the fries were piled on top without any notice being taken of the rather big and obvious hair. Needless to say, this does not speak well for Beyrouth Bistro's hygiene procedures. Even assuming this is a beard hair, this means someone in Beyrouth's kitchen is sporting a long beard and not wearing a beard net. It also means that very little quality control and basic attention to detail is going on. And this is being as generous as possible. A less generous interpretation is that someone purposely put a pubic hair at the bottom of our box of fries, for what reason I don't know. Maybe just for amusement?
No matter how this happened, one would think that a customer reporting this kind of incident (with photo evidence) should provoke some serious concern from the restaurant. If I were the restaurant owner or manager I would first be horrified and apologetic, and second I would immediately want to make any changes necessary to make sure something like this could never happen again. Well, the owner of Beyrouth Bistro did not react this way at all. Here is what did happen:
Since I had made the order through Deliveroo, I contacted them by email (attaching the photo) and explained what had happened. I indicated that I wanted an apology from Beyrouth Bistro. I got an immediate response from a Deliveroo senior manager. He said he would be in touch with Beyrouth Bistro, and that I should expect a reply from them soon. The Deliveroo manager advised that he was removing Beyrouth Bistro from the Deliveroo site in the meantime. I waited several days, but I was never contacted by Beyrouth Bistro, either by phone or email. I contacted Deliveroo several more times in the next week, and they were as surprised as I was that there was no communication from Beyrouth Bistro. Finally, the Deliveroo manager had a face to face meeting with the Beyrouth Bistro owner. Apparently, the Beyrouth Bistro owner was "not comfortable" contacting me by phone or email, but instead offered to have me in to the restaurant for a complimentary meal. I took this as a very odd and insincere offer, for a number of reasons. First, if I were in his shoes I'd have been tripping all over myself to apologise. Second, it is not hard to imagine why I would not be interested in a free meal at his restaurant! No other resolution or attempt at an apology was ever offered by Beyrouth Bistro. I was never contacted by them in any fashion. I was struck by the lack of concern displayed by the owner of Beyrouth Bistro, and the Deliveroo manager was also at a loss regarding his casual attitude towards the incident. I tried to determine if the owner had pledged to take any concrete steps to improve hygiene procedures at his restaurant, but the Deliveroo manager was reluctant to share any specific details from his meeting with the owner. My strong impression, based on this reluctance, and on the lack of any apology or contact from the owner, was that Beyrouth Bistro just did not take the incident seriously. This was further confirmed when Deliveroo offered to refund the cost for the entire meal, at Deliveroo's expense. I asked if Beyrouth Bistro was going to provide any portion of the refund, and I was told that they would not. This pretty much speaks for itself, in my opinion.
To sum up: mediocre food, poor hygiene, and a real lack of respect for customers. Stay away! read more