I need to start this review off with giving this location the benefit of the doubt by mentioning that they have only been open for a month and that some growing pains for newly opened businesses are to be expected.
With that said, our experience this morning was disastrous. I had high hopes and kept rooting for them to bounce back but it just kept getting worse and never happened. To start, it was super busy which is understandable given their interesting menu, location, and small size. It's a somewhat gloomy day but the temperature was fine so they offered to seat us outside to start and then move us inside as soon as a table became available. We placed our drink order with a waitress. I ordered a large honey lavender latte with oat milk and was advised by the waitress that my latte would come in a to-go cup because they only have smalls and medium sizes in the glassware. I said that was fine as this made no difference to me. The rain started just as we saw a table leave. We had just put our order in so to avoid getting the napkins, menus and ourselves wet, we grabbed everything and went inside. As we were doing this we witnessed the same person who offered us the next clear table, seat a party that came after us. We tried to stand against the inside wall to stay out of the way but a waitress came over to us with our drinks (which appeared to be incorrect) and asked that we move to the other side of the restaurant in front of their takeout window. We did as requested but then found ourselves directly in the way of patrons and servers coming and going. As I've mentioned, it is a small location so there wasn't really anywhere else for us to go which added to the frustration. While standing and waiting, a different server came to talk to us and my mother asked if we could sit in the little alcove that had a round bench and a little table attached. We figured this wasn't being used and was out of the way but we were denied. My mother thought this was odd because when she was there last weekend people were seated there.
We were really uncomfortable standing we smack dab in the way of everything-so my mom asked if we could get everything to go. This bothered the waitress who started explaining why they did things the way they did. We let her know it really wasn't the events that made us want to take things to go, we just had not had great communication and felt like we were in the way. They doubled down on explaining. By this time we were annoyed because there was no accountability for the lack of communication and follow through on what they proactively offered us. Finally my mom just asked for a manager.
A manager came to us and apologized and offered us 3 seats at the bar. She said she knows we had asked them to make our food to go but would tell the kitchen if we wanted to stay. We thanked her and took her up on the offer. As we sat down, we mentioned the drinks didn't appear to be correct because they were not in the containers they advised us they'd be in. She said "well we only do small and mediums for dine in unless you're ADAMANT you want a large." I said I wasn't "adamant" and that this was my first time here and I just ordered one of the sizes offered on the menu. She was like "yeah as long as you're okay with it." Ironically when the "large" latte came it looked to be the same as a medium in the glassware. My honey lavender latte had no lavender or honey flavor at all. While delicious, my French toast was a single slice of bread which made the portion size not worth the price tag. My step father ordered what he got last weekend when they went but mentioned it wasn't made the same way or the size of what he got last time. When my mother asked the server about this, they apologized and told her they had run out which is why it was smaller and not as expected. (This felt shady. Like they were hoping he hadn't been before and wouldn't notice and they still charged the same price.) The final nail in the coffin was my mother's shaksuka. As she was eating I noticed what looked like a long hair hanging from her fork. I told her but she had already put the fork down and didn't see it. About 10 minutes later she took a bite and another straight long dark hair was hanging down with food hanging from it. She saw it this time and was obviously no longer hungry. She showed someone behind the bar who basically said it couldn't be from them because no one that goes in the kitchen has long hair besides her and hers was up. We sort of slow blinked at her because my mom has curly gray hair. The manager saw it and came over agreeing that it was quite long and apologizing. We just finished up and left. Again, I think the lack of communication and understanding how to handle an issue when it arises is a growing pain. However we couldn't in good conscience not post a review after the hair and the food experience. read more