SOCRATES in the Heights — Restaurant in Burnaby

I'd like to start off by saying that this place is not terrible; maybe I just caught them on an off day. My complaints are subjective; it's possible that other people might not agree. Also, there was a lot that was good about my experience too... I'll start with the good:

I had the beef souvlaki wrap with a kale caesar and my wife had the 1/2 rack of ribs and 1/4 chicken with rice and potatoes, greek salad and a piece of garlic toast. All the meat was very good. My wife loved the ribs and liked the chicken. I had a piece of the breast and thought it was a little dry, but BBQ chicken is usually like that, I find. The souvlaki was perfectly cooked, tender, and well seasoned. My wife really liked the rice too.

The prices were very reasonable; for all of that, tax in (before tip) was about $35.

So now we get to the the reason for the 3 star review... The Caesar salad, the tzatziki sauce (my favorite thing about greek food, and my wrap was drenched in it, which is normally fine) and the potatoes (weirdly) were ABSURDLY lemony... I know all those things should have a lemon taste to them, but this was to the point that you could taste nothing else... my wife literally took one bite of her potato and instantly spit it out, and lemon is one of her favorite flavors... when I tried a bite, I could feel the sting of the acid in the lemon juice on my lips. For my wife, the only thing on her plate that was unpalatable was the potatoes, so her meal was enjoyable, but for me, it was on every part of my meal, and it completely ruined my meal. It's a shame because the food was otherwise really good and I really want to like this place... I will try it again and see if it was an off day, or if that's just their style... Like I said, I suppose it is subjective, but, unless you like to eat lemons like you would an orange, you would probably have felt the way I do. (no, I'm not exaggerating... at all.) I will try again and update my review accordingly, because I honestly doubt this level of unbalance could be...

A complete lack of customer service and attention.

We had ordered food for DINE IN and sat at the empty table inside. It appeared busy with take-outs happening. I can understand and had no issues waiting. The couple that ordered before us had received their food within 30mins. Great. Our food should be coming soon??? Nope.

After waiting 50mins with not even the appetizers (ordered 2 of them) coming out, our patience started to wane. I had to ask for an update, the lady at the cashier said soon. The couple before us had already ate and left. 15mins after asking for the update, we finally got our food. Hurray??? Nope.

The food came out in TAKE OUT BAGS???? We had waited all this time for take out? If we wanted take out, we would have called and picked it up. Who would want to wait 1 hour+ at the restaurant just for take out???? Ridiculous. Was this the end of this bad experience??? Nope.

Didn't bother complaining or mentioning this as our patience ran out after this. Get us out. Instead of eating at the place like what we had planned and mentioned, we decided to go to a park nearby to eat the food.

Went to the park and guess what, no cutlery was included in the bag. Lady didn't even bother asking. No napkins either. Does this place not offer or include these should be common essential items for take out? I really don't know. I understand that this restaurant may "tailor" towards take out orders but have some common customer service and etiquette. Utter disappointment.

Here's a list of things to learn and/or(?) improve on:

Confirm with the customers again if they're dining in or take out if it's not clear or forgotten?? Ask if customers require any cutlery/napkins with their order? Or if your restaurant does not include, maybe mention this somewhere? Not every take out order will be eaten at home. Provide an estimate wait time for any type of orders when ordering. 4.Notice some customers waiting for a long time? Maybe check in on them.

Will we be coming back...

Socrates has been our go to restaurant when craving Greek food for a good amount of years now, but tonight’s experience was an absolute lowest of the lows. I called the restaurant to place a pick up order at 4:54pm, the lady on the phone said half an hour. My daughter showed up to pick up at 5:35, food was not ready, and was told a few mins more, okay that’s fine… 5:45/5:50 came around, no food so my daughter let me know that the lady was asking what the order was and the name several times. I decided to call the place myself and speak with her, explained to her the situation, were told half an hour it’s been an hour and still no food, she quickly responds yea yea I check what’s going on and HUNG UP THE PHONE!! Really?! So I called back after texting my daughter to see if the food was ready yet, NOTHING! I call again and ask to speak with her manager this time, first tells me she is the manager and then laughs and says she is not the manager. I asked her if she could apply some sort of discount for the inconvenience of waiting so long (plus having food ordered at another local restaurant sitting there getting cold!) she was so quick to respond something about me not knowing anything about business and that I would receive a discount but she would not be taking another order from me. Absolute TRASH of customer service. It was rude and unnecessary. The food was handed to my daughter at 6:04pm! The kitchen man even confirmed with her soon after that she should not have said half an hour knowing very well that it would not be ready in half an hour (my daughter heard it all!) Needless to say, it was a very unpleasant experience with Socrates tonight, which is very unfortunate as we have been very faithful customers for many years because their food is delicious. We will have to find another I guess, as she will QUOTE “no longer take...