Yiannis Taverna Greek Restaurant — Restaurant in Edmonton

The visit before this one, I didn't have a bad experience, but this time was.. well not great ,so I'll get into it. It was my brothers birthday dinner. I arrived a bit early, and the server was fantastic (Actually at every point, I will point out, our server was a very attentive and helpful young lady.) So once the rest of the group showed up, we settled on ordering their platters, since there was four of us. The first dish, the greek salad was served promptly , and it was.. not really that great looking They didn't mix it, it was really just tomatoes on top of everything, it was a Greek salad, but for the price point you expect better plating. Wasn't plated well, but there wasn't anything bad about it. We got the pita and hummus and tzatziki next. The hummus and tzatziki were fine, but the pita bread was actually fairly hard, and clearly a bit stale. Like a day or two old.

Again, at this point we were like it's all fine. We got the Calamari and we couldn't taste anything but the breading, and all four of us tried, but I'd be surprised if there was anything other than breading in it. That's all we could taste, and I've had some great calamari.

Our Saganaki showed up, and it was, honestly, disgusting, it didn't taste fully cooked, it was super oily, and just.. tasted super off. Saganaki is one of my favorite dishes, and.. I took one bite and was done. At this point we were talking about how bad the experience is, we had ordered a second saganaki but cancelled it. Didn't finish the first.

We were starting to talk about potentially leaving depending on how things continued. So the next dish was the moussaka, the meatballs and the potatoes. Pretty much greek staples. The moussaka looked burnt, and a bit dry. The meatballs looked completely dry. My dad and I cut up the potatoes and tried them. The seasoning was okay, but they weren't actually cooked completely. They had that 'crunch' you have from not fully cooked potatoes. At this point we were done. We tried to speak to the manager for the night, the server was doing her best to help us, but the manager wouldn't come to our table.

Evidently they were too busy cooking? I'm not too clear on it. But after 20 minutes of trying to get the manager to come out and talk to us, we gave up. If anything I feel bad for the server who was appauled at the food we had ,and was doing her best, we let her know it wasn't her fault at all.

My dad, visited a few days later, to talk to the owner, and all the owner would say is he wasn't there, and kinda.. just acted like he didn't care at all about it. We ended up walking to Seoul Chicken and had that for supper back at home. Not an ideal way to spend my brothers Birthday dinner.

For a high priced Greek Restaurant on Whyte Ave, I had much higher expectations, especially for their price point, location, and am amazed they would provide such.. substandard food. I eat on Whyte regularly, and I eat at several Greek restaurants, but I wouldn't recommend eating here. Atmosphere is great, price and food, terrible. I would recommend the Koutouki's, or Mythos. Both I've had good experiences at.

And since i can't respond directly to your message. I commented on the quality of food. Also there was no yelling and screaming as you indicated since my father had stepped towards the kitchen to speak with your staff. So considering you werent present... Im not sure where you get these ideas.

Im sorry for the loss but it sounds like you are using it as an excuse. There were only two other tables. If the manager couldnt find time over a half hour, thats something else. Im disappointed that you decided to attack me personally over the poor food service. As a true Greek, as you would say i am appauled.

Have some pride and instead of making excuses make your food properly. Your serving staff were doing their best. They werent the issue at all. They did great. If you cant have someone who can cook properly, don't be open. The only thing more disappointing than the food is your attitude...

Edit to respond to your response: thank you for calling me "vindictive" for posting a second review; had you not stealth edited your response, I would not have even responded! While it can be frustrating to receive negative reviews and I understand that not all negative responses may be warranted, your response frankly indicates that you are not committed to improvement. Thank you for invalidating my experience as a POC! If you cannot understand why automatically assuming that a POC carrying a bag is there to collect food is wrong, I can't help you! We are all conditioned by the society we live in (that led your employee, like many others, to make a racist assumption. Rather than using this as a learning experience (apologizing, not excusing the racist assumption by claiming it was just an "honest mistake" because i was carrying a bag, and committing to doing better next time) you are frankly just denying and deflecting. I don't have any more time for you and can only thank you for revealing your open hostility, aggression, & lack of commitment to improvement!

I posted a couple of months ago about how I (an East Indian woman) was assumed to be a food delivery person the minute I walked into this restaurant. I noticed that at some point, this restaurant edited their response (I didn't check againafter the first few days) to claim that they made an "honest mistake" because my "big bag" seemed like a "Skip the Dishes" bag and that they truly value couriers. I considered not responding as I didn't remember the login information for the account I used to post the initial review, and questioned whether responding toyou was even worth my time when what I experienced was so tiny and trivial compared to what BIPOC experience daily. But I couldn't let this go.

I was carrying a grocery store shopping bag that day. Ask yourself if you would have made the same assumption if you had seen a white person walking in to your restaurant with a green Save on Foods bag (such as I was carrying that day). Would you automatically assume - just the minute they walked in, without even saying a word to them- that that person was there to collect food? Would you ask them right away for their "order number" and act surprised when you realize that they don't work for Skip the Dishes? I doubt it. While you may claim it was an "honest" mistake, there was a racist split second assumption beneath your so- called "honest" mistake. I would have been happy if you had just acknowledged your error and would have just moved on. The fact that you stealth- edited your response compels me to respond now. Also, automatically assuming that a POC carrying a bag ( in my case, a green Save on Foods bag) is there to collect food is neither the explanation or justification you might think it is. (Given your way of responding, I would not be surprised if you went back and edited your response again).

Also, when I was assumed to be a Skip the Dishes worker, I wasn't even greeted by your restaurant staff. You may claim to value food delivery workers, but that wasn't my experience when you thought I was one. Do better.

Thank you for helping further solidify my decision not to come back. While the food here was okay,...

Yianni’s has consistently been a favourite of mine for 15 years, but last night was unacceptable, and thoroughly disappointing. I went with my partner and young nephew as I was excited to share Yianni’s with them.

After reading reviews from the last few months it seems quality is slipping and management is disinterested in any critical feedback, resorting to personally attacking any guest that leaves a constructive or negative review of their experience. It’s really sad.

Last night the restaurant smelled of urine and street. It was off putting. We decided to stay anyway because I knew the food to be great. In the managers response she says someone nearby was camped out and the source of the smell but this is untrue, there was no one camped out and the smell was throughout the restaurant.

Wednesdays are no longer half priced bottles of wine. This was fine, we ordered a bottle anyway. We ordered the Athena platter which had been my go-to for many years. All of the appys came out at once which isn’t usual for this meal. The hummus size shrunk, the pita was dried out and cold (as with other reviews), and the salad was underwhelming with lower quality tomato’s than usual. The cheese was perfect. The main was the real disappointment. The salmon was very over cooked and dry. The chicken was good flavour, but charred to a crisp on one skewer. The lamb was tiny, chewy, and overcooked from the medium rare we ordered. The rice was inconsistently cooked with many uncooked pieces we were crunching on. The potato was difficult to cut with a steak knife, old, and dried out. The veggies were all undercooked and still hard, particularly the broccoli. I let our server know right away and she said she would speak to the manager (we saw her do so, then they all disappeared into the kitchen). No one came back to reassess, so we continued eating. After 15 mins when the meal was basically finished our server came back and asked if we wanted anything redone. I let her know the meal Was nearly finished. It was very awkward and unsettling that this wasn’t offered 15 minutes earlier. The manager told our server to give $10 off the platter which was sort of comical given everything on the platter was improperly cooked. It seems all the food is made in advance and heated up, and quality suffers dearly. Management doesn’t want to hear about it.

Given last nights experience and the indifference of management, I’ll be looking for a new Greek go-to. How sad for Yianni’s, and what was a wonderful family run restaurant...