Shelby's Legendary Shawarma — Restaurant in Ontario

My Shawarma Credentials: 10 years living in Ottawa - the Land of Shawarma. Middle East descent.

After being hounded by my kids to visit this place and being fond of their social media myself, we made the trek from the GTA to the main location and we left deflated. This food is disgusting and sauced to death. The 'spicy' version of everything has an insane amount of sweetness to it and it is just gross. You can't even taste the meat or any seasoning it may have had. Your body revolts with the amount of sauce and sweetness the sandwich had. We tried 4 sandwiches, 2 mixed and 2 chicken. All tasted the like same soupy sweet mess with no way to tell that the mixed sandwiches had a different type of meat in there. We also ordered the mixed meat Poutine and same gross sweetness even though we asked for it spicy. Fans of Eastern Canada Gyros with the sweet garlic sauce would probably like these shawarmas but quite frankly this amount of sauce is enough to make you puke.

How ANYONE could WANT to add ketchup to this level of sauce and sweet is just crazy. Adding Ketchup to a TRUE shawarma is certainly a tragedy but adding it to this is just pure confusion.

This place would not last more than a month in Ottawa. Once they made their money on all the 'first visits' from their YouTube/TAK-TAK fan base, there would be no repeat visits and they would be out of business. The land of real shawarma would vet them out in no time.

Don't buy into the hype and it's not worth driving to London. FYI Tahini's is no better - perhaps a bit better than Shelby's but equally overhyped.

True Shawarma is hard to find in GTA.. There are places downtown for sure but once you have experienced Ottawa (or Montreal) with properly seasoned meat, real Lebanese Garlic Toum Sauce and their garlic potatoes, you'll wonder what has gone wrong with the GTA.

1-Star. +1 star for the fresh bread. That is a nice touch that more places should do but it is truly wasted on what they put in it after.

THE WORST PART IS that the sandwiches are not SEARED the way they show in their videos. Why would you show this and then not do it for customers? This is very misleading .... but I don't think that treatment would help the sandwich.

Best in the west?...

if only i could give ZERO STARS. what a maze they make you go through to get a refund. i ordered food last Friday way before closing and had it delivered. we got a text saying it was hand delivered but we never got the order! we even walked around to see if it was left elsewhere. i called the store back hoping to get a redelivery but the manager SURAJ just ignored my complaint and told me to call door dash because thats who they partner with (even though i ordered on the shelby's website). anyways i called doordash and the guy was so kind. he asked if i wanted it redelivered or a refund. if a refund, id have to call shelby's back (duhhh because your restaurant is who i paid) or doordash could call the restaurant to redeliver. by the time doordash called shelbys it was 10 to 11 (10 minutes till closing) and they said "no we're closing up if they want a refund have them call the restaurant". was i not just on the phone with the restaurant????? so i called them back. SURAJ answers again. playing dumb he asks "did you call door dash?" and im like "yup" and he says "what did they say?" and i said " well they talked to you and you said ......" and he said "yes because we are closing soon". when i asked for my refund he said to call bsck tomorrow to ask the store owner. ok so i call the next morning. I explain everything to the owner and he says yes a note was left. and then he processed the refund and said it would be a couple days (mon or tues) to recieve the refund. i checked tues. nothing. i waited until thursday... still nothing. friday. nothing it is now 2 days and a week past the day i shouldve gotten my refund...... all of this because SURAJ was TOO LAZY to do a redelivery after they/their chosen partners messed up. we havent been here in years because of the service and it seems like nothing's changed. GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK and you'll never see me at any of your stores...

Original review: I still remember trying shelbeys years ago and it was so good like a near 10/10. Although a lot has clearly changed. I went craving shawarma and garlic sauce, so I ordered 2 shawarmas and the first bite was good I got a good hint of garlic sauce but then the whole rest of the sandwich I didn't get a single hint it's as if there was none on it nor did I get a single hint of pomegranate molasses and the whole 2nd sandwich I didn't taste any garlic in the slightest idk if this Is cause i order later and maybe the staff at night are tired/complacent but they charge you online for wanting extra garlic sauce so Id feel weird asking for extra. But I don't want extra I just wanna be able to taste it and with the little that was put on my sandwich it's a complete non factor and waste of $27.

Response from owner: Hello, we are sorry to hear that. Not all our wraps come with pomegranate molasses sauce, ONLY our traditional wraps. We do understand the garlic sauce tastes very good in shawarmas, but not everyone does like that! You can always add extra garlic either in or out the wrap. Thank you.

My response: I ordered a traditional wrap! why would I complain about there being no pomegranate molasses (or at least so little that you can't even taste it) if I ordered something that doesn't have pomegranate molasses? To your second point I get that but I'm saying there was SO LITTLE on mine I couldn't taste it in the slightest, however there are other times I've ordered and I could tell there was alot more Garlic sauce when both times I didn't ask for extra/less. So clearly there is a consistency issue and instead of trying to apologize for that and acknowledging mistakes happen which you clearly don't want to do cause that entails accountability and making things right. Instead you'd rather sidetrack and make false...