The Naam — Restaurant in Vancouver

Wow. Not sure where to start. Went for brunch with 4 of my friends from out of town as we are all very into vegan/vegetarian restaurants. I’m going to break this review down into my main concerns. The service. Hands down the worst service experience I have ever had. From the hostess to the person who brought water—disappointed. The waitress was incredibly meek while taking our orders. I ordered the Vegan Naam Breakfast and made sure to mention my allergies to nuts to the server. She was in no way confident in telling me the contents of the dish and said “yeah I think you will be fine.” I asked her to confirm with the kitchen as it is a severe allergy. Her only follow up with me later was to tell me the kitchen was out of tofu scramble for my dish. While this is not something she can control and thus not something I would normally mention in a review, I was very surprised when the group’s food came out and my friend received a tofu scramble as a part of her order. I simply received pancakes. I’m not sure what the logic behind this happening was; clearly the kitchen was not out of tofu scramble. All the items were brought out incredibly sporadically and separated very strangely. My meal came out on 4 plates at different times, and no one who brought them out was confident which order everything belonged with. This is an issue for me of course with my allergies. I was also brought a plate that was claimed to be vegan when I asked, although there were eggs and cheese on the plate. When we went to pay at the end of the meal, the server approached the table with the machine and said “sorry about…the food…” and continued her awkward behaviour. I’m not sure who the hiring manager of this establishment is, but your employees seem much too scared of the customers to be in this industry. The food itself was quite good. I will concede this. The main problem is the organization and the staff at the restaurant. I will not be returning unless there is a marked improvement in the running of the restaurant. I’m sure there are procedures in place to have things run smoothly, but they are not being utilized. I don’t normally write reviews but I was appalled by the service here. I know people make mistakes but I was incredibly frustrated with my experience and I hope this review helps the restaurant to fix their shortcomings. This is a very competitive industry to be in, and you will not survive down this path. Overall, do not eat here unless you’re willing to question everything a restaurant should be. Perhaps if you order take out you...

I have been to the Naam several times and always had a blast, but it is unfortunate to say that my last trip left a sour taste and I don’t think I will be returning anytime soon. We were seated outside as there was a comedy night being set up for later (which looked super fun). Our server, I didn’t catch her name unfortunately, I believe bilingual as I heard her speaking Spanish and English (my partner is Spanish so I always enjoy a chance to practice my listening skills). Sadly, the service was super slow, we were waiting for 40 minutes to get a drink and I’m not exaggerating. I thought it could be because we were outside, but I could see another outside table with a different server being dealt with attentively. I asked him if he could get us a drink & he apologised, that it wasn’t his section but he would get our server for us. It was still a while before she returned, and she was a little standoffish and annoyed we had asked someone else for help. We proceeded to order our drinks and my friend asked about the difference between a few beers on the menu and she bluntly/rudely replied with “I don’t know”. No offer to find out, no apology, I understand people are new or don’t know but it’s not the usual response you would have. I didn’t understand where the attitude was coming from as even with the wait we were super patient. When the drinks arrived, we had been brought the wrong order so they had to be returned and we waited longer. When my friend brought light to the fact that it wasn’t what we ordered, I saw the server roll her eyes, again serving attitude but no drinks. I didn’t want to highlight it to the rest of the group to create more of an issue. It was a very odd encounter as we were all polite and even felt bad (we are English) saying it was the wrong order. When the food was brought, it was delicious, although it was dumped on the table and we weren’t told what was what, we had to guess and a few items were missing and we had to go and find out if they were coming or not. The final straw was waiting 15 minutes for the bill and we were about to go and ask at the counter if we could be assisted when we were finally able to leave. It is such a shame as it was a reunion dinner and quite honestly, made it a little sour & made the experience stressful, I resented...

Absolutely terrible wait times. We went there for a dinner on not the busiest of nights, there were tables open, we got one immediately, the waitress took the order within first 5 or so minutes as well. We were told that the order should take 10-15 minutes. But then began the waiting game. We waited for nearly an hour after which we were told the order is almost ready. Nothing happened for next 15 minutes. We finally asked the order to be prepared to go as we had already spent nearly the entire evening sitting at a restaurant without the food. Then we were told, it'll be 15 more minutes for the order to be ready and then some more time for it to be packed. We then decided to leave without the food.

Our waitress was super polite and extremely apologetic for the situation. However, another woman at the counter who looked like a manager/owner of this place, was extremely rude, and had no concern about the fact that we had been there for well over an hour at this point. She showed no humility and proceeded to remark "This is The Naam, you've to wait here to get food, how do you not know this?" We also saw a group next to our table frustrated with the same lack of food.

I usually do not give 1 star reviews since there are almost always some good things to be found about the food but I can't comment about the quality of the food in this instance since we were never actually served any. I do feel bad for our waitress who was extremely polite and for 2 chefs who were probably overwhelmed due to staff shortage and poor management.

I do hope this review is taken as a constructive criticism since I do support local businesses. Rude and ungrateful their management may be, but I do want the people who work there to succeed in their ability to perform what is probably the oldest and greatest joy, serving...