Halevantini — Restaurant in Tel-Aviv

My wife arrived at this restaurant ahead of my mother and I. She had ordered the tappas for herself for 40 NIS and coffee for 18 NIS.

By the time my mother and I arrived, my wife was already eating. Since my mother and I had already eaten elsewhere, we sat at the table waiting for my wife to finish eating.

The waiter never came to ask if my mother or I wanted anything to drink or eat. He brought us absolutely nothing. Not even water.

However, the total bill was 58 for what my wife ordered plus an additional 80 NIS for my mother and I. The total bill was 138 NIS.

Evidently the restaurant has a policy where each person is charged for sitting at a table if even one person orders the tappas. Sounds like a scam, right?

The manager told us the waiter should have explained their policy to us and reprimanded the waiter in front of us for having done this 'again.'

The manager did reduce the bill from 138 to 98 NIS, which was still 40 NIS more than it should have been for my mother and I just sitting there. I could have watched my wife eat at home for free.

So the point is that if you're just meeting someone or waiting for someone to finish eating, you should wait outside, on the street.

Note that there were plenty of empty tables, so this wasn't a case of us taking seats from other potential customers.

We've been to this restaurant before and the staff, food and atmosphere were great, but this time was unlike any other experience we've had.

Obviously, we will never...

My husband and i found this restaurant accidentally. We said let's give it a try and ordered dinner, wine and ice water. The waitress brought us a bottle of water and we said that we ordered regular water and she took the bottle of water and brought regular water. At the end a man brought our bill and was an extra charge and we didn't know what it was and thought a service charge. We gave the exact amount and the man came back angry and said you didn't leave tip. We were surprised and gave him a credit card and he asked for service charge and we told him the amount we wanted to leave. When he came back we asked what was the extra charge and he said that was for the bottle of water. We told him that we didn't have that. He wasn't happy and took the credit card saying I will put the money back and will change without the bottle of water, which he did. The next day our credit card was charged 2 times $143 & $134. We went back to ask the situation, the owner was very rude and said come back when the waitress comes to work and asked for our # and said will call us. Which didn't happen. We went back again and he denied about the charges. Finally we called our bank...

The food was mostly very delicious. The shawarma was a bit dry but it was my son and didn’t want to add all the salads and dips to it so he suffered with dry meat. My husband and I wanted to order vegetarian options so we asked for some items from the starter menu but the waitress convinced me to get the table appetizer of salads. I didn’t realize that it’s not a flat charge but it was 40 shekels for each my husband and I (he also ordered a leafy salad at insistence) and my kids who had meat entrees were each charged 23. While the table appetizers were good of course there are some things I wouldn’t order and didn’t eat so I pay triple with the table appetizer and everyone else only had some hummus of the salads. Anyway it cost a lot more for the table salads and I would warn people better to be mindful of that, and if you really just want some vegetarian items specifically note that it costs everyone if you do the table...