Crave — Restaurant in Akron

I'll preface this by saying I've worked in Food and Beverage industry for 10 years. I have never been so displeased by an establishment in my life. I went in on 7/16. I am vegan. I was excited to see that the menu offered the Impossible Burger. Listed on the menu is "VEGAN IMPOSSIBLE BURGER". I read the description and it lists some sort of cheese Ive never heard of but naturally assume it's vegan because it's on the VEGAN burger. The other components are a VEGAN garlic aioli and an eggless bun. Being that the burger is called a vegan burger, Im thinking I'm set. So I ask the waitress for THE VEGAN IMPOSSIBLE BURGER. She says okay. I then ask for the house veg as my side. She says okay. My food comes out and it looks like it'll taste pretty good. I take one bite of the house veg side and can instantly tell it's been sauteed in butter. I turn around to the waitress who is at the bar, give her a look and a gesture like I'd like her to come over because I have a question. She stands at the bar and waits to see what I'll say. Because she refuses to come over I'm forced to (nicely) shout across the floor, "Is the house veg cooked in butter?" And she responds with "Yes." I give her a very confused look, stare at her until she finally makes her way over to the table. I told her I thought it would've been cooked without being I asked for it with the vegan burger. She says, "Yes it's been cooked in butter. And also if you noticed the burger has nonvegan cheese on it." At this point I couldn't be more confused. I said in disbelief "Wait. You mean you guys put real cheese on something you're calling the VEGAN burger?" She says, "Yes, I know. This happens all the time." All the time?! You just said this happens all the time! I'm beyond shocked at this point. I slid my plate to her and said "I do not want this plate." She says, "Oh. Okay. Well I can have the whole plate remade so that it's completely vegan." IS THIS THE TWILIGHT ZONE?! IS THIS REAL LIFE? Keeping my cool, I asked her to please do so, being I asked for the vegan burger. I was not once rude to this woman or snappy or mean. Although this scenario I do not completely understand, I kept a very calm demeanor as I know getting upset isn't going to help. I watch her take it back to the kitchen and not being very far from the kitchen and the restaurant not being busy at all, I can then hear the conversation in the kitchen filled with profanities in both a male voice (assuming the chef) and my waitress! I'm mortified at this point and feel an awkward tension. Now in my decade of experience, when a guest or customer sends food back to the kitchen, it is standard that you send the manager to the table to make sure everything is okay. At this point I shouldn't have been surprised that no one came to talk to us but I was. Ten minutes later she coldy sets in front of me my special requested vegan option "vegan" dish. I continue the nice conversation with my parents as I enjoy my meal. She collects plates, again in a cold manner. She asks if we're finished, we say yes, she brings the bill, no discount or words of apology at all, we pay and leave. This is where my disbelief turns to my mind being blown. Because a manager was not sent over, and the waitress made me feel entirely too uncomfortable to ask for the manager, I filled out a request to contact form online, as I had some unsolved issues I wanted to discuss with Crave. Still no one has reached out to me I felt my only means of being heard were through here. You have an item listed as vegan which as it comes is not actually vegan. You have service staff who doesn't inform their customers who are most likely vegan that the burger isn't actually vegan as it comes. You have service staff who doesn't take care of customers. I am dissatisfied with the service and overturned about having eaten a bite of something non-vegan and distraught that no one at Crave cared. I would not recommend. I felt like I was not taken care of, I feel as if I were a burden, and worst of all I...

Beware! Crave ruined a very special night out for me and my wife. Crave failed on so many different levels. Let me explain. I took my wife to see The Carol King Musical “ Beautiful” at the EJ Thomas Hall in downtown Akron. It was a great show and a spectacular venue. After doing some online research, Crave appeared to be one of the better restaurants in downtown Akron. I made reservations online via Reso. We arrived at least 5 minutes prior to my 6:15 reservation. We walked in directly behind another party. The hostess asks if they had reservations. They replied no. They were given a glorious huge booth. All the booths are large and private. I couldn’t wait for ours. I informed him that we did have reservations. To our disappointment, he walked us over to a small 2 topper table right in the main thoroughfare. Is this how they take care of people who make reservations? He assured us that we had plenty of time to make the show. Our waitress finally made it over to our table. I informed her that we were going to the show and would like to order now. We reviewed the online menu so we knew what we wanted. We ordered our drinks and entrees. My wife ordered the scallops. at this point, she informed us that they were out of the scallops. I hate having to find this out after ordering. You should always be told upfront what they are out of before ordering. Now, my wife needs to review the menu for an alternative. The waitress tells us she will get us our drinks. It takes her 15 minutes to bring us our drinks and then she takes our order. We are still good on time. Now comes the worst part. It’s half an hour later and our food still hasn’t come. The waitress disappeared and won’t even come to our table to explain or apologize. The place empties out as everyone heads to show. We give it another 5 minutes. Still no food, no waitress, nothing. This was a total failure of the hostess, waitress, and kitchen. I highly recommend that you try somewhere else in Akron. . As a result, we were both very hungry during the show, and they ruined our plans for a nice relaxing dinner before...

We LOVED the old Crave at their original location. We revisited after they moved locations post pandemic and it was a HUGE disappointment. We were there for a total of 2.5 hours just due to slow and unorganized service, first half hour after we were seated from our reservation NOBODY came to give us service. We had to flag down a server to ask for service. Another 20 minutes and we finally have water and drinks ordered. After an abnormally long time for 2 drinks we finally get them and our appetizers. We tried the calamari and the baked goat cheese. The calamari came with potato chips as some kind of garnish/ filler on the plate with mediocre calamari and two different sauces just splashed on the plate. We’ve never ordered calamari before, and received potato chips on the same plate. Like “Kettle” branded style chips, straight from the bag it seemed like. Odd. Another awkward pause goes by of us trying to find/flag down the waiter to order food. Smoked Gouda Mac and cheese, airline chicken breast, walleye, and red snapper. The Mac and cheese came out exactly as we remembered it, smaller portion than before and about the same price as before, prices changes are what they are, we understand that. But the other three dishes, both fish had no seasoning to them, no salt, no pepper, not even lemon. Seriously? Chicken was moist and cooked perfectly, with NO SEASONING. Cmon really? Cooked perfectly, but completely flavorless. The plates looked great coming from the kitchen, but all 3 dishes completely lacking flavor altogether, for the prices they’re asking?! The only thing that was good was the Mac and cheese! Service was absolutely unacceptable, having a table forgotten for 30 minutes while the front of house manager was talking to the Tik Tok star/food blogger at the table 3 feet away from us for the whole time!? Absolutely never coming back here again, I would HIGHLY advise against this place unless you want food worse than 90% of take out restaurants at 4x the price. Only reason for 2 stars is because they at least didn’t completely mess up the...