Hedary's Mediterranean Restaurant — Restaurant in Allen

The interior of the place is weird. It's really weird. It's like a house that they bought and stuck a bunch of tables in each room of the house and didn't alter it in any other way to make it a restaurant. Each room has a few tables in it, maybe 3 or 4. It doesn't feel like a restaurant and it's very disconcerting and uncomfortable. Imagine being in a restaurant room with 3 tables, no noise, everyone sitting right next to each other. Obviously it is not good for kids because any sound they make will bother everyone else. I didn't even feel comfortable having a conversation with my wife because even speaking in a whisper, the people at the other tables could clearly hear me.

The entire staff here seems to be between 13 and 18 years old. I don't know how this is legal, even in Texas.

After a long wait to be acknowledged by a waitress, I ordered the hummus and dolmas appetizer. The waitress asked me to confirm that I want the vegetarian dolmas. I thought about it for a second and then looked at the menu where it says "Dolmas: grape leaves wrapped around rice and beef. I asked here where on the menu it says they are vegetarian. She said I can get it with meat if I want. I told her that I want it as it's written on the menu. She asked again if I want vegetarian and I said no I want it with meat. There isn't even a vegetarian option for dolmas on the menu so I don't know what this was all about.

For the entree, I wanted lamb kebab but they don't have an option for that. You can only get a shish kabob combination which comes with lamb, beef, and chicken. I didn't want beef or chicken, only lamb. I don't understand why the menu is like that. Instead I ordered the large gyro plate. I asked if they come with pita bread and she said no but she will give me some. I asked if there's an option to get it inside a pita or in a wrap and the waitress said I can only get that for lunch, and I was there for dinner, so I can't have it. She really said that. I guess after lunch they throw away all of the lunch ingredients??

After a 25 minute wait, our appetizer and entree came out simultaneously. The hummus and bread was excellent. The dolmas were also very good and everything seemed home made.

My gyro plate, on the other hand, was a major failure. For starters, I was given a very tiny amount of meat. Usually a gyro plate has so much meat that you can't finish it. What they gave me was maybe 10 very tiny and thin slices of meat. I would guess that I got a quarter pound of meat total. The meat was obviously not made there. It looked like something they bought frozen at Costco and reheated out of a box. It didn't look or taste good.

The rice was a throw-away item. It was plain white rice and was not seasoned.

For these reasons, I...

Several years ago I worked in Fort Worth, at least once a week, we ate at Hedary’s on Camp Bowie, and loved it. That location closed over 10 years ago, and I have tried several restaurants that serve Mediterranean food, but have been disappointed at each restaurant! On a fluke, I Googled “Hedary’s “ and was delighted to see that one of Mr Hedary’s sons has opened a restaurant in Allen, TX. It would take us an hour to get there, but we went for it, and couldn’t have been happier! This restaurant is unbelievable! It’s in an old house, so there are tables in at least 3 different rooms (they probably have more) but I only saw 3). There were 6 of us and we made our reservation for 5:00, and so glad we did, they filled up quickly. We were all seated together in a front room. There was another table that would seat 4 more in that room. We loved the ambiance, we had the feeling of dining with the Hedary’s in their home!! We also loved that we could actually carry on a conversation with everyone at our table without shouting! We ordered just about everything on the menu! We had lamb, beef, and chicken dishes, all cooked to perfection! I highly recommend the Mezzo plate to get a sample of just about everything on the menu! It’s just a small tasting, not a meal.

We had incredible service, incredible food, incredible ambiance…..and I’ve said nothing about walking past Hedary’s vegetable garden on the way in, or the...

I was genuinely surprised to see so many positive reviews, as our experience was deeply disappointing. We chose this restaurant based on those reviews, hoping to celebrate my brother’s milestone birthday, but unfortunately, the evening fell far short of expectations.

The issues began when they couldn’t find our reservation. While they did accommodate us since the restaurant wasn’t busy, this initial mishap set the tone for the night. Some members of our party were fasting, yet the mezza plate — intended to break their fast — arrived very late. This delay was consistent throughout the evening, with slow service, no water refills, and food that was both tardy and poorly prepared.

Several dishes were either undercooked or overcooked. The restaurant’s specialty, Hedary’s chicken, had an unpleasant odor and was inedible. The kofta was extremely dry and hard, the rice lacked flavor, and the beef kabob plate was served rare.

When we finally managed to speak with our server about these concerns, they argued that the food was fine. The owner later approached us with a similar response, claiming, “We haven’t had a complaint about Hedary’s chicken in 50 years.”

We had hoped for a memorable evening to celebrate a special occasion, but the combination of poor food and poor service left us feeling disappointed and disregarded. It truly seemed like the staff didn’t care about ensuring a...