Jerusalem Garden Café — Restaurant in Asheville

Went in for dinner tonight and got a table for 3 after maybe a 10 min wait, which was amazing. The host was super friendly and got us situated.

Our server (Asil) greeted us with waters and sold us on hibiscus teas, stating if we didn’t like them we could swap them out. We ordered pretty quickly after. We ordered cauliflower for an appetizer, falafel gyro (gluten free) with potatoes, lamb gyro (gluten free) with a side Greek salad, and a chicken kabob platter (no dietary restrictions). I expressed our gluten sensitivity to the server. She seemed to be understanding of what we needed. After that she never came back except to drop the dishes and I mean literally drop. Halfway off the table. No check back, no water refills, nothing. I realized upon trying my salad there were croutons, which I can’t have. We waited, waited and waited. The whole table finished everything (minus my salad) and still no sign of our server. It wasn’t until another server overheard me say “I guess our server forgot us?” that anyone checked back at all. She took the salad and went to correct it. We sat there a while longer and then our server finally came over. I explained the salad issue. She said “yeah the salad has croutons” like I was supposed to know that even after a full discussion about me being gluten sensitive. She eventually came back with the salad…dropping it as if I was wrong for having an issue. It was almost confrontational. I’m not sure how else to describe it. Everyone else at the table had long since finished their meals so I asked for a box. She stormed back over with 4 boxes. “I brought different sizes because I don’t know what you need.” Over the treatment from the server, who literally didn’t provide service throughout the entire meal, I got up and brought her my card. I asked “have I offended you in some way?” A nearby server promptly quipped “no one’s offended we’re just really busy” to which our server said “yeah I was just really nervous because your salad was taking so long.” I responded stating she never checked on us once…

Long story short…the food was excellent…BEWARE if you have dietary restrictions though….the service however was so poor that at that price point we...

Ruined Valentines & anniversary dinner. What my wife and I came for was a romantic dinner for two as advertised with their 4 course dinner for two for $100. What we got was anything but. I called ahead and made a reservation 3 days prior. They didn’t have my name or anything reserved for me when I arrived. The waiter, who never gave his name, took our order and proceeded to bring our wine and after plopping the bottle on our table he never brought us wine glasses until we had to point out we didn’t have any AFTER our appetizers arrived. This was supposed to be a romantic four course dinner and yet both the appetizers and a GIANT salad all arrived at the same time which I assume we were supposed to split between two plates ourselves? You could pick two entrees so we both picked the lamb shank. What we got was ONE plate with two shanks on it, a single serving of rice, and a single serving of vegetables. This also arrived IN THE MIDDLE OF US EATING OUR APPETIZERS AND SALAD. I assumed we were getting a second plate of food since we ordered two entrees then soon realized, after about 10 minutes had passed and NO ONE had come to check and make sure our food was alright, that was it. We were expected to split an entree onto two plates like children. My wife was very upset and the wait staff and owners should be ashamed. It felt like food was being shoved in our face from a buffet and they were trying to get us out of the restaurant as fast as possible. What would normally be a good meal with good food was ruined by a completely incompetent wait staff. We will never eat here again and we will steer others...

We drive over an hour to come to Jerusalem Garden. We have always loved it. Every time we come, we usually get Matthew as our server. He was always an amazing server! The last two times we have had some random female who is either rude or doesn’t know how to do her job. Today, came in at 4pm for dinner. 3 young kids and 5 adults. We asked to sit in the back because the front is too loud, we can’t hear each other speak. The woman came back and asked if we just minded sitting in the front. I told her we do and why. She proceeded to roll her eyes and shake her head and walk away from me. After finally getting tables and serving us water, she decided to change with another server so she didn’t have to serve us.This server proceeded to say “I don’t want to rush you guys, but we have a reservation coming at 6pm”. We just kind of looked at each other in shock. Not understanding why she would be so rude as to basically tell us to hurry up and leave. When we asked about the pita pizza for the kids, she said she’d ask because one cook is nice and the other isn’t, which we thought was extremely unprofessional. The food was served correctly and tasted good. When we received our checks, there were service charges on them. We were never told about it, nor is it indicated on the menu. We weren’t sure why it was on there or what it was for. $26 service charge later, we assume it was her tip due to having 5 adults and 3 children perhaps? Not really sure. We have come here for years and never had any of these issues. Guess we’ll start to rethink coming all this way for this...