Shakedown Street Eats — Restaurant in Bethel

I really want to like this place, but ultimately the experience at Shakedown was kind of middling. Music was welcome, but way too loud, and service was slow, even for a busier night...

But honestly, my biggest gripe is the menu. The actual quality of the food ranges from fine to pretty good... but is hampered by the fact that menu navigation is all over the place in terms of building the plate, and the theme/presentation to me doesn't make any lick of sense.

If this is a "street eats" place, maybe focus on street cart style offerings served tapas style in foil or in cups or on sticks? I feel that would streamline things, complete the theme, and overall would be a step up.

From the name of the joint, I expected street food, but what I got was a bunch of great sounding options centering around meal bowls, with the chips or rice addition that ended up seeming like uninspired, bland filler. I understand those an appealing easy out for meal building, sure, but it comes across as lazy. As a side option, chips or side of rice would be fine. Put all that filler stuff to the side of the menu and I'll order it if I want.

Proteins were great. Flavors were spot on. I would've loved to just order a bunch of those to share as the default. There were other options I saw too for plate building to make our meals at the bottom of the page, but it was honestly a confusing mess for me and my gf. In it's current state, we both felt bombarded with unnecessary options and asides. If I marked up the flow of options for this menu, it would look like a football play XD

Far be it from me to tell someone how to run their restaurant. Running multiple restaurants is a challenge. Overall, Shakedown Street Eats is not a bad place to eat.. but when stacked against the slew of options we have locally? While there's absolutely potential here, as it stands, it's a shame there's nothing that's jiving enough to bring me back. Seems other people like it, but neither...

Food always good. Service almost always excellent. Most recently, though, service was very slow. Slow to take order. Slow to bring drinks, veeeerrry slow to bring starters. Restaurant wasn't busy and we got no apology for the long wait. However, the food was still amazing and it must be said that this poor service was not typical. So still very highly recommended. Just be cautious of service. Still comfortable giving full 5 stars.

UPDATE: not sure if the owners read this review, but the next time I went, the service was SUPER fast, despite being pretty busy. 5 stars = justified.

UPDATE #2: Dropping a star off the review as it seems that recently, the service is really hit or miss. Brusque tone on the phone, got ignored by the staff when I came in to pick up my take out order. When I was finally acknowledged by one of the waitresses, totally got the impression I was greatly inconveniencing her as she silently rang up my order with a stony face. Also, "food will be ready in 10-15 mins" became 22 mins, despite the mutiple staff and very few customers. Food and ambience still great but man! The service can really...

Disappointed :-(

We came back because we had SUCH a great experience almost a year ago. We were told by other friends that they recently didn't have a great experience but were didn't listen... but we should have.

This time it wasn't busy but still waited almost a half hour for someone to take our drink order, another 15 minutesfor someone to take our appetizer order after we flagged someone down. Then our dinner order was taken after our appetizers had been eaten and our plates were cleared. Drink prices were outrageous and barely had any alcohol in them. Had to remind waitress way too many times for drink orders and had to flag wait staff down if we wanted anything. Waitress had very limited knowledge of the menu. Almost every member of wait staff had scowls on their faces. Was very difficult to get anyone to crack a smile until some drunk lady started to try and sing with the band playing...

Appetizers were the best part... Cauliflower wings were delicious, Brussels sprouts were delicious, lobster tacos were also great. Entrees were not very good except the burgers.

Very sad to say I will not be...