Falafel King — Restaurant in Boulder

I figured 4.3 stars can't be all that bad. Boy was i wrong! I didn't want to spend too much on dinner, as I was working in the area, so I was just looking for a quick and simple meal. Lets start with the fact that this place touts its "authentic" Mediterranean cuisine. Its about as authentic as going to Taco Bell for Mexican food. At least Taco Hell charges what the food is worth. Yes Falafal King was charging exhorbitant prices for what amounted to food that was worse than Taco Bell!! I had the lamb and gyro meat plate which consisted of a falafal, dolmadas, salad, hummus, pita and rice plus the meats. Lets start with the falafal, they were as small and hard as marbles which means i could have knelt down on the floor and starting using them as marbles. The salad was a sorry excuse for a salad, let alone a Mediterranean salad....it was essentially lettuce and onions with olive oil and a few sprinkles of what I assume was supposed to be feta...no tomatoes, no herbs and definitely no flavor, unless you like the taste of an olive oil spill on your tongue. Hummus was so bland it could have been a substitute for miracle whip. The pita was dry and crunchy! Since when do pitas come in crunchy flavor? This aint aupposes to be Doritos. I finally tried the unappetizing looking lamb meat and the experience was worse than eating that meat in the school cafeteria, except that the cafeteria meat was at least soft and not crunchy....meat should not be crunchy! Then I tried the Gyro meat which was yet another dry jerky imitation which quite possibly may have been a long lost WWII era MRE. Maybe I was supposed to add water, but i didn't get instructions on the plate. At this point I figured ive already spent a small fortune, so I tried the rice.....and as expected, it was crunchy. Suffice to say, that although they never gave me the dolmadas that were supposes to be included with my meal, I decided it was best to cut my losses and run as for and fast away from this establishment. For those who might be saying to themselves that I just don't understand how Mediterranean food should taste, lets just say, a decade of living in Greece, Italy, and Spain, plus trips to Turkey, Crete and Cyprus should qualify my pallete to at least know when a food shouldn't be "crunchy". But if you think taco Bell is great mexican food or Olive Garden is great italian food, then by all means, feel free to go to Falafal King for "authentic"...

I'll start this review by saying that I have eaten here multiple times and always had an excellent experience. Today was quite the exception. We ate there with two other families. The first family ordered, we ordered second, followed by the third family. The first and third families received their food, and the first family ended up with an extra special. My daughter and I waited for quite some time for our food and after it never came out I went back up to the counter to see what was going on. At first I was told that everyone had received the food they ordered, but I saw my plate sans gyros sitting on the counter. I pointed out I thought that was my plate and asked them to just throw gyros on top and reminded them we had also ordered fries and falafel. I was told that was not my plate. I asked them to kindly prepare the food we had ordered. The plate was eventually brought to our table, but it was about half the portion I was expecting from being there previously and from also seeing the portions the other families received at our table. They also didn't provide the pita nor the fries and falafel we ordered. I asked for the remainder of our food and met them at the counter only to receive a cold and rock hard piece of pita, fries, but still no falafel. They continue to argue with me that we had received the food we ordered and I told them if we were not going to receive our falafel that I would like a refund for that item. At that point, they mentioned that they had accidentally given the first family who ordered extra food, as if that had anything to do with our order and the small portion we had received as well as the food we had not received. The plate, which I still believe was what I had originally ordered, was still sitting on the counter. And the portions on that plate were what I was expecting, so it became apparent to me that they had intentionally not put much food on the plate they remade. Ultimately, they did bring the side of falafel but I couldn't believe the amount of time and arguing it took for a party that purchased nearly $200 in food to get one $3 side of falafel, that had been paid for. This was one of our favorite restaurants in Boulder but unfortunately we won't be returning. Really poor...

We kept seeing all the reviews about high price but good flavor. We decided to give Falafel King a try anyway, and only the former was correct. At almost twenty dollars per person, the gyros were lacking almost any meat. To be accurate, we calculated the meat to be about 15 percent of the contents of the sandwich. This is another restaurant that just uses vegetables as a filler, and too much of it to completely overtake what a true gyros should be. They also skimp on the tzatziki sauce, so as a result it hardly gave any coverage to the abundance of vegetables in my borderline vegetarian gyros. Customer service performance was also lukewarm, no smiles or enthusiasm. Seating in this place is cramped and we were able to hear everyone's conversations so we left knowing the personal lives of the other diners no matter how hard we tried to hear only our whisper toned exchanges. Lastly, the tables and the washroom were not very clean. It just felt like an old hole in the wall type of joint with food residue and salt left on our table and bits of toilet paper scattered over time on the washroom floor. To sum it up, most expensive fast food gyros restaurant I've encountered so far in the Denver area and also worst quality in terms of flavor and portions. Great stop though if you want to overpay for a...