Anna's Greek Restaurant & Venue — Restaurant in Bowling Green

Had a rehearsal dinner for 23 at this venue in August. Food was good, so the 3 stars reflect that the food was good, but the service and organization was NOT. Pre-planned this with the owner during a test visit in June as well as follow up emails, texts, and phone calls. Owner was arrogant and did not want to bother as much in my opinion with a party of 23. He said he does these "all the time" when I said I wanted to go over all the details and prepay so it would be a flawless evening, but he ended up stating 2 days before the event that we would just pay that night for the dinner after he told me previously that we would prepay. We did, however, have to pre-pay $150 to hold 2-3 tables on a Wednesday night, which was not busy when we arrived at 5 pm. In fact, not one table was occupied when we arrived at 5 pm, and throughtout the evening, there were other guests eating there, but PLENTY OF ROOM. The tables were to be set up for 23 when we arrived (I had emailed him the final numbers serveral days in advance), and they were only set up for 20 PACKED at 2 tables. They had to re-organize to set up 3 tables for 23 (8, 8, and 7). AWKWARD. The leg broke on one of the tables during the meal as well. They did not know the amount of appetizers that I had previously ordered with the owner via email, so there was some confusion. They charged me wrongly for the small greek salads after I had spoken about the amounts with the owner via email. They ran out of some flavors of creme brulee, but they brought whatever they had in back and charged us for them (most of the vanilla-looking ones were actually lemon or citrus, and people did not want that flavor, they wanted vanilla--instead of telling them that they were out of vanilla or chocolate, they just brought them the citrus/lemon ones). The waiters tried their best, but they had other tables that night to wait on as well, so we did not get as much attention as we had hoped. The dinner started at 5 pm and took about 3 HOURS to get our appetizers, salads, food, and desserts. It was a SUPER LONG time for a dinner as the kitchen was very, very slow on the appetizer portion of the meal after I had been promised that it would be very organized and flow with drinks, appetizers, and salads as soon as we got there per the owner. I appreciate the effort of the waiter, but it honestly did not go as well as I had hoped by any means. Also, the owner had said he would make a limited menu with our choices on it for the evening, which he did, but he also included alcholic drinks on it (which I told him NOT to include because of religious preferences on both sides of the bridal party), and he had kid meals and sides on there, which were strange to have on a limited menu for a rehearsal dinner that did not involve either of those things. I had to spend the next 15-20 minutes after the wedding party left trying to decipher the bill. He did take off 2 of the creme brulee (many others did not order lemon, but bit into them thinking they were vanilla as they had ordered) and the price difference on the salads, but I did not like the 3% credit card convenience fee charged or the full 20% gratuity when it was a pretty rough experience. The bill was almost $1150 for 23 people (plus the $150 for "holding" the 2 or 3 tables=approx. $1300). That is about $56 per person, which was much more than I had hoped for, and we could have prevented extra things from being ordered if we had prepayed as we had...

We decided to try this place for lunch from our normal date day choices. I found them searching for "Greek food in BG" and was excited to find a local place outside of your normal street gyro places because Greek food is on my top 5 favorites and it has been a long time since I had authentic Greek food. I've had Greek food before on several occasions and we've both had street gyros from several places. When we arrived, we did not make a reservation as their Google listing and website offered, I was impressed how in their renovation of the old Westminster Presbyterian Church while retaining a lot of the church's original structure. Our wait time to be seated was about 5 or so minutes. There was no line and only one other couple in the dining area. There was a bar tender and I assume her child there because of the school's closure from the weather. The waitress/hostess came out of the kitchen and greeted us, I assume she was collecting a meal and did not notice we entered. She was very friendly and took our drink order promptly after seating us and informed us of the menu items currently not available, I assume they ran out of the ingredients. My wife ordered the gyro portion and I ordered the four cheese rigatoni with gyro meat. The food came out in about 10 minutes, which is quicker then I can say we've had at any dine-in restaurant. The food presentation was very commendable, however the gyro meat on both our plates was extremely dried out to the point of being a dry beef jerky where the texture was like hair when it broke apart. The pasta, sauce, and vegetables were good with the sauce on my plate hot. Our waitress/hostess, and I assume re-heat cook, was very friendly and interactive the entire time. I give three stars for our visit for the following reasons: 1. the service was great and the wait time was not bad, but when considering there was only one other couple there and no one waiting I think they fell short by not paying attention to patrons entering. If the manager/owner is going to run a short staff during the day, they should have an alert system in the kitchen for the staff to know when someone comes in. (4 stars) 2. The table seating was quick, knowing what was and was not available on the menu was good, and drink order and delivery was great. (5 stars) 3. The food presentation was good and order to table time was exceptional. (5 stars) 4. The food taste was like my time in service when I had to eat the dehydrated pork chop MRE. The meat on both plates ruined the experience.(1 star) The overall rating is 3.75, but since Google doesn't allow that, 4 it is. I am not against eating here again, to be fair to them when talking with the waitress, I will come back at evening when she said they are always full and recommend making a...

The food was excellent and well presented. The steaks were perfectly cooked. Chicken a slightly overcooked and dry and shrimp a touch chewy from being overcooked but honestly very good.

The server was where the night fell short and the reason for the review. He was personable and was maybe a little too concerned with making small talk as a good server should. I can't say if he was overworked or just forgot about us but after waters came out it took 15 minutes plus before he came back (after myb wife asked for him) to get our order and I had drank 1.5 glasses of water and all 3 kids had finished their waters as well. ( I am normally a big drinker kids are not)

I also didn't appreciate the over the top pushy sales. We made it clear we only wanted main meals and we had looked at the menu before we came in and were excited to try all the gluten free options. We were asked about starters/ salads probably 5 times despite this.

We finally ordered and we were only planning on getting 4 things and to share between the 5 of us knowing the kids really would not eat a full adult meal. We asked if that was reasonable not knowing portion sizes and Mr salesman highly encouraged a 5th so my wife excited to try things added a 5th.

Food came and it was good as stated my wife mentioned the chicken was a touch dry and he asked about the 5th thing he suggested and I said I was really the only one that liked it.

He offered boxes since there was left overs but since we were traveling as he had already knew from initial small talk we would not need boxes and he stated " that is a lot of food" seemingly confirming he knew he oversold us.

Knowing at this point we were not thrilled with service he requested the manager / owner to discount the 2 meals which I was not going to argue with but honestly was not necessary.

When he brought out the check I couldn't figure out why the total was over $200 after the discount when I was expecting that to be the total before the discount and as he was hovering over me (hoping i would pay without looking too closely) I finally noticed he added large party gratuity for a family of 5. When I brought it to his attention and asked to speak to a manager about it. He stated it was something the computer automatically does and that he would take it off (he is right the computer does this only when you put in the number of customers required for a large party normally 8).

Sadly this was just one more way he confirmed he was okay with lying to increase his tip rather that giving good service that is expected at a fine dining experience. I do believe he could be a great server with a little more traing...