Boaz Fresh Lebanese Ohio City — Restaurant in Cleveland

HORRIBLE customer service today. Tonight's adventure: this employee (I don't know her name but I'll find it out tomorrow)was EXTREMELY rude and obnoxious tonight. I ordered a falafel bowl with brown rice, lentils, quinoa, and sides of bhaba ghanoush, pita chips and garlic tahini. I opened my bag to inspect before leaving & realized the bowl was wrong. All of the sides I ordered were all thrown into the bowl all together, and the falafel was missing. I patiently waited to tell the preparer what was wrong with my dish. She interrupted immediately without listening & insisted "you may not always get your sides the way you want them". Seeing as how the cashier took my order & I made my preferences abundantly clear in the beginning, this was an unacceptable answer. Her answer was stemmed from being busy & not wanting to accommodate my request. Which I understand! I'm human! When I'm busy at my job, I don't want to comply with meeting peoples' demands either. But that's my JOB and in customer service, that's what you're supposed to do. Nonetheless, I kept a pleasant demeanor & let her know I'd wait for her to fix my order. She got flustered because she had SO many other orders to fill & clearly didn't have any interest in tending to my excessive needs this evening. So she finally gave me my things, everything looked good, sides were separated & falafel was present. Yay. The only other problem was I realized my garlic tahini wasn't in my bag, they had put the wrong sauce in there. No big deal. I asked her to please give me the sauce I'm looking for. That tipped her scale. She insists the sauce im looking for isn't in their establishment. So I walked over to their food behind the glass & I clearly see the sauce im referring to sitting right there, nice & ready and could be handed to me like I asked. Shouldn't be a big deal, right? Wrong. I asked her to give me the sauce thats clearly in my eyesight. She says they don't have it & if i want it I'd have to pay her $0.50. Then, she proceeded to get REAL BELIGERENT and KEPT REPEATING over and over and OVER, "that'll be $0.50. That'll be $0.50. That'll be $0.50." First of all, you're canceling yourself out because you said you don't have it, but you're demanding $0.50 for it. So I told her ok, i'll pay you $0.50 and you can refund me $0.50 because I'm giving you back the WRONG one you KEEP giving me. Why are you finding the need to scream and act like a chimpanzee over this sauce thats CLEARLY available?! So she walked over to the line of food, very angrily asks me what the 'F' I want over here, I show it to her. She blatantly skips over the desired garlic sauce, starts banging in the food trays telling me this isn't garlic sauce! These are onions! You're not saying the right thing! Like ok lady, relax! I may not know the name of these Mediterranean delicacies but I'm showing you A PICTURE of what it is I'm talking about and she REFUSED to comply when it was RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER! So then she demands I give her the entire bowl back & she'll refund my money. Nope, unacceptable. I said I want my food, I just want the damn sauce! So she throws it at me, and I proceed to throw her incorrect sauce right back at her. So then I ask her for a bag to carry my treats in that I've gotten high blood pressure for at this point, and she refuses, tells her coworkers to absolutely NOT give me a bag because she's already given me one. Which she was right. I had one & I'm glad she didn't give me another one because mine had pita bread in it & I really wanted it :-) She was HORRIFIC and her attitude and belligerent behavior was completely uncalled for. She may have been the manager because others were taking directives from her, but if i can't get some resolution & acknowledgement of what took place tonight, I'll take it as high as I need to because tonight's circus act was something I refuse to accept from an establishment I've so often patronized. Without customers, you don't have a job. Be more grateful that customers are coming to your place...

I love Middle Eastern food. This place is good. I like that they offer freshly made veggie juices!

Yet ... 4 stars cuz, ‘I know what you did.’

I usually get the build your own - on pita bread. I had noticed when I frequented Boaz in the past, that the build your own in the biodegradable (?) bowls appeared to have large amounts of food; enough to take home perhaps. People remarked on that fact on Yelp. Well, Boaz has remedied that.

I went in a few days ago to order my first (like a virgin - but not) bowl. The bowls are now different and appear smaller. Of course, I made mention of that fact to the cashier and she gave the ‘corporate’ response of no, it is the same. Listen, per corporate response, people [who] were complaining about the biodegradable bowls leaking, shoulda just put their overabundance of food in a water-proof container at home. Because of them, now I have no healthy snack for later, should I continue to give Boaz my bizness.🤷🏿‍♀️

As one reviewer stated here, the portions are small(er) now. The builder of my “smaller” bowl - was let’s say, quite economical (for them) with my building food choices. Unless, you speak up nicely stating “a little more please” - but geez. Who wants to coerce ‘a builder of bowls’ for an additional pat/spoonful - in front of a line of customers - puh-leeze? (See how it pays to know your history? Newcomers/Foodies to Boaz eager & starred-eyed have no idea of the former ‘bowl abundance’). (Note how I extrapolated the (holistic) importance of history to a biodegradable serving bowl? Yes! I have a lot of free time).🙅🏿‍♂️😆

All in all, the food is fresh & delicious. The surrounds are trendy. Boaz cleans up your table mess, so you do not. I also like their fries with the Zaatar seasoning, which is equally good.

Yet, I am back to visiting my other ME food places; as I would anyway. Boaz is still on my radar for their fresh veggie juices; on the days that my dude at the Juice stand@WSM is not there due to closure. Okayyyy... maybe an occasional “coerced” build your own pita. I have to be in the...

UPDATE Changed my review from 1 star to 5 stars.. Had a great conversation with Ahmed.. A new manager there.. After explaining the situation to him he collaborated with the owner and I was generously compensated. My concerns were taken care of in a caring matter. I am glad I had given them the chance to rectify the situation as I do love the food.. Will definitely be back. Very disappointed with their customer service!! I ordered two orders of Dawali with no added oil and an order of humus last week when I was on my way to an appointment I repeated the no added oil request at least 3 times and the girl said she understood. When I was ready to eat my food I was very disappointed to see that they did in fact add the oil on both orders so unfortunately wasn't able to eat my lunch and simply did not have time to go back for a replacement When I called and spoke to the manager Ismail.. Found out that she was the one who took my order and dis remember me requesting no added oil.. Told her I wasn't able to come back the same day as I was extremely busy. She assured me she will take care of me the next time I have the chance to come. I went in today to get my order replaced only to find out that they were not going to replace the humus. The reason why I ordered the humus in the first place is because I like to eat the two together. So now I couldn't fully enjoy my meals twice !! They refused to replace the humus. I have been to this location many times and after the last two experiences I'm sad to say that I will not be returning. They didn't care about my concerns at all and didn't care that they were about to lose a customer I will simply have to go elsewhere. Very disappointing with how the situation was handled and it's unfortunate that they don't care at all about repeat business I will not be recommending this place to anyone...