LULO Kitchen & Juice Bar — Restaurant in Cleveland

This restaurant is a gilded scam. I can’t advise strongly enough that; while the overall star rating and pictures might entice you to eat here, please sort these reviews by newest, and you will have a better idea of what to expect.

Our Valentine’s Day dinner reservation was for 9:45pm, so we arrived at 9:30pm for logistics’ sake and to make sure we were easily directed. We were not seated until 10:15pm, which is understandable given how busy they were, which can’t be overstated. There was no crowd control, and one hostess was tasked with managing dozens of long-waiting parties across two floors.

A few minutes after we were seated at 10:15pm, we were given empty water glasses. (Spoilers, that’s the last time we were acknowledged until 11:45pm.) There were maybe ten tables around us with folks in varying degrees of outrage. Some folks hadn’t been able to put in drink or appetizer orders yet, others had entrees brought out after copious amounts of waiting, only to find that the food was cold and appeared to have been sitting out for quite a while.

As time went on, 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, multiple tables simply got up and left. We spoke with other couples who were also confused at how neglected everyone was. Some of us had water, some had ordered cocktails, some were waiting on food… but not us. Reservations at 9:45pm, seated at 10:15pm, still completely ignored at 11:45pm.

We weren’t attended to until we ourselves had to call over the waiter and explain the situation. He apologized and said he was only able to offer us a single complimentary drink between the two of us in apology. It was 11:45pm on Valentine’s Day, and we’d driven over an hour to get there. We weren’t going to be able to stop at another restaurant at this point, so we put in our order.

At 12:15am, two appetizers arrived, and I can’t articulate how disappointed we were. We were shocked at the blandness of the taste. If I’m lying, may lightning strike me down, it tasted like the food missed a step of preparation. There was absolutely no seasoning on any of the food, and no finishing garnishes. And for what we were going to be charged, we expected better. We expected effort.

The single entree we were going to split arrived shortly thereafter, and I do have to give kudos to the pre-packaged Marie Calendars food box they half-microwaved this from, because if I was forced to think that an actual human with any level of culinary training even glanced at what we were served, surely they would have sooner pulled the fire alarm than let us think this was the caliber of food Lulo serves.

The grilled chicken breast was the size of an un-cased iPhone 4, served on a bed of two pieces of lettuce with four grape tomatoes that had been sliced in half. The chicken did taste as though it had touched a grill, and it was warm enough that it gave me hope that maybe it had been prepared within the last 45 minutes. Maybe. There were several slices of fried plantain that, just like the chicken that accompanied it, had not a grain of salt, speck of cumin, hint of pepper, or whiff of any other seasoning. The included white rice was the size, shape, firmness, and temperature of a hockey puck that just finished a game on the ice. Although, someone must have been chopping cilantro nearby, because there were several flakes that made their way on top. Much; I’m sure, to the dismay of whoever was ensuring the food was bereft of flavor before it went out.

Minutes after getting our food and meagerly picking at it, we asked for boxes. One drink, two appetizers, one entree, close to three hours waiting to be fed, and $75 poorer, we left. We left feeling disbelief, disappointment, and hunger… and as though we’d been tricked.

This is the fault of the management and owners, whoever gave the ok to take this many reservations, but one would imagine it unlikely they'll held accountable in any way that will affect change. So make no mistake, this will happen again. I only hope it does not...

My guy and I were visiting from Chicago. We made reservations for 9:30pm on Valentines Day. We get there and the first issue was there were at least 30 people at the door waiting to be seated. People whose reservation started at 9pm. So we had to wait at least 50 mins after our reservation time to be seated. We get seated in their beautiful downstairs dining room, we received water, and our order was taken 5 mins later. We waited another 35 mins for our appetizer that came out luke warm to cold. But it was a hot appetizer. So I said I didn’t want it because it wasn’t cooked fresh. We also did not get and napkins or silverware when the appetizer came. My guy asked that he removes the appetizer because we didn’t but one bite and that we close our bill because we were going to leave. This is where it gets interesting, the waiter brought our bill and said he could not take off the appetizer. We were thinking the audacity to charge a deposit to make a reservation, have us wait almost an hour after our reservation to be seated, then serve us cold appetizers that should be hot, 40 mins after sitting down, only to tell us you can’t take off an appetizer that we didn’t even eat??!!! Also, while waiting for him to return with the bill, I started looking at what other places were opened - like Wendy’s. I was hungry and determined to eat something even though is was past midnight. We asking to speak with the manager, the waiter said ok, then came back with an edited bill that was minus the appetizer. Before leaving, I wanted to speak with the manager to let him/her know about our experience, and that it was subpar, and that they waisted our time on Valentines Day. We could’ve gone somewhere else and gotten better service. The manager was the owner, Mario apologized and convinced us to stay and eat. He sat us in the upstairs dining room, we had it to ourselves by this time. Everyone had eaten and left. He explained they were short staffed and there were issues with people finishing their meals but staying at the table. I get that things can happen! He made sure we were able to eat, but again, the food was not hot, like it was freshly prepared. It was good though. I can only imagine my enjoyment if it had been a hot meal. My guy also got a free dessert which he said was good, just a bit too sweet - passion fruit cheesecake. The ambience of the restaurant is great!! So we danced in the empty dining room for a bit :) we were making the best of our experience. The host in the red sweater was sooo sweet. Overall, it was an ok experience. I understand being short staffed on a busy night can cause issues. The owner did not expect people to call off work. But he should account for that in the future. We will try them again when we are back...

I am not one to leave reviews and understand places may be short staffed but the service we received when dining with Lulo was not only “bad” or “slow” we did not receive any sort of service. We made reservations and was greeted by an employee and told her our name and how our party was ready to be seated. She seemed confused and said she needed to check on our reservation. Over 10 minutes went by until what I’m assuming is the manager approached our group asking if anyone had helped us. He then checked on our table and told us the group before us had not left yet and he would be giving us all a drink on the house due to our long wait to be seated. This was the highlight of our experience.

When we were eventually seated over 30 minutes past our original reservation time no one came to check on us to take orders or bring water or silverware to the table. Eventually 20 minutes passed and the manager came over asking if anyone took care of us yet. When we told him no he took our orders and said he’d bring water and silverware to the table. We never saw him again.

3 separate times over 50 minutes we went to the bar asking for water because we were thirsty and had felt forgotten about. We were told “yeah” or “I know” and no one would come over with water. Eventually we complained to a waitress we saw at the bar that we had been now sitting for 50 minutes and had no water or food and no waiter or waitress had ever come by to check on us. She responded with “yeah, I know.” She came over 5 minutes later to our table and said “what did you all order” to our group of 7, we told her and then our food came out immediately after. Our food was absolutely delicious, however, at this point we still had no water or silverware. When we were done eating someone was attentive enough to bring the check to the table, the only time since we had been seated that someone paid attention to us!

I’d like to add I visited Lulo shortly after they opened (in a group of 12!) and was blown away by the food, service, and atmosphere and could not wait to return. This visit was so bad I would never come back, like I said I understand being short staffed but being ignored by staff and being told “yeah” or “I know” when asking for water did not sit well with me. Their food is excellent and if I could ever order their food as a take out option I would do so to...