Taste of Jerusalem Cafe — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

We've been eating here for a number of years, and we've sadly watched a continuous decline in the dining experience, service, and quality of food. This is no longer a place to go have dinner. When we first started going, they had wait staff like a regular restaurant. They now seem to only want to cater to the delivery services (Grub Hub, Door Dash, etc) or to people who want carry out. Not only do they no longer have wait staff, they seem to only have two people in the building. Someone to take orders at the front counter, and one person cooking (or maybe the guy from the front has to run back and do the cooking??). We arrived Friday night at 5:40pm and ordered three appetizers and four meals. We told them we wanted to stay and dine in. After one hour and ten minutes, we still did not have appetizers or food. I finally said something to the young man up front, telling him one in our party has to leave by 7pm. He brought us "to-go" appetizers shortly afterwards, in styrofoam containers. The dolmas were good. Falafels were ice cold and terrible. Babaganoush was ok.

We then got our four meals a little while later. Again, packaged in sytrofoam, and we had to use cheesy, cheap plastic cutlery in little packets for a picnic. Our oldest son didn't get to eat, as he had to leave.

My wife's salad was wilty and decaying. It should have been in the dumpster, not served to a customer. None of the food was good, like it used to be. Again, falafels on our plates were ice cold and obviously had not been prepared in the kitchen. Maybe frozen???

As a restaurant owner, I am willing to be patient in difficult times. We've supported this restaurant through the Covid timeframe, even though the quality of food and service has been on a steep decline. But this weekend, the food made us sick. Literally physically ill. On top of terrible service. On top of insane wait times. On top of a terrible dine in experience (non-existent).

So we've made our decision. We'll not be back again. Not because of one experience, but because of intentional degradation of service and food quality over a 2-3 year period, beginning long before Covid hit. Another one...

The food was seriously so delicious. Like, you keep eating past full because it's good. There was one waitress on staff but the place is fairly smalls and she took care of my party of 3, two behind us, one in front of us and a part of 8. She did a great job and was really nice. The bathrooms were clean but the water in the women's bathroom came out extremely hot. The only thing keeping me from giving a full 5 stars is that me and my husband's meals came out at different times (we share a lot so not a big deal), but it happened to the table next to us too and I think that's just a matter of the chef using better timing. And the decor. The inside is paint as a mural of Jerusalem, but you could tell the walls were dingy and the seating was all mismatched. I should also say my husband has eaten in the Middle East a lot and he said it was just like over there. My actual rating would be 4.8 out of 5 because the food is...

I used to like this place but hadn't been there in awhile. My husband and I took our daughter there for lunch. We arrived about 15 min before they opened at 11:00am. We were shocked to see that the staff arrived at about that same time. I'm no fool that alot of food at restaurants are just heated up. However it was a bit shocking to know not much prep time was going to go into our food. When we were seated we noticed the table was very rocky. I thought a few napkins might help stable it out when I went to look under the table it was so filthy my husband decided to he could no longer eat there. Daughter and I still gave it the benefit of the doubt despite the red flags. We ordered the combination plate. It was ok,and nothing more. Tasted like the meat was microwaved. Disappointed, I used to really like this place and now I'm sure I...