Byblos Express Greek and Lebanese — Restaurant in Denver

I put 5 stars originally because I was bribed with free baklava. It wasn't even the baklava that was on the menu. This lady gave us some rolled up Baklava like it came out of a store brought pack. For a spot with such high reviews it was WILD. Now to begin: honestly the food was terrible. The chicken was at least a day old. It was so dry you could see like these white lines in the meat. The hummus was good. The salad tasted like the lettuce was about to expire. The rice was extremely soggy. Am 100 % certain the food was microwaved because the plate was hotter than the food itself. Out spinach pies were the starter and they were cold in the middle. My man had the lamb shank which was also cold in the middle. Afterwards we both felt sick to our stomach. We had eaten some of the food because honestly we had driven an hour to Denver to have a nice dinner. It was our first visit ever to Denver. We had just finished hiking Eldorado Canyon State Park just near Boulder. We checked reviews and pictures of many restaurants before settling on this one and going to this location. It was beautiful, the service was great and our server was really sweet. But the food was horrible. Like...

🚩🚩🚩This place cuts corners and uses fast food techniques to make a lot of its food, while charging near fine dining prices (and they’re only increasing the prices too). If you think you’re getting something fancy or even healthy, you’re being fooled. Most items are made in the fryer, including ones that you think should be healthy, like the eggplant mousaka. They use soy oil for 90% of what they make too (olive oil for mostly just the hummus). They have managed to put up a slightly nice front when you walk, in with the plants and all, but it’s a complete facade for the cheapness of this place. The owner has shares in 2 other restaurants in Denver and 2 in TX but acts like he can’t manage to pay any staff, which def comes across as greedy. He overworks everyone he can get to stick around with tons of catering orders, fooda popups and duties that are not in the job description and will be having them do car deliveries with no provided insurance (on top of the normal restaurant duties). And yes, it’s true, for a long time the servers were not getting tips. Shady business practices all over the place and questionable food practices...

Great visual representation and that’s what really drew us here, but after ordering the food I could not get an additional bite. Food ordered was hummus plate , falafel plate, meat, cheese and spinach pie, Greek salad and chicken shawerma. Falafel no taste, hummus definitely missing a whole lot of ingredients tho it is very simple to make, pies are false advertising as they are not freshly made, 100% thawed and reheated which I understand but at the least serve the cheese warm next time!! meat pie had gamy taste. We told our waitress the food was who then gave us our card back for a full free refund which we highly appreciate but we insisted on paying half of the bill and will not return, I understand they didn’t want us to write a bad review but service was good and atmosphere was good as well, it’s only the food that was not Lebanese to say at the least. May be this location only has the downfall as I see great reviews which does not reflect any of what we experienced today, I highly recommend management to get involved of how the food is being prepped especially if it’s a family restaurant and like to keep things...