Little India Restaurant & Bar Wash Park/DU — Restaurant in Denver

TL;DR: Food is delicious, service is usually good, but management is atrocious. If there is a mistake with your order, management wants you to remind them the next time you come in for something complimentary and will not refund you for missing items under any circumstance.

Having eaten here and ordered delivery multiple times, the food has always been amazing, the service is good (I have never had bad service, but had slow service), and the delivery times are prompt. My issue is with the management who has always had their employees address the issues I have had instead of talking to me directly. On more than one occasion items were forgotten in my delivery or take out order. Having 12+ years in the industry as well as ordering food from different places often, I understand mistakes happen. Traditionally places will refund you for the missing items and all is well. Evidently management here will not refund for any reason, especially at orders not in the restaurant. The first time something was forgotten on my order (years ago), they immediately sent me a coupon via email for a free appetizers (it was an appetizer forgotten). While this wasn't the "best" solution, I was more than content. I was happy that the establishment recognized the mistake immediately, did something reasonable to rectify it right away, and gave a proper apology for the issue. The coupon expired before I could use it due to the fact I kept forgetting I had it when I ate at Little India, but that is on me. Again, while I would have preferred a refund for the missing item, I was satisfied with the way the issue was handled. The most recent time I had a friend pick up my paid to-go order (I ordered and paid over the phone and a friend picked it up). When my friend showed up to my place, it was missing a salad and 2 orders of naan. I called and spoke with the person who took my order, Sophia. I told her about the missing Naan bread (I completely forgot about the salad). They told me that the management will not give a refund, especially if the order is not there. The next time I order, I should remind them about this mistake and I would receive the missing items then. I politely told her that would not work for me and I would like to find a resolution the same day. I figured the management seemed untrusting of orders not currently in the restaurant, it is very unlikely they would remember or trust me when I order again, I also had no clue when I would order again. I told her while I would just prefer a refund for the missing items, I was open to other resolutions. During the conversation I told her that I am inside the delivery zone. She suggested that they just deliver the 2 missing orders of Naan, but after agreeing that would be satisfactory, I was informed it would be about 45 minutes. The delivery driver was there in about an hour and delivered my missing bread. I want to very clear that all the employees I interacted with were friendly and polite. I never spoke with the management, but the audacity of their refund policy disturbs me. Especially since they expect their employees to delivery this outrageous policy. I know how mean and ridiculous people can be to service industry workers, so I can only imagine some of the abuse these employees have been through enforcing this ridiculous policy. Not to mention, the refund would have been less costly to the company than sending the missing items via a delivery driver (cost of making bread, salary of driver, other overheads, and probably would not have gotten this...

This is my third visit but first for dinner Restroom was below average in cleanliness. The green chutney with the papadums, lentils roasted firm crepes, were nice tasty and roasted just right. The roti, flat Indian bread, was lighter in color than the usual dark brown. Roti is made from whole wheat. Tasted above average but the cost at $2.95 each is a darn RIP off. The chicken tikka masala was below average. Mild spicy tasted bland and sweet. It appeared that sugar was added but the server denied it. Maybe they use some strange and unknown ingredients, like onions, whole cream, tomatoes and tomato paste and the usual Indian spices which may it sweet. The papadums were free and they offered another serving of it also. The non Indian staff should be trained that Indians usually require a serving of sliced onions and lemon with their lunch or dinner. Service was just average. The server came to inquire how the food was and I told her the truth. She immediately went into a tissy and tried to educate me on the Indian food on which I was raised on and have cooked many a times for seilf and friends. In fact I cooked a six course meal for my professors at school. They do give the very unhealthy and bad for you white basmati rice and give it with the entrees but refuse to substitute it with equivalent roti. Hence with no appetizers or drinks or dessert and one entree and 2 rotis the bill came to $27.00 with tip. Since the minimum wage is about $11.00 to 12.00 per hour: the tips must be reduced for just about average service. Now $27.00 for 1 person is pretty darn expensive. Hence for the dingy quantity and mediocre quality this place is grossly overpriced. For a Thursday evening the place was pretty empty inside but the equally tiny parking lot was full. It is difficult to park and get your car out. The parking lot is really cramped. I do not believe the experience was worth it. Just too expensive. Maybe the owners should learn from the Chinese or Mexican on how to make quality with excellent quantity food Chinese or Mexican style. Comparably the cost for these types of food is within similar range yet there food is far far less expensive. These folks call the food fine cuisine or fine dining but that is a total scam. These are just average restaurants with a. Ethnic blend serving mediocre, at best, food and service. The ambiance is typical for an Indian restaurant. The music again was ethnic Indian, which is perfectly alright, but why play the music so damn darn loud. If you are like 50 percent of the population in the US watch out what you eat here as regular eating here will definitely lower your life span and health significantly down the scale to well below the average life scan by 10 to 25 percent on an average which is my humble opinion. They can make healthy nutritious indiab food but neither the owners nor the cooks know how to do it. It is such a pity. All this place is to make the maximum with giving the least. I do not like to give negative reviews but want to protect the unwary and unknowledgeable general public of the hidden dangers in this place for one's...

Summary -- Might be ok for dinner, but avoid for a work lunch. The food was ok. Not great, but not bad. 0.5 stars for the service...3.5 for the food, so 2 overall. On the way back to the office after our lunch, we were all so surprised at how much difficulty they had with a) knowing customers were even present at their front desk, and b) producing an invoice, that we contemplated if this was really a restaurant or a poorly run money laundering front. That should be telling.

Four of us came for a work lunch a few minutes past noon, but there was nobody at the front counter when we arrived. There were no wait staff to be seen either, and we had a good view of the dining area. The front counter area's phone was ringing and ringing and nobody ever came out to answer. We thought they maybe were closed, but there were 2 people eating in the dining area, and the front door was wedged open. I went back to the kitchen after a few minutes, and found two people in the kitchen to tell them we were waiting to be seated and that their front phone was ringing off the hook without being answered. The man I talked to said he would be out to seat us soon.

We got seated after another 5 mins or so, ordered our meals fairly quickly, and then waited. It took maybe another 25-30 mins to get served. Service was good from then until we needed to pay. We asked to break the bill up into who ordered what, but after about 10 mins without him returning with the bill, we found the guy and told him to just split the bill equally if it would be easier for him (and faster for us), and we gave him our cards right then to save as time. Another 5 mins went by and we finally got our bill and our cards back.

We were the only people in the restaurant aside from 2 other people who were eating before we even got seated, so the place was not busy. Didn't see any take-out happening either, so there was no reason for such slow seating, slow service, and slow payment. A lunch that should have been 30-40 mins once inside the restaurant ended up being about 90 mins.

The food itself was ok, the restaurant appeared clean, and they were super attentive to water glasses that weren't full, so kudos to that.

To the owners - if you want happy lunch customers during the work week, then you need to figure out how to get them seated, served, invoiced, and out the door in under 40 minutes. Your restaurant was empty outside of 6 total customers during lunch and your location isn't bad, so maybe the service time is the root of...