Phoenicia Pita Kitchen — Restaurant in Gilbert

NO STAR OR NEGATIVE!

Nobody could believe the most miserable experience in Phoenicia Cafe II at Gilbert location. We waited for more than 30 minutes and got told that the kitchen staff did not even have our order ticket!! WE GOT NOTHING TO EAT AFTER WAITING FOR OVER 30 MINTUES!

My family entered the restaurant around 6:10 pm yesterday (01/11/2018). Due to dinner time, the restaurant was a little busy, two waiters were serving about 7 tables. One waiter is with blond curls; the other waiter is with dark brown hair. Once we sat down at the table in front of the kitchen station, we ordered one Ultimate Combo, one Kid’s meal with chicken fingers, one mango mix shake and one dessert. The waiter with blond curls did not write down anything, just repeated the items we ordered, and reminded us that Ultimate Combo was big enough for two of us. Then he walked away.

Per my observation, the procedures are that the waiter takes the order, put the order into computer, kitchen staff print out order details at their station after submitting. During this period of time, Blond-curls waiter checked the tickets on the kitchen station from time to time, hence we assumed that everything should be fine with our order.

After 15 minutes, my husband could not know why mango mix shake took such a long time to make. Blond-curls waiter could not remember he had a mango mix shake at all until my husband asked about it. When the shake was being made, blond-curls waiter told us that there were some take-out orders that he needed to handle in the back, hope we could understand. Five minutes later, the shake finally came.

That was another 15-minute wait after we finished the shake. My daughter started to complain that she was starving, yes, we had been waiting for about 30 minutes. At this point of time, I saw that 2 kitchen staff seemed available, so I asked them whether they could make Kid’s meal with chicken fingers for my daughter. But kitchen staff replied, “We don't see your ticket.” During this conversation, the waiter with dark brown hair came to ask what was going on, but blond-curls waiter was checking out a customer for his take-out orders. Two kitchen staff understood our frustration, and asked what our kid’s meal was, apparently, they did not see ticket with a kid’s meal at all.

Well, it had been over 30 minutes we got nothing to eat, and it was not our fault at all. Blond-curls waiter did not come to us or kitchen station to try to solve the issue at all, still doing the take-out orders. He did not even apologize to us. If this restaurant does not welcome us or blond-curls waiter does not want to service us, please let us know at the very first beginning once we came into the restaurant, NO NEED TO WASTE OUR 30 MINUTES! We will let everybody know our extremely unpleasant experience at...

Short version: the food was okay, the service so-so, but it's not a place that we would make the drive to again (not from Laveen -- and yes, we will drive a long distance for great food!)

Longer version: It's not a very large restaurant, and with the other shops around them, parking may be a bit tricky. We popped in Saturday for an early dinner. We were seated right away, and the young guy took our drink orders & delivered them quickly. The first thing to slightly irritate me was the glass was so full of the darn ice I couldn't get a good swallow of the guava juice. Maybe it was shape of the ice, but I finally had to ask for an extra glass so I could scoop out all the ice and actually take a drink!

We ordered the hummus appetizer, which came out with hot pita, but both the hummus and pita had a "store bought" atmosphere to it. The pita was the pocket type, so for me it was a bit thin and dry (I like my pita thick & fluffy). The hummus was creamy, but compared with other Mediterranean places we have frequented, their hummus tasted slightly bland. The presentation was nice though.

The second thing to slightly put me off revisiting Phoenicia was when the meal came out. Don't get me wrong, the meat was very flavorful, but it's irritating when EVERYTHING is piled onto one semi-small plate so when you start digging into your food, the food starts falling off the edges.

It felt as if, once the food was delivered, we were forgotten. My sister did ask for another glass of water, but it was never delivered. I will say I saw only two servers, so maybe it was a short-staffed issue, but as many times as our guy walked past our table, you would have thought there would have been an "oh yeah, she asked for water" moment.

You pay up at the counter. The final thing to set me off was when our guy was ringing us up, then took a phone call, and stayed on the phone, leaving us hanging, waiting to finish our transaction. Again, maybe it's a staffing issue, but hey, finish with the customer that is in front of you, PAYING, before moving on to the person...

This place rocks. I went in about a year ago. They were pretty slow but the owner sat me down and took my order. Sylvia was her name I believe. She's awesome. I am a gyro freak and have had them from about everywhere in the valley. These are the best. They are huge and if remember correctly, I got fries, hummus, a giant gyro , and a drink for about $6.50. I took my parents there a few nights later. They both loved it and my mom doesnt really do Greek. Sylvia recommended some homemade garlic sauce to add to the gyro along with the traditional cucumber sauce. I must say, it was totally radical dude. I decided to review today because I remembered the high quality of service, the friendly staff, the large portions, and the quality of their food. They took pride in the food they served. If there was a picture of their food on the menu (like mcdonalds) it would come out on your plate looking like the one on the menu (unlike mcdonalds). The only thing I didn't care for was the hummus. It was kind of bland with just olive oil drizzled over. I like a roasted red pepper, or garlic, or along those lines type of flavored hummus. I'm going there today to grab one of these slices of gyros heaven. I hope their quality, quantity, and service are the same as I received before, both times.

Awesome job Phoenicia Cafe! Thanks for taking pride in what you do. It shows!

Update: Took a friend here last week to pay him back for helping me move. Still the same owner, and still delicious! I...