Layalina Restaurant & Lounge — Restaurant in Glendale

Food is excellent and service was pretty good. Very strange vibe however. Entered on a Saturday to an empty restaurant except the group of friends (party) that I was going to. Upon walking in the lighting totally killed the vibe! Way too bright for an evening dinner and the color temperature (5000K) of their dining room lighting is literally the worst possible selection. Walking into the space felt like I was walking into a bright kitchen or workshop with that bright blueish lighting. They do have dimmers which we asked to turn down which helped a ton… but that lasted 10 mins before someone cranked them back to full. Advice: set the atmosphere by at least dimming the lighting in the evenings! Better yet, change the fixtures to a warmer color temperature around 2600-3000k! They seem to be struggling and I guarantee this is a part of customers not feeling welcomed in a warm restaurant environment. Also the music was being steamed, sometimes from peoples personal devices. This meant that commercials would come on, music would randomly stop, levels were all over the place. Don’t allow your customers to connect and play their own music! Even if you feel you’re making that customer happy, it will impact all the others. Best to focus on what makes most happy instead of just one party.

Food however was excellent!! Highly recommend the food. Flavors are amazing and meats were tender. You have an excellent food offering but need to work on the atmosphere for customers to want to return. Service staff was very friendly, even in dealing with rude and demanding customers that didn’t...

I am not sure who the new owners of this place are, but they are horrific. 2 of my friends and I walked in to the restaurant tonight and were waiting patiently to be seated. We waited for about 5 minutes and nobody was there to seat us, so we figured maybe because it’s so late (12 am) it’s open seating. We proceeded to look for a table and hear a short man with glasses say “hey hey you, what are you doing this is a private event”? We told the short man we didn’t know it was a private event and apologized for walking in but nobody was helping us so we thought it was open seating, he then said “you can’t just sit” we told him ya, we understand. We’re not sitting? We asked if we were able to purchase tickets for the “private event” (which mind you the venue was half empty and nobody was singing” he said “it’s $20 a person”, we were talking amongst ourselves deciding if we wanted to stay because it was so late and the short man said “are you staying or leaving” EXTREMELY aggressively. We said “we’re trying to figure that out but the way you’re talking makes us not want to stay”, the short man then said “okay bye” and walked away? Extremely rude and unprofessional? I have never in my life received such awful service. He didn’t even give us a minute to decide if we wanted to stay. As someone who frequently would come to this restaurant, I will no longer be going (nor will my two friends who were with me) and we will make sure our families do not support this establishment as well. Please work on hiring better staff who know how to talk to customers with respect,...

If you’re a true Iraqi/Arab, then read my review— Bottom line: Moonlight is not the best place to go to for Iraqi/Arab food in Arizona, and the service is subpar. I visited almost all the Iraqi/Arab restaurants & markets in Arizona (travelled from a different state). Moonlight landed towards the bottom of my list because of the dry meat and weak quality of service, especially if they have some singer that won’t sing until after midnight (but you still have to pay a non-optional $20/person even if you leave before the party starts. The food just isn’t good. The next day, I went to Caroun restaurant, which although they were also hosting a party, the service people welcomed us warmly and offered us to sit in a non-party section and proceeded to take just as good care of us as the people in the party section. Also, the overall aesthetic of Caroun is just so Iraqi and wonderful, with a bread oven outside and a cute fountain of pots with calming running water inside. Caroun did better than Moonlight any day, any time (and I don’t work for Caroun, this is just an honest review for Iraqis like me). Finally, Caroun sells Pepsi and Mishin (the Iraqi version of Crush soda), and they have real Iraqi bread unlike Moonlight, so you know Caroun is the genuine Iraqi and Moonlight is the imposter (that’s just facts, not...