bellagreen — Restaurant in Houston

Location: Located in city centre. You would have to park in the garage and then walk to the restaurant. It's across from Reg Mango and the fountain. The place was really crowded when I came for lunch on a Tuesday. It's a suitable place to have lunch, brunch, or a cute date. It's a self-served restaurant. Did not expect that but I guess that's good since you can just go get everything yourself without waiting for the waiter.

Service: You order first and they give you a buzzer and a cup. Then you can take it to your table. They have tables outside and Ruggles is right in front of the fountain so it's a nice view. Make sure to grab napkins and silverware after you ordered. They have all kinds of sauce from ketchup, mustard, salsas, etc. They have plenty so you can just grab a bottle and take it to your table. They also have beverages from sodas, water, and tea that you can choose from. No limits on the refill since you do it yourself.

The food came out pretty fast. I ordered a medium rare buffalo burger with Swiss cheese and sweet potato fries came with it. My burger was juicy and cooked just right. It had all sorts of veggies. The sweet potato fries were really good. You can also choose regular fries if you want but I would recommend the sweet potato fries.

The prices were affordable and worth the quantity and the quality of the food. Can't say much for the service since it's self-served. The only thing the waiter did was bring the food. So I did not know if I should tip or not since if you paid with card then you can give a tip but that's difficult since I didn't even get any...

Located in the busy area of City Center, the restaurant is always crowded. There are plenty of seatings inside and at the patio. There is free garage parking at higher levels. There is also valet parking or paid parking on the ground level garage. Paid street parking is also available.

My family came here for lunch. We had the kids pasta, kids chicken tenders, white chicken parm pasta, super crab cakes, and white chocolate bread pudding. Kids meals come with a side of French fries, sweet potato fries, quinoa salad or fruit cup. The meals also include fountain drink, juice or milk. The kids meals were of decent portions, and everything was good. The chicken in the white chicken parm pasta wasn’t tender. The pasta was tasteless too. The spaghetti was cut up into short strands too which made it hard to eat using a fork. The crab cakes were ok. They were cooked right but needed a little more seasoning. The slaw was delicious though. The white chocolate bread pudding was good. The custard was smooth and of the right sweetness. The ice cream on the top was a great addition. Overall, the dish was a delight.

There is no wait staff in the restaurant. Customers have to wait in line to order their food. After ordering, customers will get a number tag then proceed to find a table. The food would be served to the table but customers have to get drinks from the drink dispenser which is next to the cutlery.

I would go back to...

ZERO stars. This spot & its team do not meet basic hygiene or hospitality for 2024. Honestly, IDK how “real” the rave reviews by people with scanty review history are either. PLEASE read lowest reviews on here! Wish I had.

With things like Apeel everywhere on produce these days, I choose to decrease eating out. So, with the following points on TOP of the fact that we do not know what’s in our food, why waste time, money, energy, resources on such a place??? 🙂‍↔️

SERVICE: Placed order. Noticed folks who walked in after me received their pick up orders 20 minutes into my wait. Ok, maybe they ordered ahead of time.

It took 20+ mins for my dine-in order to arrive. After a waiter finally noticed I was staring at the cashier/serving area. I was so about to ask for a full refund.

ATMOSPHERE & HYGIENE: It seriously looks like this restaurant is in dire need of a regular, daily (?) clean up (restrooms, water all over restroom area floors, a soaking wet (?) carpet in front of drink station, the smell of urine (??) or something nasty in front of drinks area, obvious moldy air conditioning, hot/humid temp inside, etc.

Which brings me to wonder how clean utensils, kitchen, drinks, food prep truly is?

Come on, City Centre. You can do better than this. Seems like 1 by 1, food establishments are getting worse day by day. This is the 2nd experience in less than a...