Honest Indian Vegetarian Restaurant — Restaurant in Jacksonville

Absolutely ridiculous place. You won’t receive some of the basic customer etiquette and hospitality in this place. The person who claims to be the manager of this restaurant doesn’t have any skills in the hospitality and restaurant industry. Her name seems to be Falguni (if I am not wrong).

Issue 1:

Since they started this place in Jax, I have been a regular customer for them. Due to my lack of cooking skills and foodie instincts, I visited them atleast 3 to 4 times a week, if not more, since their opening.

I moved to Jax from Atlanta at the beginning of this year and I knew Honest Restaurant from my time in Atlanta. The Honest restaurant in Atlanta is great, and their food is of good quality as well. Their customer service skills are exceptional in Atlanta. I give credit to the manager of that place in Atlanta and the way he runs it like a family. I had similar expectations from those people in Jax.

On July 17th, I came to this place and ordered a Paneer chilli dry item. Instead of me receiving a paneer chilli dry item, I received a paneer chilli gravy. By the time I tried to call them, the restaurant was closed on July 17th. I called them the next day and the person who answered the phone call told me to come to the restaurant and get another item as a replacement. He also asked me to pay any difference in price for the new item. Actually, that statement itself was ridiculous as far as I am concerned. Any restaurant that makes a mistake on their end will refund the entire amount of the order and also, as a courtesy for causing inconvenience to the customer, they will also offer a new dish to the customer.

I went to the restaurant and paid the difference in amount for the new dish. As I was waiting for the dish to arrive, a lady who claimed to be the manager of this place came to me and started talking rudely by asking me whether I had the dish which I took yesterday. Who asks that kind of question ? Someone with such an attitude shouldn’t even run a restaurant business, in my opinion.

She then falsely claims that the paneer chilli gravy I got the day before is indeed a paneer chilli dry item. I showed them the picture of the dish along with the receipt. I am posting them below for your reference.  The boy at the counter seemed to be more matured than the manager. He was talking like a gentleman to try to resolve the issue, whereas the manager was arguing with me in an absconding manner.

Issue 2:

In my very first experience at this place, they missed an item in my take-out order. I went to their soft launch on the first day. I ordered a Veg Manchurian with gravy and Veg fried rice. After going home, I noticed there was a missing item of Veg Manchurian with gravy.

Issue 3:

I went with my parents and friends to this place in the second week of July. My friend who ordered Rava dosa received hair in it.

After I posted my Google review here showing my displeasure at their repeated mistakes, they called me and tried to bribe me by saying that they would refund the order amount for issue 1 (paneer chili dry) if I removed my Google review here. What kind of ethics are these ? Can a business owner ask a customer to do such a thing ?

Summary:

Be careful and watchful if you are planning to go to this place with your kids and family. There is a high chance of you getting embarrassed in front of your friends and family by their rude and illiterate behavior. There are also high chances of you getting incorrect dishes in your take-out orders, and sometimes you may also see a hair particle in your dish of order. Don’t be surprised if you see one! So please keep your extra eyes on it if you are thinking about going to this place. All the best to my fellow Jacksonville food enthusiasts and...

HONEST AND DISAPPOINTING - REVIEW

This is the first time we visited this restaurant. We were passing by Jacksonville as we live in Orlando and was excited to try Indian food in JAX. But we had an extremely disappointing experience. We initially ordered Chole Bhature, Chill garlic noodles, Baby corn manchurian. They gave us poori chole and the manager (i think) himself mentioned that this was not Bhature and would bring out one, we felt happy with their kind gesture. I tasted the garlic noodles and it was very bitter’ish somehow and tasted burnt. We mentioned that to the Manager and that’s when we got to know that the head chef wasn’t there as he was sick and some new chef is making us the food. He replaced the garlic noodles with schezwan noodles as requested, after he particularly mentioned that the new guy is a little inexperienced. We were skeptical but trusted the Manager. In the meanwhile, the bhature has arrived and it was very oily and burnt as you see in the picture, on a funny note, looking at that itself made my heart burn. As you see in the picture, my husband didn’t eat and as he was hungry, he simply ate the poori (felt like it had made from very much reused oil). The baby corn tasted nice which was a saviour for the night (made by manager’s wife). And the schezwan noodles came, it was a horrible experience as soon as eating it. Somehow it felt like the previous burnt flavored garlic noodles was better. It tasted like some dough filled with low quality tasting schezwan curry. As you see in the picture, we left both the noodles as is. They have been kind and didn’t charge us for noodles and charged for Bhature and bby corn, however, it is unfair to the customer to go through such terrible experience. At the end, the manager apologized multiple times and was also a bit rude in his way of asking me questions like how different is it from other restaurants (in a rude way though). It’s literally his job to figure it out and not mine. They asked if we wanted togo, but we left everything there as you see in the picture. I’m writing this on my way back home, stopped to get medication, and feeling heartburns, and my husband with vomitings due to food poisoning right after 15 minutes we stepped out of the restaurant. :’(

PS: Sorry for the long post. I generally don’t post any reviews at all and this is my first one. Only posting because no one should experience this bad, so low-quality and traumatic experience with food as we were very hungry and excited to try it out but ended up being extremely disappointed, unhappy and sick. They need to change the chef or it will eventually be a bad business for them.

One good thing - Thanks to Aayush who helped us with the service and has been very kind and...

This is sad and disappointing—AGAIN. This is not my first time at Honest, nor my first bad experience. I’m not even angry, just SO DISAPPOINTED in them.

Okay, so the first time I went to Honest was in October when my friend came over, and of course, we wanted chaat and pav bhaji that Honest is so famous for (at least in India). We ordered our food but were disappointed with the hygiene of the place. There were stains on the plates, and the glasses had marks on them. We wiped our plates ourselves. We ordered pav bhaji, and while we could taste/see the spice, there was absolutely no salt—like they forgot to put it in. There was salt on the table, so we just helped ourselves. Yes, we were disappointed, but we let it pass because whatever, it is what it is. Toward the end, as we were paying, one of the workers came in and asked for a review. We kept it smooth and polite, said yes, things were good—just a couple of things: hygiene and no salt. Their attitude immediately changed, and they started giving reasons about how they put less salt for health reasons. We said, we understand, but we didn’t give any prior notes on the spice level—we ordered regular Indian spice, so why wouldn’t you use “regular” salt? That was sad because my friend and I were really excited. Having an Indian restaurant in the U.S. is already a big deal, but then you go and disgrace it like this? And c’mon, hygiene and cleanliness issues? Are we for real? It’s not even a good look, representing our food or culture like this while being so abrasive about feedback. If you had just acknowledged it, we would’ve been fine.

Four months later—TODAY.

I was craving Indo-Chinese and decided to get takeout. No grudges from last time. I ordered veg fried rice with Manchurian. What do I get? Rice with Three half Manchurian balls. And you know what? I’ll let the quantity thing pass but I’M FRUSTRATED BECAUSE THERE IS NO SAUCE. I ordered this specifically as I read the description (check the screenshot)—it says "in tangy Manchurian sauce." And look at my meal!!! All my craving for Indo-Chinese is just blown away. Of course, I’m not going back to put this back on the table, so now I’m leaving a disappointed review...