M by MOKAFÉ — Restaurant in Jersey City

Asthetically pleasing, neat restaurant/cafe with good food, friendly servers but not so good service. We went for brunch last Saturday. Parking: Finding parking was a mission. After around 20 minutes parking hunt finally we parked in a garage.

Overall look: Exterior doesn't look that appealing, but the interior is lush. They have extra seating available for ppl waiting to be seated. modern green, gold interior decor has soothing vibes. Washrooms were moderately clean with muslim shower.

Seating process: There was a 30 mins wait time to get seated as it was jam-packed. Loved their waiting/lineup system. Where they take your name and put you on an electronic list which you can watch via a link shared by them. We got seated in around 20 minutes.

Food serving: Staff was energetic and friendly. We got a table right across the kitchen window. We ordered:

Lavender lemonade Mango juice Pistachio latte Mint tea Pistachio Tres leches cake Hummus Turkey BLAT Sandwich Harrisa wings Sunny side up burger Chipotle burger

Here is the thing I really didn't like and understood. You are seating your guests, giving them full service (server bringing foid to you) in proper high-end cutlery then why server is not serving the food in right sequence? This was our first time to get dessert as the 1st item. Then the drinks in next 15mins. Serving cold drinks are okay but Mint tea before food? Then the food started coming out after another 20mins. The server brought out hummus and both burgers, I could see Turkey BLAT waiting on kitchen counter to be served with so many servers actively moving around their kitchen window but it took the server another 10mins to serve Turkey BLAT along Harrisa wings. The sequence of serving the food turned off our appetite, the whole experience went from exciting, enjoyable to more of a compromise. Usually, restaurants serve appetizer first, getting hummus 1st would have been good along wings, then burgers along cold drinks and then cake with mint tea. Server didn't ask if we want to start with dessert, one guy just slide it on our table as it's pre-packed bakery item. Food Quality: all burgers are served with huge portion of fries. All burgers tasted well, fries were well fried, crispy. Turkey BLAT was just okay, 2 turkey bacon with lettuce, 2 tomatoes on a croissant for $17 tasted just okay. They compromised the price by giving huge fries portion. Hummus was creamy and served with fresh, hot pitas, loved it! Harrisa wings was not that good as it's literally coated with harrisa powder paste. They should work on the coating, atleast make a sauce out of it before coating. Drinks were good overall. Lavender lemonade was pretty to look at and good in taste too. Cake was so so. Qawah house pistachio latte is way better then theirs. Mango juice wasn't fresh felt more like chaunsa nestle juice. Mint tea was okay

Halal Certification: I know Mokafe has been advertised as halal cafe but confirming it was very hard, no visible sign on premises (correct me if I am wrong), no proper mention on their social media handles, no mention on their website, website only mentions that they donate to Gaza. We asked the server that there is no sign so to confirm if they are serving halal meat she said it's Palestinian, Lebanese restaurant so yes it's halal. If you go through insta post under 1 burger post it mentioned "our halal burgers". I request all halal restaurants to atleast mention it on your social media clearly if you are serving halal meat. Note: loved the maps of Palestin and Lebanon on server shirt's sleeves.

Overall asthetically pleasing, more on expensive side, verbally confirmed halal good quality food, they should work on their food serving strategy. Hummus was star of the show. My son loved his Lavender drink as it was asthetically...

My partner and I live very close by and were quite excited to try out this new addition to the neighborhood. Overall experience I’d rate a 2.5 stars to be more specific but google doesn’t allow. We’re also not very picky diners but are people who would like to have experience match up to the price point we’re paying at.

First thing is that as a rule of thumb water and utensils should be set up immediately after customer is sat at the table, there should be no reason why water and utensils need to be asked 3+ times and wasn’t brought until after food has been sitting on the table getting cold. It makes absolutely no sense that the kitchen has faster service than the wait staff. It is okay to slow the service down as long as the order of operation here is being taken care of and prioritized. Needless to say either the wait staff need more training, or need more experienced wait staff (all wait staff was clearly inexperienced). As great as the atmosphere was, it is useless with a not great service.

Second let’s get into the food. We ordered from the brunch menu and I had an egg sandwich that was burnt on one side of the toasted bread. Bread itself was also too thick taking away from the egg filling. I’m saying this all in comparison to the price point it comes at, a $17 dollar egg sandwich should have a higher standard of bread/protein proportion and quality of food. I also had a Matcha latte which I thought again not worth the price it sits at, the matcha just was not prominent enough and tasted very watery. Obviously I can’t speak on the many other items on the menu but if the overall quality is like this, menu price needs to be adjusted or establishment standards for food and service needs to be raised for current pricing.

Overall, I think the most impactful was the wait staff experience. Just very inexperienced and running around unorganized getting distracted...

Terrible first experience. Long story short, terrible food, terrible service. I usually never leave reviews but this one I had to so others don't go through the same. Nice big place with decent atmosphere and interior.

Me and my gf was really looking forward to try this place after finding this place through IG and really had our hopes up.

When we arrived, place was pretty packed. No one greeted, no one was there at the front to guide us to get a table. There's really no place to sit and wait. We were just standing around and found a sit next to restroom as we waited. There were few tables being freed up but it took them forever to clean up. A waitress offered us sit at the bar. Took another 45 mins to get our food.

We ordered ceasar salad, burrata salad, chipotle burger and egg burger. We got honey chai coffee that was so sweet I didn't even touch it after first sip. I was surprised that they brought all the food together even when I asked if we can start with salad. Salads were ok, rest were not worth the money. First, we received dirty utensils which can happen i guess. I kept asking waitor if we can get a table since there were so many tables freed up. We didn't get help because it seems like there was a little fight between the waitor and waitress. It was pretty uncomfortable to eat at the bar while this was going on and food being mediocre/terrible didn't help. At this point, I just wanted to eat my food and get out. I asked for check. 18% gratuity was included already. I wish I could have not given any tip. I've lived in JC over 20 years and been to many cafes in downtown jc. This by far the worst. I will do my best to let everyone I know to stay away from this place. Yuck

PS : the kitchen is next to bar and ppl didn't have mask/hairnet on which is pretty gross. Some had long braids so it looked...