NAYA — Restaurant in Jersey City

Visiting here as a part of Yelp Elite event, the newly opened restaurant in downtown Jersey city didn't disappoint. The restaurant has a great location by the river front and one can enjoy the meal.

The staff is really friendly and the restaurant has a good ambiance too! The ingredients used at this chain are fresh and as staff mentioned they get in fresh ingredients everyday and throw out the leftovers at night. One thing that I liked about them is that the restaurant is undergoing procedures with the Jersey city council to donate the leftovers to the homeless, I hope the process is quickly done so that the needy are fed well!

Coming over to the food, I ordered a bowl where I went for half white and half brown rice. The rice was more on the crunchy side and I think they can do better in terms of cooking the rice and as protein, I went ahead with chicken shawarma and chicken kebab. The shawarma was well seasoned and tasty but the kebab can be better as the chicken felt a bit dry. I also had one falafel, the crust was crispy while the fillings were really soft. This is probably one of the better falafels I have ever had. It was also accompanied by tomatoes, cucumber and onions which were thinly sliced/diced. The bowl had tzatziki sauce and hummus on the side and topped with tahini sauce. Pita bread on the side was soft as well!

For the appetizers, the restaurant messed up the order a bit as instead of sambusik, they ended up giving me kibbe which is a fried dumpling with minced beef along with pumpkin kibbe. Both of them were good though but wish the pumpkin one had less spinach in it as it felt more of a spinach kibbe than pumpkin.

I had semolina cake for dessert, the cake was really good as I could feel the taste of clarified butter, coconut, almonds. Luckily, it's not as sweet as I expected.

Overall a great experience, providing a good competition to fellow Mediterranean chain called Cava, especially in terms of providing appetizers. I would love to...

The food here is great, how ever the staff is very quick to rush you through the line without getting a chance to ask questions. It was 2pm on a Friday afternoon. The place was not busy. While I was there the manager barked at employees which made the line of customers waiting uncomfortable I asked for a napkin and was treated as if I couldn’t find them on my own, instead of acknowledging that I needed one! Instead of getting me a napkin the manager left and went to bark at the employee who’s responsibility it was. food as always was great, but if you only like a few of the ingredients you are not getting much food! Barking managers at employees make for a very uncomfortable environment. Will make sure I only order take out and order every topping possible, otherwise I wind up...

Great food but first class service. The manager Matthew is one of a kind in terms of his focus on customer experience and service. I order a lot from this store and if there is ever an issue or question he is beyond professional and goes above and beyond to ensure he addresses any issue even if it is an issue with the delivery driver and not store related. This level of care is unfortunately extremely rare these days and Naya should clone Matthew or promote him to lead multiple store operations. My Dad worked in a senior position within the food service industry and I once watched him offer the manager of a KFC a corporate job when we were impressed by his professionalism. I know my Dad would do the same if he...