Happy Falafel — Restaurant in Joliet

Sad Falafel and even sadder customer service. We were so excited to try this place! We have been driving all the way to Tinley Park, to the Tinley Market, to buy fresh falafel, hummus, and pita. Unfortunately, we were extraordinarily unimpressed by the food and customer service at Happy Falafel. I don't know where to begin with this, so I'm going to go in chronological order. My husband went into the restaurant to order takeout. When he came home, he immediately noticed that they did not include the French fries we paid for. We then noticed that two of the orders did not include the Arab salad that they were supposed to come with, according to the menu. Instead, those orders came with a mushy tzatziki sauce like substance. When a restaurant fails to provide you with an order of fries and two salads, they are either extremely disorganized or they are doing it on purpose, to try to increase their profit margin. Therefore, this place is either careless or criminal. When we sat down to eat our meals, we were each disappointed in our entrees. My daughter and I got the Falafel rice bowl, and the rice was dry and very one note. It just tasted lemony. The Falafel was the texture of a donut hole from Dunkin Donuts. The hummus tasted like paste, and the pita was bland. As far as the chicken shawarma, the taste was on point, but a few of the pieces were so dry, someone could've easily choked or broken a tooth on it. My husband ordered the chicken kabob, and it was nothing more than shaved chicken pieces. We ended up throwing a lot of the food...

The food is good and a nice change to the normal middle eastern offerings in the Chicagoland area. The hummus has sumac and a pickled vegetable but way to much oil and I had to pour off approximately 1/4 cup on the large portion! The lamb/gyro meat was decently toasted and authenticity spiced but a touch fatty; although not to a fault. Both kinds of chicken were great, kafta was also great and had slightly different seasoning and was nice. Tumeric rice was perfect. There was also a really nice salad on the combo plate that I actually ate for a change. The falafel were very crispy and stayed crispy on the 25 minute ride home and had a perfect flavor. They give you plenty of pita bread (I believe 6-8 halves) and I won't be left with hummus and no pita (looking at you Pita Zone and your 2 halves for a large order!). I received 2 tahini sauces, 1 garlic mayonnaise sauce but surprisingly no red hotter sauce like normal.

There are places to sit and eat but it's the typical strip mall store front with a counter for ordering and sitting down to eat.

The downside is that it's quite expensive. For a combo meat dish it was $22, hummus $10, 6 piece falafel $4.50 which came out to $40.03 for 1 person! Yikes, that's quite the premium price for what I normally get.

Overall it was good tasting food and good quality with unique spices and flavors so it was good to have but the value is a bit lower than I am used to with other equivalent or even slightly better tasting middle...

Gave 3 x chance. The day of opening we were first 20 customer s that they served, it was good food-not excellent but good enough to save 1/2 hr drive to Aurora (pitaville btw they have excellent food). Then couple days later I did order all my family to go meal and let me tell you I haven't seen food swimming in mayonnaise as bad as it was that day. Vegetarian platter was so so it sure looks more appealing when one eats at a restaurant but to go box was terrible. But once again I thought they were just to busy and not ready to handle the traffic So here comes the 3rd visit. Decided to eat at a place couple weeks after opening, picked out the time to make sure it won't be crowded, and it was not .. let's start with chicken shawarma - it was so terrible I could not even eat half of it , bunch of mayonnaise and even after when I asked them to remake it I am not sure why instead of not adding anything I got some pickle relish in it (gross) Kefta was unseasoned and just dry nothing to it at all Falafels I think so someone forgot if they put pepper in it while it was prepaid so they added more pepper. Tahini sauce don't get any unless you pay extra and then little to go cup filled just half way... vegetarian plate is so sad , it seems like the only thing they are not stingy is that garlic mayonnaise 🤣🤣🤣 I feel like the only time they served any decent food it was day of the opening after that it was just...