Doner Corner — Restaurant in Los Angeles

IF YOU WANT TO GO HERE THIS IS THE REVIEW YOU NEED. CAUSE WE ORDERED ALMOST MOST OF THE FOODS. As a Turkish person too, the only reason this restaurant has good reviews is because of all the Turkish people. The İskender was so mid. I would rather get that money and go to a nice vacation in Turkey and eat actual food. Just because it’s middle eastern it doesn’t make it authentic. When you go there most of their things are already sold out. Their döner which should be easy it is just lavash bread, meat and French fries but it took almost at the end of our dinner to arrive and is also the driest thing I’ve eaten ever. No sauce what so ever. Their lahmacun is also mid I’d just rather get frozen ones from any Turkish market. Their cigkofte is very watery and just doesn’t have a good consistency. And don’t get me started on service. They kept forgetting what we ordered until we reminded them multiple times for multiple orders. Oh did I mention you have to go up and order yourself but they still manage to be so slow. Any time we wanted to order something they always made us wait. We had to wait to order even when we had a reservation. There was only one person working as a server while there was a bunch of men not doing anything. It’s so expensive for a bad meal. They’re very, extremely disorganized, the place is extremely small to be able to function. The kitchen is pretty much one with the eating area and the only ones that have a uniform are the ones actively cooking. Rest of the staff (no offense) doesn’t seem useful other than chatting up the Turkish customers. The only person that was actively working was the guy working at the counter doing everything. The staff wasn’t wearing a uniform. Even a plain black tshirt would have worked in order to tell the staff apart from people but no. Something else I didn’t like which I know isn’t in the hand of the owners but still annoyed me was the amount of families bringing untamed kids. The kids sitting behind me were constantly crying and trying to cut the table with the knives. The other kid was constantly touching me and grabbing at me. This could be easily solved with reconsidering the seating arrangement to be less cramped. Overall I want to support Turkish businesses but there are just too many things to consider when coming to this place living 45 minutes away. And one thing I’m considering is not coming again because of all the complaints left...

I really hate leaving less than great reviews for small businesses but my experience here left a lot to be desired.

I love Turkish food and have had great hospitality at other places but immediately felt the service here to be negligent at best. The cashier didn’t greet me or ask me what I wanted. Just curtly said let me know when you’re ready to order as he turned his back to me. I take a seat and my food takes over 20 minutes and it comes without utensils and they don’t ask if I need anything else like ketchup for my fries even though every other table has a bottle. Keep in mind this is after the lunch rush so they weren’t busy. A little bit of hospitality goes a long way and they just lacked any of it today and also have the nerve to ask for a tip on the iPad.

Food wise, I paid $18 after taxes and before tip for a sandwich and fries. You can’t really tell from the photo but the fries were super greasy, limp, unseasoned, and not even warm which is confusing because I don’t know how you get that combination. Usually deep fried = crispy. I might have eaten more of them because I was so hungry but every time I picked one up my hands were covered with oil and again I wasn’t offered any utensils.

The sandwich itself was decently sized. The bread was ok but didn’t really taste like anything. The meat was under seasoned and also greasy. That said, the biggest issue with the sandwich though is that it was dry which is mind boggling with greasy meat. There’s nothing but onions and meat in the sandwich. Nothing else. No pickles, no lettuce/tomato, and no sauce which it badly needed - some sort of yogurt or tahini sauce would’ve made it much better. If they had sauces they definitely didn’t offer it or come by to see if I needed anything.

I’m suspicious at all the 5 star reviews for this place because there’s no way with the service and...

What is the key to a successful, long-lasting business? Repeat customers.

Unfortunately, too many businesses take shortcuts (i.e. using the cheapest ingredients) while prioritizing short term profits over long-term customer satisfaction.

We discovered that despite their potential, Doner Corner is one of these establishments.

For dinner, we ordered over $80 worth of food: lahmacun, doner plate, meat and cheese pide, and babaganoush.

I ate one piece of meat from the doner plate, and the strange aftertaste made me not want anymore. The fries were also the most sad-looking fries I have ever seen, pale and limp and utterly tasteless - so much so that even my potato-loving child did not eat them.

The babaganoush tasted like they dumped premade babaganoush into a plastic container. Nothing fresh or homemade about it. Again, shortcuts.

The lahmacun was the only semi-decent thing, and that was because there was parsley, onion and lemon to mask any culinary mediocrity.

The worst of all was the meat and cheese pide. It was shockingly bad. How do you get bread, cheese and meat wrong? That combination should be decent by default. But it tasted so bad that neither my husband nor I could finish it.

I understand that it’s nice to have friends support new establishments by writing positive reviews, but I felt there needed to be a real, honest review to keep you from wasting your money on food that is so unpalatable that we had to throw most of it away.

My advice? Taste the food you make. Make sure that you would order it again if you were a customer. If not, it’s unethical in my opinion to keep letting people...