The Charcoal Restaurant — Restaurant in Louisville

I never have a seamless experience at Charcoal. While the chicken is great to grab and go, the service from the entire staff is neither professional nor consistent/correct

During my first experience, the restuarant was packed with what appeared to be close friends of restuarant staff. Kids were screaming and running back and forth through entire establishment. The line to order was moving very slow - not because there were alot of people there, but because the cashier was multitasking between several tasks at once. That particular day I went with a friend and we ordered seperately. After we each ordered a plate of chicken + two sides, it took between 20-25 minutes to recieve our meals. And to be honest, we weren't served nicely. On way to delivering our food, the same individual who took the order walked up to us and while rolling her eyes said "which one on you ordered this." Rather than commenting on the situation, we decided to leave for the last thing we wanted was to listen to kids screaming or friends of the staff communicating in a less than peaceful manner or address the rude staff.

In hopes that my first experience was a fluke, I decided to give Charcoal another try. This particular day I arrived within 15 minutes of the restuarant opening. The place was very quiet but the service/experience again was not seamless. While the cashier (a different one from my first experience) was slightly more pleasant, she surely wasn't welcoming or happy. Within 10 minutes of ordering, the chef informed me that there was a mistake and what I order (half chicken - all white meat) was not what I was recieving (half chicken - white and dark meat). He said it would take a bit longer to get the correct order. To be honest - at that point in time - I had given up all hope and accepted the incorrect order as he made it.

To have back to back experiences go this badly over such a simple order is extremely annoying. I hope managament is able to...

TL:DR Awesome place. Great value, fantastic service. Highly recommended.

Decided on a whim to take the wife out for a quick bite after work. Typed "Best place to eat near me" into Google and Charcoal Restaurant was number one on the list (not the same zip). Decided to give it a go after reading some reviews. The wife read the reviews on the way there and got excited!

Once there we quickly ordered. Schawerma sandwich for her, schawerma plate for me, with the obligatory baba ganoush, naturally. Bonus 1: The wife didn't appreciate the baba ganoush. More for me!

The sandwich was crisp, the chicken tender, the sauce divine. First time in quite a while she's stayed quiet for more than 5 minutes... Bonus 2 ☺️

The schawerma plate was every bit the picture each review painted. Rice cooked to perfection, chicken schawerma grilled to perfection... Everything just في احسن الاحوال (perfect).

We finally opted to share the cheesecake. Good job too, we could barely finish the main! Oh My Word! Just wow! (Bonus 3: Guess who didn't like it? 😂). The cheesecake base was light and melted readily in the mouth. The baklava essence, the pastry base and toffee-nut topping, were in wonderful harmony. I definitely couldn't eat a whole piece, no room in the belly...

I was wrong. Hello fat pants!

Charcoal Restaurant is highly recommended. It's a refreshingly quaint, clean, well presented establishment; the staff are extra friendly, the food is extra tasty. If I could give this review extra stars it would most definitely be 6/5.

We...

I was really excited to try this restaurant after reading the raving reviews online. Visiting from out of state I was shocked at how bad the service was and how dirty the restaurant was. Since we were traveling, and it was pouring rain outside, we had no choice but to dine in. The tables were so covered in food and grease/oil it looked like they hadn’t been cleaned all day. Just to be clear, we never complained about this and just tried to make the best of the situation as there were limited seats and no clean spots. The staff members rolled their eyes at us for asking a question, made sarcastic comments and were not friendly at all. It was a terribly uncomfortable experience. I’ve eaten at so many similar restaurants across the country and have always had amazingly friendly staff and great service, so this place was quite a let down. I would say they were just having an off day after reading other reviews, but the customer service was honestly so bad I just can’t imagine them ever being friendly to anyone. I definitely won’t ever be returning. The food was good though, just maybe...