Holy Land — Restaurant in Minneapolis

I have been going to Holy Restaurant for more than a decade. I like the restaurant but looks like things are going for worst now. Before you could order a rotisserie or any meal and get 2 or more sauce portion cups with it as needed. Then they started giving one sauce cup with the meal charging for additional sauce cups. I was ok with it considering all the inflation going on these days.

Apart from this the restaurant use to serve complimentary tea in a thermos on tables (similar to red lobster serving biscuits) after the meal, which was really appreciated. We always requested paper cups instead of the plastic hard washable cups they provided as we didn’t feel comfortable to pour hot tea in those plastic cups. Lately, they started pushing back on paper cups and saying the tea itself they are giving complimentary but should have been charged and they said if we like paper cups we would have to pay for it. Considering inflation I was ok for paying for empty paper cup. I was expecting the charge for an empty cup would be reasonable, but the daughter for the owner was asking for $1.50 per empty cup, which I felt was ridiculous. I told her I can pay like 25 cents for empty cup but she won’t agree.

First of all, if they don’t want to give the tea complimentary they should be consistent and not give complimentary every time and NOT show as if they are doing favor to me. No one requested them to give free tea, if they like to charge for tea then they should be consistent and charge for every one, every time for tea. And if they want to continue giving complimentary tea, then should charge a reasonable rate for paper cup for people who like to use paper cups.

Looks like the daughter of owner is more money focussed and I doubt how this restaurant will fare in future.

The rest of the staff is friendly and reasonable, but I think the daughter of owner should take some business management lessons and be reasonable in order to run the business...

Holy Land, we need to talk.

I wanted to love this. I tried to love this. I ordered the lamb kabobs, which looked promising, but they pulled a classic catfish move. The flavor? Interesting. The texture? Not so much. The lamb cubes were so small they basically turned into well-done, seasoned pebbles. Honestly, it feels like they’re betting everything on the seasoning, hoping no one would notice the lamb got sent to the Sahara and left there to dry.

The rice? Can’t really mess that up. Solid. Respectable. Rice did its job.

But then—oh, then—we arrive at the salads. Sweet. Greek. Salad. I have questions. Existential ones. Since when is a Greek salad supposed to taste like someone sprinkled it with table sugar and wished it good luck? It’s supposed to have a fun, zippy grab-your-palate vibe, not a “hey, I’m prepping for dessert” energy.

And the side salad? A lonely little pile of hot, diced cucumbers and tomatoes with no dressing, no seasoning, no will to live. To make matters worse, both salads were packed on top of the steaming hot food, so by the time they arrived, the shredded lettuce had fully surrendered. Warm salad is not the plot twist I signed up for.

Also? No plastic ware. I guess they expected me to eat it with the sheer force of my disappointment.

If you’re looking for authentic Greek? This ain't it. It’s giving Tex-Mex, but for Greek—you know, technically recognizable but deeply off in ways you can’t un-taste.

Big pass for...

I was craving a gyro sandwich all day. I decided to go to Holy Land because it was nearby. 5 years previously I had ordered a gyro sandwich from here and it was pretty good. Anyway, I received my sandwich and opened it in my car and was disappointed to see little chopped up pieces of meat that definitely did not appear to be lamb -NONE AT ALL!!! Instead, I received fatty chopped up pieces of beef that looked like it came from the fat portion of a cow. The meat was not lean at all !!! It was fatty. I could actually taste the pieces of fat in my mouth... Additionally, they did not use pita bread like they ARE SUPPOSED TO!!! The meat was actually wrapped in a thin (really really extremely thin) piece of bread that was thinner than what a person could roll dough out with a rolling pin. The lettuce was soggy and there was absolutely no onions!! The meat was not even seasoned. I am serious! I'm writing this because when I came here 5 years ago I received a pretty decent gyro. This gyro was pathetic. I am never eating at this place ever again. I am really sad to say this because I actually like their supermarket and the Middle Eastern foods that they have to offer in the grocery store..... But OMG, their gyro sandwiches definitely need major, major...