Antika Grill — Restaurant in Montclair

-NOT GLUTEN FREE/DOES NOT TAKE GLUTEN ALLERGY (celiac disease) SERIOUSLY! WILL FOOD POISON YOU! -TERRIBLE ENVIRONMENT/ATMOSPHERE -WILL NOT REFUND DEPOSIT SO BILL COULD BE PAID AT RESTAURANT ON ANOTHER CARD Absolutely terrible music… went here on a Tuesday night for my birthday and could not BELIEVE the inappropriate music they were playing “my neck, my back, lick my p*issy and my crack” was on FULL BLAST while I was having dinner with family. Forget even ATTEMPTING to speak to anyone at your table because of how loud the music was. Mind you, there were only 2-3 other seated tables in the restaurant so this was NOT the appropriate environment to be BLASTING distasteful music. There’s obviously a time and a place for this, and this was NOT it. That’s just the beginning. They advertise as having a “gluten free menu” which is why I chose this place for my birthday dinner (I have celiac disease and take this VERY seriously). When I inquired further at the restaurant, they let me know that all of their “gluten free” food was fried in the same fryer as everything else!!!! This would have gotten me SO sick if I didn’t ask! Someone else at my table ordered a Fatoosh salad with NO BREAD because they also eat a gluten free diet due to celiac, and it came with bread. They “remade” the salad and brought it back within a minute, pretty obvious they just took the bread off and brought it back. NOT OKAY for someone who would get sick from cross contamination!!!! They also required a $150 deposit for the reservation. When the check came, my brother wanted to pay for the bill so he asked them to refund the $150 to me since I had made the reservation, and they refused to do so. Could not believe this place. Would NOT recommend and will DEFINITELY never go back, will also MAKE SURE all of my friends/family/acquaintances know of this terrible experience. DO BETTER!!!!!! Especially offering a “gluten free” menu, KNOWING you are going to get people sick! Terrible. The star I gave is because the people who could get non-gluten free food said it was pretty good but still said they would never go back because of the atmosphere and lack of attentiveness to dietary restrictions. I ended up having to eat only a salad for my birthday dinner, pretty upsetting. Seriously Antika,...

I usually enjoy visiting this establishment when I visit home mainly because of the food & vibe. I decided to go this evening and called ahead to make a reservation which I normally do. Tonight I was told there were 2 tables left and I’d have to pay a $100 deposit to reserve the table that would go towards our bill. I was instructed to cash app or Zelle the payment. Once I made the payment I called the number back to confirm the table and receipt of payment. The lady said it was received and table confirmed, I reserved the table for 5 but 4 actually seated.. the other 2 guest arrived a few mins later - by this time we had ordered 1 hookah, 1 chicken pasta, and 1 pitcher of lemonade. When they were seated the waiter told the 2 of them they had a $35 minimum per person to meet which started some confusion. I questioned why but didn’t quite understand so I followed up with the manager or owner. He explained that there is either a $55 entry fee off the top per person or you can order food/hookah to bring your tab to atleast $220 minimum based on the number of people in your party. While this is fine - if this is their new policy … that should’ve been communicated when booking because the entire party had no desire to eat. And had we been given the option of the table order min and/or the entry fee when I initially called we likely would’ve opted out and went somewhere else for the evening. But atleast we would’ve been privy to this info because like I mentioned - this is my 3-4 time going on a Friday/Saturday and I’ve never paid a deposit for a table nor heard of an entry fee. They just need to be upfront with all fees and service charges to allow patrons to make better informed decisions. Of course if management responds they will say “well we have other guest who are satisfied and you should return to have 5 star experience” yeah well no because after reading several reviews AFTER having this particular experience I’d likely not return in the future because this seems to be normal practice...

For starters the hosts do a very poor job of reservation management. They knew all indoor dining was reserved for large parties for the night of 3/12/21. They kept offering outdoor dining to walk ins however it’s not the summer and they had security even discouraging the idea of outdoor dining because he himself said “I wouldn’t do it if it were me. It’s cold outside.” So respectfully we decided to wait. Now we were walk in customers of only a small group of four. I’ve been to restaurants where you’d at least be notified if the wait was worth it based off reservations. After waiting an hour and an half even after being told our wait time was at going to be 15-20 minutes, we were told that the wait would be at least another hour. Understandably our party was frustrated and opted for the outdoor seating which was in an alley way off the the side of the building. Management and the hosts instead of accommodating a terrible wait time experience said no problem you can be seated outside. However everyone still has to spend the restaurants minimum of $35 & $5 per bottle. Pretty much saying to a customer “hey it’s 30 degrees outside, “if you want you can eat outside”; but you will still pay the same as everyone else eating comfortably indoors even though your experience will be uncomfortable.” Though it’s byob they don’t even I.D. So to me it’s more about the customer service experience which they dont care about because of popularity. Which is fine, I get it no one cares, but you were overbooked from the beginning. My suggestion on weekends don’t accept walk ins especially on days when you have such large groups as you stated. Also no one in the front area properly where’s their face masks. Which makes me wonder if we are still in a pandemic or not?...