Urban Hip-E — Restaurant in Montrose

Upside; attractive atmosphere, fresh and healthy selections, pleasant staff.

Downside; orders are taken at the counter. Right off you are handed a little handheld device where you get to select how much of a tip you plan to leave...18%, 20%, 25%, or 30%, all of this before you have even found a seat or seen your food. If you want to leave less you are offered a "custom tip" option" where you can fill any amount of your choice. When I dine at a restaurant where I am required to order at the counter, pick up at the counter, then stack the dirty service at a clean up station I don't believe a bounteous tip is earned, deserved, or expected. Nonetheless if you select "custom tip" and then leave maybe $4 (which turned out to be 10% of my bill) as I did, the entire staff, including those who will prepare your food, is now aware they will be preparing a dish for a customer who has disappointed them by leaving less than one of the exorbitant tips they apparently believe is in order. You would hope that a little "surprise" of some kind had not been added to your dish. I doubt they would do that but we've all heard stories so you don't really know for sure. In any case it was irritating and put a damper on what should have been an enjoyable lunch with my companion. I think this practice is tacky to the extreme and I won't frequent a second time any restaurant...

I have thoroughly loved dining in with friends but I just ordered a shrimp Asian salad and a peach flatbread tonight online and it was a mess. I put in all my credit card info and it never would go through so i tried again. I then called and the lady was super friendly but didn’t resolve the order or have much to say to help. I ordered over the phone and picked it up in the drive thru 25 minutes later. I was very disappointed for what $40 got me. I am sure the ingredients are high quality but I can’t justify this salad w a few (5-6) small shrimp (not even grilled) to be worth $20. I asked at pick up about logging it under my reward point account I signed up for and she said it wasn’t working. I guess I signed up for marketing but no actual rewards. I will order my business lunch stuff elsewhere because that was not a fun process. Update- I emailed the owners and their response was lame. They told me to order a different salad next time, order more shrimp or cut the shrimp in half to have more. 🤣🤣 I have officially had my last $60-95 work and/or special occasion lunch there. Their response was not friendly, it was full of excuses and zero solid answers about the online ordering experience and...

I have a "Love/Not Love" relationship with this place. Waited excitedly for months for it to open and now have dined there twice. There is a whole lot about this place that is very good. The staff are marvelous, the atmosphere is comfortably chic and the food is wonderful. It is a SMALL place and seating is very limited. Both times I had to sit at the barstool at the window counters, which is fine. My biggest problem is how d* expensive it is!!! Even with today's inflated prices, I doubt I'll return a third time because of the cost. First trip, my son had a standard gyro, I had the garlic shrimp gyro (both just delicious!), and we each ordered a baklava - also fabulous. My son got some fru-fru flavored water drink and I got a beer. Total cost was around $60! Yesterday I got the chicken artichoke flatbread - again, delicious - but stupidly forgot my water bottle in the car. No problem, you order a cup of water, right? Wrong. You BUY a basic no-frills bottle of water for $4.00. Total lunch tab for me was around $22. Sorry, Hip-e, Iove you, but can't afford to keep...