Dodah's Kitchen — Restaurant in Mount Rainier

Disappointing - Unreliable - Salty Cold Food and Management

When the mission statement is to make veganism, assessable and delicious Dodah's failed in 2022. The restaurant became a staple for my family and the vegan community. This past year, the service and quality of food have severely diminished. The queue for the hot bar (all prepared food) takes 35 minutes, with just 4 customers in line. Anticipate the wait to reach an hour with about 7 to 8 people. A help-wanted sign lives in the door, possibly a node to internal chaos. Yet the gradual decline over the past few months has proven management ill-equipped and resulted in the lengthy review.

Patrons are now greeted by a considerably large serving station that takes up any previous standing room. Cumbersome tables protrude into a nonexistent queue. While an unorganized flow in the dining area leaves customers brushing past seated guest enjoying their meals. Once finding your place in line, a singular employee stands behind the bar and performs ALL tasks. They fulfill Door Dash & UberEats orders, tend to walk-ins, process checks out, and gather drinks. This is at least a 2-3 person job, especially during lunch or dinner. Crazy! On multiple occasions, the single employee stops to prioritize Grubhub or DoorDash. Even while you are in the middle of placing your own order. This often depletes the stations or adds an additional wait time.

Over the past months, the staff, the majority if not all new, have a distinctive interpretation of kitchen recipes. Saltier = better! Most items lean on the saltier side, including the mac-n- cheese. General Tso's cauliflower was squishy, the collard greens have had an overpowering taste of coconut. Rice (if remembered to be offered) has even been served burnt.

During the holidays, my friends wanted a quick dinner before heading home and opted for Dodahs. The food was mediocre yet overpriced, items on the hot bar were cold, the juice warm and the staff rude. It took an hour to reach the front of the line with just 6 customers.

While there is a steady stream of traffic, guests often walk out due to imminent wait times. Upon seeing the staff's irrational prioritization of delivery orders, it's completely understandable. The experience is saturated with murmurs of customers commenting on inconsistencies in serving sizes or requesting heftier servings if paying extra.

Our group paid and got in the car but halfway home a friend said "its cold". So, I turned the car around and placed the soggy container swimming in collard green soup spillage on the counter. Unsatisfied, I asked to speak with a manager, only available by phone. The employee begrudgingly calls a man over her cell and hands me the phone. This manager masqueraded for 2 minutes as he "listened", took my name, and phone number, and told me to anticipate his call. Promises to rectify the meal never were made and yet unsurprisingly never transpired. I have never seen a business plummet so fast. That’s the end of my relationship with the mediocre vegan food and overly priced business. Its customer care needs to be addressed. I do not know what happened, but whatever is going on now is...

The atmosphere walking in, I was very confused. Im listening to bone thugs and harmony, brandy, and jay-z but I'm being waited on by a white man and Hispanics. This area is definitely gentrified. Disappointing I thought this place was going to be good because there was no other vegan soul food around. This is not "soul" food. This is "body food". These Caucasian people took someone's idea and clearly didnt know how to execute. This establishment is for black people who don't innerstand their blackness, so they think this food is good. Also for Caucasian people that are happy to eat something with the word "soul" attached to it. So they think it's good.

Maryland/DC isn't known for soul food so Idk what I was thinking coming here. We're not known for any meal or dish. We're known for crab cakes, but what is the staple meal that people eat with crab cakes? There's none. We just do whatever because we're a melting pot. Just like this restaurant just did whatever and slapped soul food on it.

The collard greens are from a can. Had no flavor and definitely no soul. sweet potatoes(yams) also came from a can, didn't have an ounce of brown sugar or any type of spices nor seasoning. They put SESAME SEEDS ON cornbread. Like, come on. Thats some WPS. Just like raisins in chicken salad with green bean casserole. The general tso Cauliflower, the sauce was decent but the Cauliflower clearly comes in frozen and they overcooked it. It was hard on the outside and lacked structure in the middle. The lasagna was the best thing and thats not saying much. I came for the Mac and cheese and all I can say is, looks are deceiving. It had no flavor, no taste.below mediocre. I'll go home and fix everything of course.

This place is an example of cultural appropriation. They continue to make money off of melanated people and we allow it. Never have black people took the idea of casseroles, created a restaurant called "Karen's" and made money off of their ideas. Maybe I should. Will not be returning...

Man oh man. This place is not it! First, lets talk about the customer service. There's a spanish lady that was working the front today and she is terrible! She has the worst attitude and not welcoming at all. She was arguing with a customer when we first walked in and was very unprofessional. She wasn't trying to accommodate the customer at all. She then came to serve us and didn't know how to communicate. We can clearly read and understand the menu but she was getting frustrated at simple questions. She then walks away without saying anything and left us there. A few moments later the manager (a white man) walks out and starts serving us and giving excuses for his staffs poor service. He has a frantic scattered brain type of personality. It wasn't busy at all there but was very unorganized.

Now let's talk about the food. The seafood mac was good! That was everyone's favorite. However everything else was garbage. The cauliflower was way to sweet and not crunchy, the regular mac was cold and subpar, the drum sticks were dry and chewy, the fries were dry with no season, the ribs were ok at best. The food seemed like it was left over from the day before and they brought it out to continue serving. Literally what it seemed like. Overall, everything was poor quality.

Oh and side note: we got your lasagna from mom's and we took it home and it had MOLD on it and we didn't notice until we started eating it. I thought it could've been mom's fault but now I'm seeing other people claim mold.

You guys need to do some serious training. Get rid of that spanish girl immediately. She is crumbling this location. Also, the manager needs to be held accountable for allowing this and y'all need to go ahead and let him go to. He sucks! I will report yall for health inspection because of the continous mold allegations. That's dangerous and you people need to be inspected. Address these issues asap! Tighten up over there and be an example for the vegan and black community that we need....