Oren's Hummus — Restaurant in Mountain View

Thursday, 08/17/2023 7:30 am PDT

WHAT AN ACT OF HUMAN KINDNESS, DECENCY, & ACTION! THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Commendation & "5 Star Review" for Dee (?) - Waitstaff @ Oren's Hummus Castro Street, Mountain View, CA

Date of Experience: Wednesday, 08/16/2023 @ around 2:00 pm.

Reason: Dee/Dora (?) - IMMEDIATELY got me a badly needed glass of water. I was dehydrated & extremely overheated from 88° mid-day sun.

I honestly believe that if Dee (?) hadn't performed this ACT OF HUMAN KINDNESS, I could have had an episode of excess sun exposure: dehydration, heat exhaustion, & possibly heatstroke. In retrospect, all of these conditions could have been an outcome for me. These were prevented due to Dee's (?) positive response to my question. I am very grateful to Dee (?).

She got me a large glass of water & politely offered me a stool seat to sit down & compose myself. I gulped down the H2O she gave & I handed back the glass. Dee (?) - without hesitation offered to get me another glass of water. WOW!

Unfortunately - due to being overheated, my stomach shut down. I couldn't get any food down it. So, I didn't have the opportunity to taste Oren's Hummus in downtown Mountain View, CA. I am committed to coming back to enjoy the food offered on their menu. SOON!

I live in San Francisco. This summer has been one of coldest winters (Mark Twain). For the last 6/8 weeks (about 2 months), SF has been locked in fog, with minimal sun, & cold winds. My body was not acclimatized to hot & warm temperatures.

I needed to be in Mountain View yesterday, Tuesday 08/16/2023 - to have my car serviced for an extensive road trip, which I am planning to take in the Fall of 2023. I left my H2O bottle in my car, which was being serviced.

I inadvertently thought that I was doing OK. I wasn't! I bought a very caffeinated & sugar-laden soda. It was not a good choice at all. It did nothing to replenish what my body needed most - WATER

I had a couple of hours to use up, so I decided to walk to downtown Mountain View to explore. Interestingly enough - even after being in the SF Bay Area for over 30 years for some reason, I had never had the opportunity to see & explore.

Impressions of downtown Mountain View: It is pretty AMAZING! I was particularly impressed that 4/5 blocks of Castro Street were completely closed off to vehicular traffic.

The streets were filled with outside eating service & tables. There were even games to play. Nice Civic Touch! Definitely will be back!

Thanks for reading this...

This is one of the good Mediterranean places on the Castro Street. We arrived here around 8 pm on a Saturday night. There is a parking garage nearby that had enough parking spaces for free. We were a party of four and on entering the restaurant we were seated promptly. There were enough empty tables in the restaurant. So if you are around Castro without a reservation in the other upscale restaurants during the weekend, try this one out.

We ordered a hummus beef bowl and shared it among all four of us. The dish comes with two pita breads. We ordered one wheat and one white bread. Both the breads are freshly made and deliciously soft. The beef comes as minced and spicy beef in the middle of the hummus. We ordered a beef rice bowl and a beef skewer entree to share two plates among us four. The skewer entree comes with options of two sides or dips. We chose the Oren's eggplant, a different take on the babaghanous made with eggs and a side of falafel bites (comes as five pieces). The beef kebab pieces are absolutely delicious and succulent. The rice was a little bit different compared to the other middle eastern restaurants where we traditionally have tasted saffron basmati rice. This restaurant is Israeli, so the rice is also different and we liked it quite a lot. The falafels were freshly fried and tasted great, albeit a little smaller in size. In the end we ordered 4 baklavas to go, but our server was so amazing that he gave us 6 baklavas for the price of four (don't know why though, probably just because he is amazing). We have tried the baklavas afterwards at home and they are mouth-watering, with the right amount of sweetness...

4 stars for food, minus one star due to deceptive pricing. Reasonably tasty food, decent service.

But big thumbs down to the inexplicable and deceptive choice to tack on a surcharge, which I only caught when paying the bill. It's possible that it was mentioned on the actual physical menu, but I didn't see it.

On the online menu I see this: "An additional living wage surcharge is added to all orders. 3% for Palo Alto, Mountain View, Cupertino, & Los Gatos. 5% for San Francisco."

Like... what the hell? Why not just raise prices by 3-5%?!? LITERALLY no one would bail upon seeing an expensive $20.60 entree vs. an expensive $20 entree.

Not to mention, why on earth add a surcharge for something that... is just a given? When we buy a pair of pants, does Macy's tack on a living wage surcharge? When we buy some fruit at the corner market, does that market tack on a surcharge to help pay living wages for the stockers, the checkers, the cleaners, and many others who are employed there? Nope, and nope.

Because FAIRLY PAYING YOUR EMPLOYEES IS A GIVEN. It's one of those things that's LITERALLY the cost of doing business, like providing plates to eat on or paying the electricity bill or purchasing flour, etc.

Yes, I know this surcharge is increasingly a thing in SF in particular. No, that does not make it any less unfortunate or head-scratching.

CHARGE WHAT YOU NEED TO CHARGE TO PAY FAIR WAGES. Period. End of story. And ixnay on the...