Gojo Ethiopian Cafe and Restaurant — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

WARNING: IF YOU ARE OROMO, DO NOT GO TO THIS RESTAURANT. If I could give this place ZERO stars, I absolutely would. I went to this restaurant today and I had terrible treatment from the waitress right when I walked in. I have been traveling on the road all day and decided that I wanted to come to this restaurant with my kids to try out the food. We walked into the restaurant and the waitress didn’t even look twice at us. She walked passed us and once she returned after a few minutes, she looked us up and down and assumed we came in for to-go food based on the fact that we weren’t as dressed up as the other people in there. We decided to let that slide and we got a table. We were ready to order as soon as we sat down, but the waitress didn’t even look at our table. She helped all the other people, even the ones that came AFTER us, before she came to our table. She skipped our table 3 times and once she came back, she didn’t even take our order to eat. She only asked what we wanted to drink and this was 15 minutes after I sat down. All I ordered was water and it took her a while before she came back to us and then she took our order. We looked on the menu and noticed that what we wanted wasn’t on there, but we are familiar with Ethiopian restaurants and we know they have it. We asked the waitress if they had what we wanted and she said yes. She took our order and we waited for an hour just for her to come out with THE WRONG FOOD. It was nothing close to what I wanted and so we asked her to return it and we were ready to leave. We told her that we didn’t order that and she reassured me that she will go back and bring us the right order in five minutes. We sat back down and she brought us our food. She brought us the exact same food, but the only difference was that she cooked it a little more. She put it down on our plate and it didn’t even look right. I tried one bit of it to see if it was the right one and it had the most awful taste. I got up and was ready to leave, but she still took my card and made me pay $26 for food I didn’t even eat or want. I didn’t even sign the receipt and she still took my money. If you are not Amharic or White, just know that you will not get quality service, especially if you are Oromo. If she told us her name, I would say it on here and let her know that she was not right for that. I tried to speak to her about it but she ignored me and left into the kitchen without looking back. This restaurant is by far the absolute worst restaurant I have ever been to. I’m not done here. I will be contacting this restaurant and letting them know that this treatment is not acceptable. I don’t care whatever cultural problem she has with Oromo people, but she needs to get her act together and stop with whatever problem she has. In all, this is ABSOLUTELY...

The dive quality and uniqueness of this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant gets 4 stars. I'd give the food 3.5 stars - as far as Ethiopian food goes, it's average. If there was a way to give negative stars for the service, I'd do it. First, this is definitely an authentic restaurant...which means there's a bit of a language barrier with the servers. We had to repeat ourselves several times, ever more slowly, to place our orders and let our server know who was on which checks. No big deal - that's often the case at authentic ethnic restaurants. The problem started when she brought us our food. My wife ordered the lamb, and I ordered the fish. Our server brought us 2 different lamb dishes. I tried to tell her that my order was wrong, and she started arguing with me about it! I said, "I'm sorry, this isn't what I ordered," and she shot back, "Yes it is, this is what you eat!" I replied, "No, ma'am it isn't, I ordered the fish." And she shoots back, "I know what you ordered. I hear very well. You didn't ask for fish, you asked for lamb!" I look at the other 3 members at my table to see if they recall hearing what I ordered, and they all agreed I asked for the fish. I repeated for a 3rd time that I definitely ordered the fish, and then she started getting smart with me. "You don't even know what you ordered. I am right. You are wrong!" Everyone at our table was baffled. I finally agreed to just eat the lamb so as not to cause any more of a scene, but I've never encountered such appalling service at a restaurant in my life! Who in the world argues with the customers if they tell you you got their order wrong??? I will never give another dime to this...

I used to travel all over the country as part of my job with a sizeable meal budget, and Gojo is precisely the kind of place I would seek out. I've been here a number of times and have never been disappointed. This time I tried the lunch buffet and it was rather good with plenty of vegetarian options and two meats - stewed beef, and chicken drumsticks. Everything was rather tasty and cooked to perfection. We also tried traditional Ethiopian coffee, which they roast and grind just before brewing. It's unfiltered so there is some technique to the pour. I'm generally not one for coffee, but I enjoyed it, and my friend who is a coffee nut appreciated it quite a bit as well. It cost $9.99 each for Wednesday lunch buffet plus $8.00 for coffee for two. The staff were very friendly and helpful to boot. No room for complaint here.

Addendum: if you are unfamiliar with Ethiopian cuisine, I would compare a lot of the flsvors to Moroccan or Persian, and if that doesn't help, some Indian curries can be similar, though sour and tangy flavor prevail more. It is served communally with injera as your platter. Injera is traditionally made with teff flour and can be compared to a giant sourdough crepe. Similar to how traditional Indian dining is done with naan as your utensil, additional pieces of injera are used for scooping up your food. Most Ethiopian dishes are a stew or have a gravy or sauce to them, and this often leads to intense negotiations over who gets to finish off...