Veganized — Restaurant in New Brunswick

Edit: Since moving to their new location, the staff has handled seating, serving, and takeout much more smoothly. The food is just as good as ever. They have a bar now if you're into that. I wish the chef would add some cool new dishes to the menu. He's definitely talented enough to throw in some rotating seasonal items. Would highly recommend the Samurai Wrap. They're fries are worth the visit alone.

Original Review:

I'd love to give this place 5 stars but that would be dishonest. The food is good. That's it. Veganized doesn't deserve anything above 2 stars because the place isn't managed well. It's one thing to make good food and it's another to successfully run a business. I went there a couple weeks ago after ordering online. The wait time listed online was about 25 minutes. I arrived after that 25 minutes and my food wasn't even in the process of being made. The manager was busy having the kitchen make one of everything on the menu for his family to try. Nothing wrong with giving your family a free meal, but not at the cost of someone else's time. I waited an hour and a half for my food. No one apologized for the long wait or even acknowledged that they had messed up...as if allowing someone to wait over an hour for their meal is acceptable (especially when I was told it would take no longer than 25 minutes). I forgave them for taking advantage of my time and returned for dinner last night. I was hoping to dine in this time. I asked for a table for 2 people and was told the wait would be 25 minutes but probably less. I was optomistic. I shouldn't have been. I told the person at the front to give me a call when the table was ready while I grabbed a drink down the block. 40 minutes passed and still no call. I returned to Veganized and went up to the same lady just to let her know I had returned so there was no reason to call me. I didn't ask how much longer the wait was. She willingly told me I would be seated next. While my party of two waited, two other parties of 5+ people were seated (who got there after me, of course). We kept waiting. After another 30 minutes I went up to this other guy to ask if he knew how much longer the wait would be for us. He was so rude and disrespectful. His reply was that he couldn't kick people out....seriously?!? I never mentioned anything about kicking people out of their tables. I would never expect anyone to do that as I would not appreciate that myself. That was so insulting of him to put those words in my mouth. I explained to him that I was not requesting that they kick anyone out but instead was simply asking for an estimate. He said he could not give me an estimate of when we would be seated. That's one stupid way to run a business. We decided not to stay. I asked the guy to please remove us from the list. He just had an attitude about it but, honestly, i didn't expect much more than that after my previous interaction with him. It's really upsetting to go to a restaurant and speak so highly of them to your family/friends and be completely disrespected and taken advantage of in return.

If a manager at Veganized reads this, I hope you understand I am not trying to put down your product. The food does taste very good. Instead, I hope you'll take this as some constructive criticism and make a few changes.

Manage time better Get a larger place is you don't have enough seating Hire more workers (train them to be honest and respectful to guests a.k.a. the people who give you money in the 1st place) Be honest with guests. Don't lie about wait times to cover up for the fact that your business is poorly managed. No one appreciates that. Don't allow mediocre service to be the last thing on a person's mind when they leave. If you messed up, apologize. It works wonders! Hold workers accountable. If someone did something to upset a guest, don't let it slide. Discuss it and come up with a solution and a better way to handle similar situations that may arise...

What a sad experience. I've been here multiple times before and I've had lovely encounters but today left such a sour taste in my mouth. I will describe my experience, in length, and you are welcomed to make your own opinions on my experience. It was my nephews 15th birthday and I thought I would treat him to a unique dining experience. We were initially greeted with friendly service and chose our seats by the doors to the patio, visible to everyone. Our first waitress was sweet and kind and welcomed us to the establishment. She brought water and our menus and told us we would be met by our server shortly. The second waitress comes to the table about five minutes later and asks what we would like. I tell her French fries, my entree which I forget the name at the moment but it's the one with squash in it I believe, so yummy. She takes my menu and the drink menu and then says oh wait i didnt ask you what you wanted to drink if you wanted anything. Yes i did want something and you snatching the menu made me lose train of thought. My nephew orders the raw-sagna and the waitress quickly says, so you caught the pun? It's raw which means it won't be Cooked. My nephew goes oh okay. And then she takes his menu and leaves. The food comes out and the raw-sagna is absolutely disgusting. I do not know what they were trying to do but it was not enjoyable in the slightest. He had two small bites and I tried a bite and it just was not enjoyable to us. It took 40 minutes of waiting before someone finally came over and asked if we needed a box. I wish someone would have checked on us at any point during our meal, like any other establishment and asked if the food was okay, we could have told them earlier that the food was not good and we wanted to switch it out if possible, a missed opportunity. When they come to the table they didnt even ask me if the food was okay, they ask if we want a box. I tell them no actually the raw-Sagna was not Good and I was hoping to have that taken off the bill. She replies with, "when it was ordered it, I made it explicitly clear that the dish is raw" and I said i know you did, the rawness had nothing to do with the dish, the dish is just bad overall. It's weird, the flavors don't mix well, unappetizing to look at and overall a mess to eat properly. She told me she could give me a discount, which genuinely shocked me because we barely even ate it or enjoyed the dish. This is a clear indication the restaurant is struggling. To not even offer to switch the dish out to something else? I told her I would pay full price because clearly it was an issue for this struggling business. I will not be returning back. It was clear that the 20 dollar dish was worth more to the business than the customer experience. That is more than okay with me, now I know better. I hope they can learn from this experience and treat future patrons with a...

The food here is decent. I have a lot of favorites on the menu, and I've been here a lot of times for many different things. The staff is very chill and friendly. The atmosphere is dope. Really cool vibe with interesting paint job, bronze sculptures, and Tiffany-style lamps. They also sometimes have local artwork, which I like.

Just know that this is not a quick bite. If you have plenty of time on your hands, this place will be fine. They have really interesting and delicious cocktails but the bar is not really staffed the way a bar should be. So I would not come here for a drinking experience. It may have been the day I went and the size of our party, so take it with a grain of salt, but bar service was unbearably slow.

I know vegan food can sometimes be expensive, and this is a location at the heart of downtown. But I personally find it overpriced for the quality of experience I get. The entrees are priced at a point I would expect from a restaurant that was a little more upscale. Frankly, by trying to force so many "power/super" foods into the recipes, some of the entrees are a complete miss for me. Like a lot of the sandwich recipes have kale as a default. I don't care who you are, you don't put kale on a Reuben. You can get plenty of similar vegan entrees at non-vegan restaurants for a similar price and sometimes at higher quality.

If you're a vegan or vegetarian who misses the taste of meat-and-potatoes style food, there are some good entrees on here to satisfy that, and that's why I like to go here. The reason I only give three stars is because this is not an anytime eatery for me. It has to satisfy a lot of conditions in order for me to go here. If you're chill, you don't care about cost, and you're not a picky eater--this place is great. If you're a little more high maintenance, it might not be...