albadawi — Restaurant in New York

Roach and possible discrimination warning🪳‼️‼️

My friend and I booked an outdoor reservation, and when we arrived on time, we waited and were sat at a table in the back of the restaurant immediately next to the kitchen. There were several tables open, both inside and out, but we didn’t want to complain as it was already a late dinner. It was noticeably warm and uncomfortable at our table. When we sat down, we noticed there was only one glass on the table, so when we placed our order we asked for another glass, no problem. We ordered the hummus appetizer, two drinks, and two entrees. The appetizer was brought to us 40 minutes after being seated by another, clearly new, server, and we asked again for an extra glass. Our drinks and glass were never brought, and our server, if we can call her that, was on her phone by the bar at several points. Once our food was eventually brought out, again not by our server, we found the food to be incredibly mid. Rice was under seasoned, salad was over seasoned, salmon was dangerously dry, and was not even in kebab form as ordered lol. I’m sure the drinks would’ve been the same if we ever got them. Hummus was alright, pita was cold, which was odd considering it was being cooked an arms length away. About halfway into our meal, a roach loomed over us lol. The roach creeped up on the wall that was touching our table, inches away from my plate. The roach paid more attention to us than our server lol. When we tried to call our server over and let her know, she blew us off but at least the roach was patient. It was still there by the time she finally got to us. We motioned to the wall, our server seemed apologetic but scarily nonchalant about the situation at hand. She asked if we wanted to move to another table…yikes. We never saw her again after that. It took a roach for us to move to a decent table, and that’s when we noticed we were surrounded by white people, and the poc were in the back of the restaurant. My friend and I are in our 20s and Hispanic, and while we may look young, we are not bad dressers or tippers, and we were obviously not skimping out on ordering. We tried and failed to order drinks, and had we ordered dessert, I’m not sure it would’ve made it to the table before the roach, if ever. Even in our attempts to flee the restaurant, we were held back as no one seemed to pay us any attention, though the people beside us were still clearly being attended and served. The restaurant was emptying out, and even then it took us way too long to find someone to bring us the check. They did give us a discount for the roach fiasco, but this was genuinely the bare minimum considering how we were treated and ignored the whole time. I wouldn’t even wish this experience on a subway rat 🐀. You truly can do better in the city. There’s that saying about...

I’m writing this calmly, but honestly, this experience deserves to be documented. the way we were treated at this restaurant was incredibly disappointing—especially toward my wife, who handled it all with patience until it became too much at the end.

We showed up without a reservation, and were immediately treated like an inconvenience. The hostess reluctantly “checked” if we could stay, then allowed us to sit outside only, we thanked her for letting us stay. This was fine—we didn’t argue.

Then we ordered three dishes to share, and they never brought plates. We were literally forced to pass the main dishes back and forth like we were at a picnic. We didn’t complain.

But… the final straw came when our kids went next door to grab ice cream and a large party walked in. A waiter immediately came over to our table asking if our party had changed—as if we were trying to scam them. We were looking at the dessert menu! and we could feel the pressure to leave because the large party had just arrived. It was so blatant and uncomfortable.

As if that weren’t enough, they tried to “make up for it” by offering my wife boiling hot water with a tea —as some kind of apology. That was the gesture.

Then came the payment mess. We used Apple Pay, only to be told loudly by the same unprofessional waitress that we were “over the limit.” And Needed a difffrent card with no explanation. No one had mentioned that they cap Apple Pay at $160.00 ( our bill was over) She made it sound like our card was declined, like we didn’t have money, when in fact it was a undisclosed policy failure on their end. It was humiliating.

I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t cause a scene. My wife felt humiliated. me and wife walked out of there feeling insulted and unwelcome That’s not how you treat people— The manager tried to fix things at the end. He capped our bill at the Apple Pay cap but still made excuses for his waitress behavior. We won’t be returning. One positive : The food was...

We ordered 9 dishes and only two were barely passable as edible food. The rest ranged from not fully cooked, overly seasoned to flavorless dry rice & bone dry meats, up to completely inedible that we had to ask it be taken away uneaten. 4% credit card fee is also a bit ridiculous in Manhattan. The prices are no better than other restaurants in the area so it's a bit misleading when you slap on extra charges that you don't disclose until it's too late for customers to plan for. Our waitress was also very rude when we asked to pay cash, noting that supervisor approval is needed to void the credit card charges. When we insisted on cash payment she turned 180° into a rude sour puss and actually kicked us out of the restaurant!! She claimed that the table is needed by another group & to hurry up with the bill payment. This is after she took a good 10-15 min getting us the bill in the first place and another 10-15 min to figure out how to use the machine to void the charges. We still left 20% tip though it was absolutely not justified given the horrid treatment we received. It ruined our evening entirely & it was an extremely embarrassing experience for me personally as the dinner host. I find it completely baffling that any restaurant would think they can get away with terrible service, especially in the UES. This restaurant needs to better prepare its staff on basic hospitality training to fit better in a civilized neighborhood. Will not return & warn...