Ayat Staten Island — Restaurant in New York

It took me a while to come to this place . I have been through the Brooklyn one & it was a nice experience! The food & the service wasn’t good at all, it’s little expensive too! But I don’t mind paying extra if the food is good & service is great tho ..! But here it was total disappointment..!

So I went there on a weekday evening, when I reach there it was almost empty! I waited 10 min before a server came to me. 2/3 servers walk by me , doing other stuff . They did see me & didn’t even smile or say hi or welcome! I was very surprised! So I sat down by the door because less hot there! I sat there 5 more minutes then a lady came by , asked for my order. She was nice, not that knowledgeable about their food . So I had to take a chance what to order. I also told her I am waiting for a friend, in the meantime I wanna order a drink! She recommended one & I ordered that one.

The drink came, looked good & taste good too. Then my friend came & we ordered food . It took them half an hour just for one order. We didn’t ordered much because we had other plans , so we just ordered the chicken kabab. Also they didn’t give us any water, we had to keep asking & reminding them! By the time our food came the restaurant starting to get little busy !

The amount of food was good for 2 people if you are not a huge eater! Tasted good. Then we ordered Arabian coffee, our first time . And we didn’t like it lol! I guess we are not used to Arabian coffee & the taste of it.

The entire time we were there from start to finish the server only came to us 3 time . Getting the order, bringing back the food , then giving us the bill. Never came to check up how is everything! I have seen them going around other tables multiple times & asked them ! Don’t know if it’s because we ordered less food & we were only 2 people! But I was started to get annoyed about it. I was gonna try some other food & dessert but after the service I just left !

Will I come back again traveling from my side of the island ! Spending money on Uber just to get here again , don’t think so. Such a...

I wanted to wait to post this since i personally reached out to the restaurants site (inquiry 782020) on Sept 7th to hear back from them, but it has been now 10 days and no response. This is somewhat concerning that either they do not want to respond to this and sweep it under the rug or the off chance that it fell through the crack. But I'm seeing them respond to these reviews faster than website inquires. Just to let management know what is happening at the S.I. location

My family and I had dinner on Aug 29th (party of 4). My wife and I came here several times before and wanted to share the amazing experience with the family we had here before. First, we asked the waitress for us to finish our appetizers before the entrees came out, but the mains came out anyway shortly after the apps, overcrowding our table and leaving them to get cold. Second, no one checked on us throughout the meal, likely because of the rushed service and us saying that we asked the food to be held off until we were done with apps. Third, when we asked for two extra pieces of bread to take home, staff instead removed our four pieces and charged us for two new orders—essentially charging us for our own bread. Lastly, a 20% gratuity was auto added despite our party being only four, when the menu clearly states it applies to five or more. When I asked the waitress this, she claimed the menu "was printed in error," though we’ve visited multiple times before without issue and never saw a menu change. These minor issues on rushing food, failing to check in, charging for our own bread, and falsely adding the gratuity then to lie to the customers about it is straight up dishonest. Your food is excellent, but the service there is something that needs to be changed since that will cause customers...

This is easily the most delicious middle eastern food I've had in New York City. I ordered the hummus, kousa, fattat jaj, and zahir with beitinian laffa. I only have positives to say about the food. It was incredible.

The service was a bit slow to start, but there was one server for the whole restaurant on a Saturday night. She seemed overwhelmed and it's understandable that the service was slow. The primary reason I gave a poor review on service is that when our order came up, one of the food runners/bussers took our food to the wrong table and walked away. When she passed the table again, the guests said they didn't order the food and the same runner took the food off of their table and served it directly to us. Not only was it luke warm by the time she set it on our table, but it had sat in front of other people during flu season who were talking, laughing, sneezing, and coughing, and then she picked it up and gave it to us. When our server passed, we told her what happened and she had the kitchen prepare us a new dish. She also offered us free dessert, which was nice. In any case, that was a gross experience. I don't expect it would happen again, but I can't give a full five stars with that kind of an experience.

Finally, I loved the decor and layout of the restaurant, but we arrived at 8pm on a Saturday in February and the lights were set to BRIGHT. The music was also pretty weird. It was arab dance music. I'd have chosen something more chill and lowered the lights.

Will definitely be back for the food. As for the rest of the experience, I hope the restaurant reads its reviews and makes adjustments based on...