The Greene Turtle Sports Bar & Grille — Restaurant in North Brunswick Township

Unfortunately, I am forced to give at least one star; it will not let me give zero. The food was mediocre at best, but let me get to the crux of the issue of poor management.

Vegetarianism/veganism is important to many people personally and religiously and can be life threatening for certain people. However, when a serving mistake occurred at The Greene Turtle, the response was abysmal. We had ordered 4 burgers for the table, 1 of which was a normal and one which used the vegetarian alternative, Impossible, as there was no black bean burger or anything of the sort.

My friend who had ordered the impossible burger received his order and took a small bite. However, when my other friend, who ordered the normal burger, cut his open, he noticed it was not rare as he requested, and then that it was not the impossible burger at all. My vegetarian friend had received the meat burger.

We flagged our waitress, who did not seem to really care about the issue, so we requested to speak to the manager. We expressed our issue multiple times to get an apology and a new burger for my non-veg burger, along with her saying she would comp the 2 burgers. After a while, the burger was made, but at that point, most of us had lost our appetite.

We received the bill and, to our shock, not only were the burgers not comped on the bill, another burger was added then removed. We brought this up to our waitress, and after explaining a few times, she went to get a new bill. Unfortunately, she did the same thing, added yet another burger then removed it. After a third time, we finally received a bill with only the cheapest burger removed, the $11 meat burger that my friend accidentally ate, but not the $17 vegetarian burger that my friend didn’t even touch after accidentally eating the meat one. They also provided a 10% discount that came to around $9.

My friend, now feeling very unwell as his stomach could not even process the small bite of the meat burger, went to the bathroom and threw up. An awful experience for him.

There were other issues that pale in comparison to the more serious meat issue, but I’ll mention them anyway. The menu mentioned that a burger swapped out with an impossible patty would be $3 extra. I wanted to order a double patty burger, so I confirmed with the waitress who said it would be 1 $3 charge. However, once the bill arrived, we had been charged twice, $6. This bought the price of the burger to over $22. Additionally, I had ordered sweet potato fries for my burger, but was only given normal ones (photo attached). By the time I asked for and received the sweet potato fries, my burger had gotten cold.

I understand that mistakes happen, we are all human. I’ve been personally accidentally served meat before. At another restaurant, our entire bill was comped by the manager without us asking free dessert, and we were given a gift card to come back another time. We have come back multiple times because of that response and not had issues.

However, the massive difference at The Green Turtle is in how the issue was managed. Nobody seemed to really care, and the manager showed up once. We were maybe one of two tables being served at the time. The manager should’ve, at the very least, stayed with the waitress until she was done with our table to ensure no more mistakes were made and the promises that she made were kept.

Instead our experience was further soured by having to repeatedly ask for corrections to be made, and ended up leaving being charged for items we were told we would not be charged for.

I fully expect the issues to continue as they continue to seem to not care, as there were no consequences for the mistakes that were made. My friend ate a small bite and ended up throwing up; I don’t want to think about what happened if he had eaten the whole thing. There needs to be extra importance to separate the veg and non veg options if the only veg options are designed to mimic the non veg options.

In case it somehow still needs to be said, I will not be...

Very great time here! We went on a Monday nighy about 2 houra before closing. There wasn't many customers there so it was quite. Loved the pretzel appetizer. The Salmon with veg and mashed potatoes were great! Not over processed, over seasoned. The natural tastes of each item was the star. Burger was grilled and juicy. The burger and vegetable mix reminded me of going to a family cookout. Our waiter Mr. Bates (forgive me for forgetting his first name) is a stellar example of customer service! He was so considerate and detailed. He told us the history of the resturant since it was our first time there. It didn't seem over rehearsaed or "said because I have to say it". He's passionate about the brand. Consistently asked how did we like the food and drinks, and updated us on the arrival of food. He cleared our table so it wouldn't be filled with empty plates. The biggest part was after he took our order he asked if we had any allergies and he started listing the typical ones (peanuts, tree nuts) it prompted me to remember that I needed to avoid garlic (oh how the wonderful body develops a mid-adult allergy) So I told him and he said "Let me check with the back yo make sure. A minute later he told me there's garlic on top of the salmon so they will leave it off for me. I was stunned. Never thought salmon would have garlic on top. I thought the mash would have been my issue. So thank you for saving me from itching all over :-D. Absolutely 5 stars for him! I wish we could take him everywhere. The atmosphere was very cool. Calm, not loud at this hour. It was a very nice date night. Only concerning part was the smoking pole so close to the enterance. I couldn't go here on a busy night due to having to walk pass a cloud of smoke to get to the main entrance if people are smoking outside. With scare tissue in my lungs, I would be sick for 3 days with inflammation if I walked through it. So for me, i'll kept to off peak hours so that I can continue to enjoy this place. :-)

Update few months later: My goodness we made the mistake of going on a Fight night boxing match. Food still taste good but the service was terribllleeeeee!!!! Instead of checking on our food, the staff including the kitchen cooks were coming out to watch the fight... and not cooking... so we waited atleast 45 mins for our entrees. Drinks too long, apps too long, entree even longer. It was a drawn out night. But the crown was cool. It was mad crowded. But they were funny, no one got bent out of shape for rooting for the opposing boxer. It was all respectful and games. That part was really cool. The service, not at all. We haven't been back yet but when we do think of going we check if it's a game...

Dear Green Turtle,

As a teacher, I really appreciated the invite for the Teacher Appreciation deal you ran today. My wife and I both are teachers and eagerly went to your North Brunswick location. When the friendly waitress explained the promotion, that as we both have teacher IDs and are eligible, she said it worked as a $15 credit for each of us towards our purchase. I had inquired about the Triple Play and in which the waitress said it would work with that as well. At that point, we went with the Triple Play each and were under the impression that $15 was to be deducted and we would be paying the difference which we were more than happy to pay and also tip generously with. There was an issue with our food being incorrect but we were still happy to be part of this event.

When we went to pay the bill, the waitress came back to inform us that we cannot stack discounts. She apologized for misinforming us earlier. She stated that the Triple Play can’t work with the Teacher Appreciation promotion after all and apologized for the mistake on her end. The manager even came over to tell us that inform us that we tried to use two discounts which was not accepted by the computer. I politely mentioned that we weren’t trying to stack coupons or discounts and were unaware of any other discount outside the Teacher Appreciation as the menu, unfortunately, did not state or show that no other discounts were allowed on the Triple Play. The manager seemed upset and then stated "We are nice enough here to run this promotion for teachers...” which is ironic considering that we were not able to even use the discount.

My wife and I both paid for our respective bills but were disheartened about the location’s management’s response to this. I understand that that it is a great gesture from Green Turtle to offer this promotion and it did tax the staff to have more orders coming in. I had tried to call the Customer Service Number just to voice my confusion but it is constantly busy. I’ve even had this issue with trying to get my rewards account working.

What I am going to ask is what can Green Turtle do to address this from happening again? I understand that mistakes happen but I feel slighted and discouraged. The manager’s response, while I get that she was frustrated, seemed aggressive. I also feel like we were misled with the Teacher Appreciation discount. I know it was unintentional but I cannot help feeling let down by this location’s response. Is there a chance I can talk to someone from Customer Service to see where we can find a compromise? Thank you for...