Aksum — Restaurant in Philadelphia

My family and I, visited this restaurant last weekend, and I was not impressed. I love to support black-owned businesses, that was the main reason for us traveling that far. We rsvp beforehand so we wouldn't come in contact with any issues; albeit we did, however nothing major, just a rude little boy who happens to be the owner’s nephew, I believe his name was Dom.

Walking up to the entrance of the restaurant, the nephew, stood there as if to say, what do you want. He didn't utter a hello or anything so, I ignored his rudeness and spoke to him instead. Then I told him I reserved seats for three. He looked over his list and then pointed to a table outside and said down there. My mom spoke up and said you are not going to take us to our seats and then he decided to walk us down to our table.

When we get to the table, he had to fix the umbrella fixture that was over our table and he almost hit me in the face with the umbrella, but I ducked and my mom had to tell him to apologize for this incident smh. We sat, calming our feelings, still trying to give this place a chance.

Next, the waitress came out, who happens to be on her last semester as an (African American) Bio-med student, and greeted us. She was wonderful that's why we made sure we left her a generous tip. She was very helpful and attentive. She checked on us to make sure all was well, as a good waitress does. She was the light of the restaurant, for us, on that day.

Finally, to the food. I love Mediterranean food so when we came across this place, I was excited to try their dishes. However, the food was okay. It did not give me those Mediterranean vibes. My food was over seasoned and tasted mediocre. My plate was hardly touched. My mom said her food was okay, and my son, like his mother, did not like his food either, and he loves salmon and rice. How could you mess that up? Howbeit, the hummus and the pita-bread was good.

To be a black-owned business your service, food, cleanliness and everything else has to be up to par and better than other businesses. In addition, your host, regardless of relations, has to be polite to all people, just because I'm black does not mean you can slack off and be mean. I went there to support this black business, but I should have gone elsewhere to get my money’s worth.

To the next black-owned restaurant I will go to. For those who are looking for a black-owned restaurant that's open to dining in try Frannie Nick’s, the food is amazing and everything...

While everyone and businesses are going through alot, as one who works with the public, you must always stay a step ahead and go to the extra mile to accommodate your customers in these unsettling times.

My family went to enjoy brunch today, ya know, to support businesses re-opening. What we experienced was less than exceptional customer service.

Brunch started at Noon, We arrived around 12:15, no reservations (didn't know we needed one) waited a few moments for the nice gentleman to bring out/set up a table for four. As he began to set-up, he realizes the table umbrella just won't lock in without falling over, the umbrella came down. We said it's OK, we'll try to stick it out in the sweltering heat and wait for the peaks out cloud to join us.

Water and menus were brought to the table, we began to sip that and our (BYOB) Mimosas (our saving grace)

We placed our order moments later and continued sipping. After awhile, we just couldn't take the heat and kindly asked to be moved inside. That accommodation was met.(we asked for windows to be open)

Now, almost 2hrs later, we still hadn't received our food 🥺🥺 Now, We know staffing has been a challenge for businesses with employees still wanting to collect unemployment, but to have customers waiting minutes shy of 2hrs for food is a bit excessive. We had children with us!

As management strolled in, he looked unbothered! NOW, Right away, as an acknowledgement and thank you to customers willing to support your business in these uncomfortable times, it's imperative you greet every customer dining with your establishment and THANK THEM for supporting you!! That didn't happen, so I kindly brought our experience up to him, HE was even shocked to hear we'd been waiting for almost 2hrs for our food.

We finally received our food, it was just OK and luke warm, not cool.

If it wasn't for the beautiful African American waitress running ALL 4-5 tables at the time we were there (about 18ppl) we would have left! If it wasn't for me asking how will management handle our 2hr wait for food, NO discount would have been given!!! Emphasizing with the waitress and her phenomenal job and patience she displayed, we didn't except the discount.

Would love to continue to support and dine there, but management AND the owners MUST DO BETTER AND REPRESENT!! Not cool to have basically our waitress and the CHEF trying to hold it down. OWNERS NEED TO BE PRESENT AND...

Aksum, another neighborhood joint, is a small ~12 table establishment located a couple blocks from Clark Park. Its name is derived from the Aksumite Empire that covered Eritrea, Yemen, Saudia Arabia, and other present day countries...or at least that's what the "About Aksum" says on the menu.

I'm not a big fan of Mediterranean food as I find it rather bland compared to the more powerful spices that are infused into other cuisines like those found in Latin America and Southeast Asia. And I don't like olives! But, I thought I'd give this a shot as it's in the neighborhood.

The decor and atmosphere at Aksum is not "high end" but certainly much higher end than most of the other restaurants in the Cedar Park area (the only comparable restaurant in this regard is Vietnam Cafe, which is a 60 second walk away). The prices are also adjusted accordingly. The question I had was - are the flavors and the service worth the higher price tag? Maybe.

The rosemary grilled chicken was plated beautifully, and the chicken breast marinated in the house's rosemary sauce was super tender. The olive pine nut tapenade that was layered on top of the chicken had a strong, bold flavor. The garlic mashed potatoes, however, was bland and blah. I wouldn't have known they were garlic mashed potatoes had I not been told there was garlic in them. The grilled asparagus were grilled asparagus.

For the entire restaurant, there was only one waitress. This seemed about right when I first walked in as the place was only at 20% capacity. But, when it started reaching 80% capacity, the waitress definitely had more on her plate than she could handle in a timely manner. It took 15 minutes from asking for my check to actually receiving it...and then another 5 minutes to get my credit card back. A third of an hour gone.

Aksum uses Square for credit card payments, and I was surprised when they brought out an iPad. I thought I had won something, but they just wanted...