Habit Burger & Grill — Restaurant in Phoenix

I use to eat at this location regularly when I lived in the area about three years ago. Since moving to Northern Phoenix, I now dine the Habit locations in Glendale and near the PV Mall.

Therefore, I was disappointed to see this particular Habit Hamburger Grill had substantially declined in food quality and overall cleanliness.

CLEANLINESS Apparently, the dining tables and chairs are not cleaned thoroughly on a regular basis.

The majority of the dining table surfaces had obvious visible surface grime, which felt very sticky to the touch. The edges of the tables had sticky and visible grime residue as well. Additionally, the floors needed to be thoroughly swept. (Mine you, this restaurant had been open less than one half hour, and it appeared my guest and I were the first patrons.)

Because the tables were not cleaned appropriately, when our food was ready for pickup, my guest and I kept our food on the serving tray and the paper tray liner to avoid contamination from the unclean table surfaces.

THE FOOD I ordered a double-patty Habit Burger with no cheese. The bun did not taste fresh, and the inside of the bun's top was completely charred black from over grilling — in other words — it tasted like burnt white toast.

My guest commented her double-meat cheeseburger did not taste as good as the same burger at other Habit locations in Arizona and California. I agreed with my guest, mentioned that my burger was rather tasteless and lacked flavor — much like food with freezer burn.

Normally, the Habit Burger across from the Paradise Valley Mall (and other locations too) serves a generous portion of fries. Both our portions of fries at this Habit barely filled the small cardboard serving containers.

NOT READY FOR THE DAY Also, the ketchup container would not dispense product — perhaps it was clogged from not being properly cleaned?

I brought this to the attention of the Habit counter person. She opened the ketchup dispenser to discover the ketchup bag was about 90% empty. But rather than replacing the nearly spent plastic bag, she simply squeezed the product's plastic bag to force the remaining ketchup closer to the pump. Still, I was barely able to pump two servings of ketchup after pumping the handle a couple of times.

Because establishment was not busy, why didn't the counter person immediately refill the dispenser or offer individual ketchup packets as an alternative? My food order was $23.00, and I would better service. Are profit margins so slim they can't afford to refill nearly empty ketchup dispenser with fresh product??

NOISE FROM A MEETING As mentioned, when my guest and I arrived, we were the only "customers." However, there was some kind of a meeting at the front of this very small restaurant. In fact, the 10 to 15 people, who were wearing black t-shirts with the word "Flame" something on their backs, created an obstacle, which made it difficult to get near the register to place our order.

Since this particular Habit is TINY and has limited indoor seating — it was both strange to see a "meeting" taking place, and it was also disconcerting to have to listen to loud discussions while trying to enjoy our food.

All-in-all, I would NEVER patronize this particular Habit ever again. The food was mediocre. Plus, I don't eat at restaurants that don't maintain the cleanliness — especially in the public areas of the establishment.

Furthermore, I am embarrassed to think I highly recommended this place to my friends who work and live in the area.

I've dined at other Habit Burger Grills in throughout Arizona, California and Utah without disappointment. However, the Habit Burger Grill at 745 E Glendale Avenue in Phoenix is a disappointment, and the management needs to rethink their operational procedures, AND CLEAN this location from...

I placed my order 2 minutes away from curbside pickup, which was 20 minutes. Fine, 20 minutes awaiting in their parking lot was an expected time frame for my food. I immediately checked in that I was there and submitted the make, model and color of my vehicle and waited. 30 minutes in, I received a text that my order was complete and my food would be brought out shortly so I waited. Waited and waited and waited again for an additional 25 minutes and no one came out. At that point, I called the restaurant asking where my food was after waiting nearly an hour and within 5 minutes a girl comes out and I holler at her and she proceeds to approach me. When she arrived, I asked her what the problem was that took so long and she tells me that she never saw me in the curbside parking spots and didn't know I was there. I believe there are 3 curbside designated parking spots and when I arrived at the restaurant, those parking spots were occupied so I literally parked 4 spots to the east of the curbside spots within the same parking lot. Overall, this girl came out 3-4 times with other deliveries but because I wasn't parked in the designated area, she neglected to view the whole parking lot and never seeked my vehicle outside of curbside parking. That had to be the most ridiculous explanation that I had ever heard, that my opinion of this young lady was pure ignorance to even share with me and of course because of that ignorance my food was now cold and gross to eat that I literally threw it away. For the amount of money charged for my lunch, I find the Customer service of this restaurant to be so terrible that I'll likely never return again! Especially when there was no apology, no acknowledgment of my inconvenience but only a reasoning of I did not see you, that's...

The only reason I'm giving two stars is because the people behind the line make some amazingly delicious food! I've been to this location 4 times and the burgers, fries, etc are always prepared well cooked and the flavors are delicious!

Now, I don't ever leave bad reviews but thought I had to in this case to warn others. Our last visit made us so upset for reasons that are completely avoidable.

We never get ranch with our order (even after requesting it multiple times), the food usually sits there for so long before it's brought out to you that it gets cold, and now during our last visit all of this happened -and- they were out of shakes (which we had already paid for). Instead of a refund, we were told they couldn't do that and that we had to submit an email to get reimbursed. Well, it's been over a week and we haven't received a refund or any kind of communication back. Our food was cold, no ranch, no shake, the order was wrong and the manager just told us there was nothing he could do.

Update: After writing the above review, we finally received a response to our request for a refund just for the food we did not receive (we also informed them about the wait time, cold food, bad service, etc). Habit informed us that they do not offer refunds but can send us a gift card or credit toward our next purchase... Also, the response to my 2 star review here was met with an automated suggestion that I should send an email to the same email we already contacted which didn't help. I moved my rating down...