Mecca Restaurant — Restaurant in Raleigh

On 10/18/ I went to have breakfast at the Meca Resturant in downtown Raleigh. I want to tell what a bad experience I had with a waitress that took my order. This young petite white girl with long dark hair took my order I sat there and ate my meal slowly but when I ordered a coke soda I asked to speak to the waitress about the soda and how bad the soda was the soda was so bad tasting even though it was in a can it had a real bad taste I explained to the lady that I didn't want pay for something I couldn't drink . The young lady with her rude attitude went and got the manager and I explained to her that soda tasted terrible for a reason I don't know why but she said the soda came out of a can and I preceeded to tell her I said all you taste in this soda is seltzer nothing else it was a bad can of soda. The manager was nice enough to not to charge me at all. But the waitress that waited on my table had no skills on how to deal with customers this young lady walk to to my table scratching herself between her thighs which was very uncomfortable for me and I was in a total shock what I was seeing what she was doing in front me , this young woman didn't even ask me if I wanted anything else to drink since complained about the soda. The manager challenged me but even if she didn't delete the item off my bill I would have not paid for the item because of the circumstances that appeared to me . The moral to the story is the customer is always right even in some cases they can be wrong but in my case she gave real bad customer service to a young woman that came to visit the restaurant. Asa formal retired police officer you treated people the way you want to be treated and when you are serving customers food go back and check them to see how there doing with food. This waitress did no such thing with me. When it was time for me to pay the bill at the register I told her she could have the change for her tip she refused my tip but I left her the tip anyway and proceeded to leave with a feeling of disappointment of bad service to a customer that visit there all the time ,but my time is up there this is my story and my experience on this day . The waitress needs more training on how to treate...

Calling a restaurant “The Mecca” sounds like the height of hipster pretention, but this place is very much the opposite. Founded by Greek immigrants in 1930, The Mecca is as old-school as old-school gets with classic décor, a comfortably familiar menu, and competent execution all-around.

While there are definitely more chic and comfortable places to dine, The Mecca oozes nostalgia. Red stools along a long counter, a black and white checkered floor, and heavy wooden booths give the look of a place untouched by time. The menu is equally immune to faddishness, offering Southern favorites (fried chicken, fried fish, and chopped BBQ), a few nods to the founders’ heritage (a Greek salad and Zorba’s beef tips), and the eyebrow-raising Garry Dorn burger (a veal cutlet sandwich).

Hungry from wandering around GalaxyCon, my wife and I bypassed sandwiches in favor of platters: fried fish and BBQ, respectively. Both came with a hushpuppy, slaw, and two sides (mac n cheese for both of us, butter beans for her, and fried okra for me). While neither dish was attractively plated, both tasted considerably better than they looked. After decades, The Mecca has making this kind of food down to a science. Both the fish and the okra were fried to a golden brown sans greasiness, the slaw was creamy, and the BBQ was not dried out. Admittedly, vinegar-based is not my preferred style, but The Mecca’s was as good as a rendition of that type as I’ve had anywhere.

For three quarters of the meal, service was courteous, prompt, and attentive. However, we made the mistake of ordering a blackberry cobbler after The Mecca got busier, and the dessert took so long to reach us that they ended up comping it. At under $3, it still would have been worthwhile, and much of The Mecca’s menu is similarly value-conscious. Both lunch dishes were under $10 apiece, and while the fried fish contained a disappointingly small amount of fish, there was still enough on the plate for a filling meal.

The Mecca is the kind of time-displaced icon that everyone should try at least once, but for those who are willing to trade innovation for simplicity, it’s more than just a...

Having just eaten there, I find all the positive reviews surprising and very hard to believe. I'm not sure if all the reviews are from relatives of the owners or staff. I arrived with a group of 14 people to eat here based on the reviews. First, there are no seating arrangements for any group over 4, which is how many can fit in one of their booths. Minor inconvenience but not insurmountable. Looking back, I should have gotten the hint when I tried to order the beer special, and the waitress informed me they ran out of the beer special. We ordered our food and waited to be served. About 20 minutes later, the waitress informs me they are all out of corn on the cob so I order the peas. She comes back to tell me they are all out of peas. I ask for another side, but they're out of that as well. Finally I ask what do they have, and she said they had pickled beets--no thanks. I asked for a dessert instead, and she told me they ran out of dessert at lunch. The same scenario played out with several other people in our group. Apparently the restaurant is unfamiliar with the concept of turning on the oven or stove to cook more food. Now I can see this happening if it was 10 pm on a Tue or Wed night, but this was at 7:30 pm on a Friday night. How in the heck do you run out of just about everything early on a Friday night? Another group of 12 people came into the restaurant about a half an hour after us, and the staff must have finally come clean that they didn't have much food because the group soon left. And the best treat of all was the waitress charged all of us full price even though we didn't get our full meal. The waitresses all had bad attitudes throughout the ordeal even though no one in our party expressed any anger or frustration with the waitresses. I do know Mecca lost 26 customers for any future business. Hope they come up with a new business model.

To be fair, what food we did receive was decent--not great but not bad. With so many other dining options in downtown Raleigh, I wouldn't recommend wasting your time or...