Zorba Greek Restaurant — Restaurant in Round Rock

I have been a happy customer at Zorba Greek restaurant in Round Rock for more than two decades, but yesterday’s experience left me wondering if I ever want to go back.

I tried to call in my order on Tuesday, July 29th at 2:18 PM. A male employee answered the phone but didn’t answer the phone with Zorba, so I asked if I had reached Zorba. He asked what I wanted. Again, I asked if this was Zorba. He said how can I help you? I said I wanted to place an order for carryout. He again asked, ‘how can I help you’. I explained I wanted two gyros to go, which was followed by another ‘how can I help you’. I asked if he could hear me okay, and he said yes, so I repeated that I wanted to place an order to go. He hung up on me, like a slam-the-phone-down hang up. The name of the server on the ticket was Alejandro M. This was very frustrating, so I decided to stop by the restaurant on my way home. While on the way, I called 4 more times - he purposely ignored my calls and let them ring until I got a recorded message.

When I arrived, two patrons were sitting having lunch in the restaurant. I walked up to the counter where a male employee was standing. As soon as he spoke, I recognized his voice as the employee who had just hung up on me. I asked him why he hung up on me. He didn’t respond. I asked again, then asked if there was another employee or a manager I could speak with. He walked to the back, was gone for about a minute, then came back with his phone and asked what I wanted. I gave him my order again and watched carefully while he prepared it, then paid and left.

When I got home, I found the pita bread he used for both gyros was dry and hard in some places, like it had been in the warmer way too long, or maybe I got last week’s leftover pitas because I had a problem with his unfriendly behavior. I’m not sure what’s happening at Zorba, but this visit was certainly not acceptable, and we will not be going back...

I give this place five stars for a reason- on any outward appearance it would get a four star treatment from anyone who went there only once or twice, but let me explain. The four-star standard is for "adequate service, reasonable prices, clean premises and good food taste, quality and portion." (These are my criteria I came up with after writing a bunch of reviews). That fifth star is hard to get from me but for when someone goes out of their way to give great service or the restaurant has something that sets themselves apart.

In this case, we have been going there for about six years every week or two at the time of this writing. The staff is always wonderfully pleasant, you can usually name every one of them (turnover is low, they all know their jobs). You can always get a seat with no waiting even on a Friday evening*, the food cost is among the lowest average combined bill for any restaurant meal for my family of four in the area, and combine these factors with the amazing consistency they've provided over the years (never once had a bad trip) and it tends to add up into that fifth star. The only other five-star in the area according to similar criteria is the Louisiana Longhorn cajun/creole restaurant on Main St. In old downtown Round Rock.

I have to really struggle to find shortcomings. I find the iced tea is a little weak. I wish they would put onions in the side salad. As I said, pretty paltry criticism. They performed a minor redesign a year ago on a budget; the results are OK but doesn't set it apart from any other Greek restaurant with murals of the islands on Santorini or Corfu on the walls. So what.

The beauty of this place is not in the visit but the return visits over time when you give Zorbas a shot.

*There is a very large Dell campus nearby that can make the place very busy on weekday afternoons. We usually reserve Zorbas for dinner after five PM or on...

I will start off by saying the food was good which is why I didn't give it 1 star. Let's begin.....I tried calling them about 10 mi utes after they opened to place an order only to get a voicemail saying it's not taking any messages. My wife ordered the food online and selected to pay at the counter. I get there with only 2 people in the while place and the female running the front counter was flustered. She was on the phone when I got there, took 1 persons order at a time while preparing only that meal. Then she took the next order and did the same. I got to the counter, told her my order was placed online and she grabbed it off the counter. It had been sitting there since before I got there and it took me 15 minutes to even have her get to me. She said that she just prepared it and it was fresh. I paid the total and got home. The food was cold and they missed 2 wraps from the online order to the placement. We ordered 4 wraps, not 2. The price reflected only the two wraps and we were charged for 2 wraps, but when the online total told my wife $50 something dollars and I only pay $35 plus tip after just picking up an order, there's a problem. I even tried calling several times with the phone number on the receipt within the hour after I got home to get this resolved and surprisingly enough, it instant went to a voicemail saying it wasn't accepting messages. How professional is that? No way to contact them to place an order nor to address a problem. I will not go here again. If these 3 people working get flustered with only a couple people in the restaurant, that's a problem. By the time I left, there were 8 people now in the restaurant waiting. This isn't hard. You take the orders and put them together AFTER you address several people who also may have take out orders placed and ready 25 minutes before the time it said to pick it up. I'm very...