Athenian Garden — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

We went there for lunch. I ordered the lamb souvlaki sandwich which was fine. My girlfriend ordered the $10.50 lunch special of soup, greek salad and falafel. The falafel came out as a long tube shape instead of the disc or sphere shaped ones that I expected. When I asked, the waitress told me that this was the way they served a side of falafel and that the disc shaped ones were used for sandwiches*. Then when my girlfriend tasted it, she had to spit it out as it was made with wheat flour and had an extremely doughy texture. When we complained, the waitress offered to take it away, failed to offer a replacement, and brought us a bill for the full amount. Eventually the manager came over to inquire, and when we told him the problem, he said that falafels are always made with wheat flour, and proceeded to argue with us. My girlfriend has lived throughout the Middle East and has never encountered falafels with wheat flour (she is allergic to wheat). I have many Greek, Israeli, Turkish, Arabic and Lebanese friends who all make them without flour. To top it off, the hostess then told us that if she charged us for the soup and salad separately, it would cost more that the special. This is the height of stupidity. I told her to deduct the price of an order of falafel from the price of the lunch special. She subtracted $3.50, (which would make and order of falafel one of the cheapest things on the menu.) If she was smart, she would have taken the lunch special off the bill and just charged me for my sandwich. Instead, by being greedy, she has caused me to write this review to warn people of the improperly prepared food and poor response to a complaint we received there.

*She had it backwards. I have been going to Athenian Gardens regularly since moving to St Pete in 1993. When I first started going there, they made falafel sandwiches much like other ones I have had elsewhere in my travels, Toasted pita, crispy falafel discs, some vegetables and hummus or tzatziki sauce. At some point, they changed and started making a tube shaped falafel and not toasting the pita. I did not like this change and instead started ordering the falafel platter, which came as discs. I stopped going there as much when I found Byblos Cafe over in Tampa, which makes falafels more to my liking, but is a farther drive. Sadly, without a written apology and better refund, I will not be going back. It's really too bad, as I really liked their food before it changed and was a regular customer...

Very good food. Prices are very reasonable for what you're going to get. We ordered to go after we picked it up we realized the order was so much food three or four people probably could have ate it it was just my husband and I, so we only ordered one order cuz we can only need one order of anything pretty much anywhere we go. I opened it it was so hot and smelled oh my gosh delicious I couldn't wait and they cuz they gave us bread garlic bread on the side young and they gave us a free side we don't even ask for that so it was a lot of food we ate that for two days because it was enough for like 4 people saw it was like oh my God we just dug into it was so delicious it's something that's not on the menu somebody had put a review up and we're at it and it sounded so delicious fettuccine with fettuccine noodles and sauce and chicken and broccoli and I don't know what else it was just so delicious we ate for two days we ate that for dinner and we will get that many many more times also we've had their white pizzas what we call it when we go in there I don't know if that's how it is on the menu however it's got it looks kind of white not red and it has spinach on it and it's so healthy and it doesn't hurt my stomach since I don't have a gallbladder at all I have to be very careful careful with some kind of there some kind of foods much food! it we own it was only for one person and we ate it on it for two days and it was so so delicious that is and I already know a lot of people that tell me about that place and it's just unbelievable and their white pizza I know you probably don't know what why pizzas but some of us do and let me tell you that is the greatest Pizza in the world so we'll always go there BEST ITALIAN AROUND HERE!!! YUMMY 😋. GOOD PRICES FOR...

Horrible hostess that you have a young girl with dark hair, I have no idea what her name was. She wouldn’t even let me speak with a manager when I called in after wanting to express the issue I had with her.

She was rude and unaccommodating to me. Although I was going to purchase lunch, my young daughter, who we both had just been in the jewelry store next door that didn’t have a restroom and went to two other places that were either closed or had a broken facility. She almost didn’t even want to even let me use the restroom and was very condescending so I chose not to even buy lunch here. I will not be buying from this location ever again. She tried to screen my call and would not let me speak with a manager and then proceeded to not let me speak and degrade me. She is extremely unprofessional and she should not be in the hospitality business. In my life I have been to much more expensive and high end restaurants that have let me use a the restroom in an absolute emergency without making a big deal about it.

After giving me attitude about the restroom is for only customers, she said just because my daughter was a “kid” would she let us. I understand you don’t want people coming into your restaurant using the bathroom as some public facility, but at the same time, we clearly had a parked, brand new car outside and were not coming off of the street and homeless or something. Both of us were well dressed and pleasant when I approached her so I just don’t appreciate her approach to us in this community. some weird power trip is going on with her. Further, for her to not let me talk with a manager is...