Gulu-Gulu Cafe — Restaurant in Salem

Let me preface this by saying that I’ve been going to Gulu Gulu since 2012; I’ve always raved about how incredible the food, staff, service, menu, and atmosphere are. I live an hour out of town and go out of my way to come to this place at least 1-2 times a year. Today, I showed up with my friends on a Saturday between 5-6pm, and had the saddest, most disappointing, disgusting experience in over a decade. The waitress couldn’t be bothered to smile or act even remotely sociable, despite it being dead and nearly empty (considering the weekend and time of day) in the restaurant. I ordered a simple Mariposa Spritz (one of the few cocktails on their menu) and a BLT. I was told by my server “your drink won’t be purple”. I’ve bought this drink in the past and what ended up on my table today was fizzy lemon juice with vodka at best. I wasn’t even able to get through half of it, despite trying to just deal with it. When I asked the server “are you missing ingredients for the drink?” she told me “no… we just don’t have the butterfly tea… it will taste the same though”. It did not, in fact, taste the same. If she had been straightforward and forthcoming (instead of just saying “it won’t be purple”) in advance about the missing ingredient, I would’ve just ordered something different. But I wasn’t even given that option. My food arrives and it’s edible, but nothing impressive. It’s hard to mess up a sandwich but it was still mediocre at best, considering the quality of the food I’ve had from here in the past. My friends and I sat for a while after finishing our meals, waiting for our check. Again, the restaurant was dead with several empty tables. Our waitress had gone off shift, was sitting behind us near the bar, on her cellphone, having a cocktail (which is fine with me, as long as someone is able to continue taking care of your tables and customers in your absence). I watched another patron approach our waitress during this time, nicely asking for his check. When he walked away, my friends and I watched/listened in horror as this waitress spoke irritably and poorly about that customer. She complained that he had interrupted her, stating “how about NO, obviously I have a martini in front of me”- a break that she never made known to the guests she was serving (are we supposed to read her mind?). After waiting for about 15 minutes, I finally walked up to the takeout station with my friends and asked another employee if she could give us our check and remove the unpalatable drink from it. She told us she had to talk to her manager about removing the drink, who was sitting across the table from the woman who had been our waitress… but was now having a martini. He continued to sit, letting this other employee deal with our complaint as we paid and left. This was the biggest waste of time and money I’ve ever spent, and that’s was without leaving a tip. We went to BitBar a few streets over, received incredible drinks, and interacted with very friendly and attentive staff (plus they have arcade games and weren’t depressingly empty for a weekend).

Update: The co-owner, Eric, reached out to me personally via email. He was deeply apologetic, investigated the incident, is addressing it with staff, and issued a full refund. I appreciate the ownership taking accountability and making it right. I’ve changed my review to 3 stars instead of 1 for the effort...

we entered the establishment sort of mindlessly forgetting we were carrying half empty coffees from black craft down the street. we requested outside seating and the host that sat us pointed out the drinks and said that although they technically weren’t allowed, to just hide them. sure! fine. we had no issues with this.

the server comes, we put in our food and he says “any drinks for you guys” probably not a big deal but we sorta interpreted this as another employee making a thing about our coffees especially since we already very clearly had waters in front of us.

after getting our food, the person who introduces themself as the manager points out the coffees something along the lines of “we can’t allow outside beverages, we don’t know what’s in them” blah blah. fine. i directly handed mine to them because it was literally trash. these were watered down melted coffees we had been carrying. we would’ve had no issues tossing these coffees had the person that sat us said something and refused service but to keep harassing us about something so stupid was just silly to me. we genuinely felt irritated and uncomfortable after this.

unfortunately this would not be the end of our manager interactions because i wasn’t even 2 bites into my sandwich when i found a long brown straight strand under it. (very important that i note it was not my hair as it’s in a protective style and the person i was with does not have light brown nor straight hair).

so the waiter gets the manager and i will say, they handled it well. i was offered a new sandwich except they didn’t have the bread i initially ordered or a comped meal. i chose the latter. the manager then proceeds to make a comment which idk if it was supposed to make us feel better or what but “all the chefs wear hats so” ok so are you implying it’s hair from one of us??? how did the hair get UNDER the sanwhich?? i didn’t even make a big deal about the hair, i just wasn’t gonna pay for it. either way, yall served me a sandwich with hair in it….

the final nail in the coffin of our not so great experience was the lack of attention from our server. there was no checking in on us, no offer of anything else, no water refills, my friends plate was sitting completely empty and finished no one picked it up, it took almost 25-30 minutes to get the check and that was AFTER my friend went inside twice to ask someone. the 1 or 2 times the server came out, he did not acknowledge us at all. at some point the manager came back out to grab a package and completely ignored us. yes they were busy but that was ridiculous.

this is unfortunate because from what i was able to eat, the food was really good and my friend enjoyed hers as well. i also always want to support queer businesses. however the customer service really sucks, the servers clearly aren’t that good and can’t handle being busy (it’s salem, i don’t get that) , and the manager comes off as extremely condescending whether they meant to or not. we were extremely apologetic about bringing outside beverages in and with the way they acted, you would’ve thought we were trying to skip out on the check or...

Didn’t post this review till now because this place was honestly that forgettable. We went on November 1st of last year for lunch around 2 pm because we knew the crowds would have almost completely died down in the town on Friday afternoon (we were mostly right) except for in this cafe restaurant. Since it was full, we figured, what a great sign for the quality of the food and service! Couldn’t have been more wrong. We were sat by the host and it took the server 30 minutes to greet us. Another 15 to take our drink and food orders, and finally 2 hours. At this point we were excited and our stomachs were rumbling in anticipation of the delicious food. When they arrived though…the sandwiches were entirely average. For the price we paid for 2 sandwiches and 2 drinks (almost $50.00), we expected much more in quality.

On to what stood out to me, the service. This server not only blatantly treated us differently, she refused to make eye contact with us the entire time we were there. Is it because we weren’t local to the area, unlike most (if not all) of the guests in for lunch that day? Didn’t think being tourists under the age of 50 was considered this criminal after Halloween in your restaurant. Also setting aside her lack of emotion while taking our order, she was very impatient with us, rolling her eyes and looking anywhere but at us. Wonder how bad her day was that she had to take it out on us. My husband has visited this restaurant with his family a few years ago and was bewildered by these changes in service and quality of food. We quickly ate and decided to leave. After providing our payment method, we were quickly finishing up our last bites when she interrupted us, loudly exclaiming, “excuse me? Uhhh, excuse me? Do you have a problem with me? You didn’t tip.” I replied, “yes, I didn’t tip.” She then yelled, loud enough for other patrons to turn and watch, “why wouldn’t you tip? Was there something so wrong with my service that you would leave the tip at zero dollars?” I said, “it’s because I’m leaving you a cash tip.” She said, “why would you do that and not tip me?” I repeated, “I’m leaving you a tip in cash.” She huffed, rolled her eyes, and disappeared.

I left her a 2 dollar tip in cash. If she hadn’t yelled from the get go, I would have been direct with her about her lack of service and the small tip that...