Aladdin Falafel Corner — Restaurant in Seattle

My family and I have been going to Aladdin's for many, many years. It has been our go-to spot for gyros, schwarmas, and greek fries. Our visits probably average at least twice each month. With the current COVID-19 stay-at-home order and restrictions on dine-in eating, it has been really important to me and my family to support our favorite small, local businesses. We had actually just enjoyed a meal on Thursday night without issue. Today was different. I called Aladdin's to place a to-go order (2 jumbo lamb and beef gyros without veggies, 1 chicken schwarma without pickles, and 1 large greek fries) at 2:56 pm on 4/26/2020 and was told it would take 20 minutes. I arrived early and waited in my car for awhile, and went inside. As the only customer in the restaurant, there was only one person working and I let him know I had already called in my order over the phone. He responded something along the lines of them having just switched shifts (to my understanding as he had a thick accent). Thinking nothing of this, and as my family and I do every time we pick up food, I jogged his memory and said "yeah the 2 gyros, 1 schwarma, and 1 greek fries" which he wrote down on his pad. He proceeded to charge me, and I tipped him 15%. He then tells me it will be about 5 minutes still and I saw that he already had some of the food going on the grill. After waiting, he hands me my order and I say thank you and leave. When I get into my car which is parked directly in front of the restaurant, I discover that my order was incorrect. Instead, I received 3 lamb and beef gyros, not jumbo, with veggies, and no chicken schwarma. The only item correct was the greek fries. I immediately return to the restaurant, sure that this was someone else's order, and very politely informed him that my order was incorrect and listed the items that I actually ordered. He then immediately cuts me off saying "No, no, no, you ordered 3 gyros, and 1 greek fries and points to his order pad". When I tried to calmly explain that I had ordered over the phone 20 minutes prior and tried to jog his memory with my order, he immediately cut me off, repeated the same thing over, and very curtly added "this is what I charged you for, this is what you get!" He then began to turn his back to me, and headed back towards the grill. Out of the corner of my eye, another female customer watched our exchange with a startled look on her face. Feeling simply defeated and misunderstood, I left the restaurant with a completely incorrect order knowing I just tipped this man almost $5 on top of everything. This is the first time ever that I felt so disregarded as a customer. I'm calling it as it is - I suspect the treatment I received is because I am a woman and I was alone. My only regret is that I didn't get his name or take a photo of him but here is my description: Older male, maybe in his 40's, almost completely bald, burgundy red T-shirt, and dark complected. This person was not one of their usual really laid back, very kind younger employees who you see so often behind the counter. There are far too many places to spend your hard-earned money to support local businesses, especially under the current COVID-19 circumstances, so this will be the last time I will be eating at Aladdin's. One bad apple can really ruin a business for customers, even regulars, as...

What this place lacks in pretty much everything, it makes up for by one, being located on The Ave (University Way) and two, staying open super late most of the week to handle the late night college drinking crowd.

I found this place because I am a Postmates delivery guy and I was sent here about 5 times in a row one night. Last night I stopped in to have a gyro. It was good but I ordered it spicy and even though it had good flavor, it was nowhere near spicy and severely lacked much tzatziki sauce.

If you're looking for some late night food in the U-District, they have two different locations. Both on The Ave.

The place is filthy and tiny but you'll be able to overlook that if you are as drunk as most of the people who patronize the joint.

I would eat there again but then again, I like dives. I would think that these places make money by the barrel but I could be wrong. If that's true however, they could spend some of that money to clean up the place and maybe remodel it a bit. Oh well. Maybe that's why I've never been able to stack up enough capital to open my own place and that's the bottom line.

PUN intended.

Thanks...

Great little falafel spot on the Ave (of which there are plenty). Things this place does well: Price-6.50 total including tax and debit fee for a pretty big sandwich Speed-literally only listened to one song while waiting. Impressive Spice: I asked for spicy sauce and they did not disappoint. Maybe I'm weak but it had my nose running. SO GOOD. Salad: I hate it when I get falafel and theres like one bite of tomato or lettuce inside. This place gave me a good handful of salad. Packaging: To go order came in paper square, inside paper sleeve for holding it, inside a paper bag for travel, with a nice thick napkin. On point.

Things I didn't love: I prefer my falafel to be a little more self contained. I'm not sure if this means cooked longer so the shell crisps up, or if there was too much water in his batter or what. The flavor was still delicious, but it sort of fell apart inside so that there was no falafel shape, but more like a falafel filling. Not a huge detractor, just a...