Crave Mediterranean cafe — Restaurant in Springfield

I probably won’t be back. Love their food! Seriously. I usually go once a week. But the service and the disorganized kitchen wait times are impossible. I quit going for dine in because one of the waitresses is so rude & snippy and ineffective and she seems to be there all the time. I talked to the owner about her but she’s still there. The kitchen is slow even on dine in. So, I started getting takeout to avoid the waitress and to avoid sitting at a table waiting. But the one waitress keeps showing up on my orders even when I’m talking to other staff. It seems like it is a vendetta for her at this point. The last time I waited 40 minutes for my takeout food and 50 minutes today. And the picture is of a handful of add on fries I paid $4 for - unbelievable. They were not that busy. The same rude waitress gave me attitude when I started asking for a refund at the 45 minute waiting mark today. I was talking with another staff person and she came over and began nattering. You have to know I am a calm person so I have not escalated this situation. It’s a shame their kitchen & staff is sinking this business because everything on the menu is really good. But I don’t want to get irritated when I order food.

Note to owner. I did not hang up on you. You called me and I said I’ve talked to you before. You began offering me the same excuses as last time I talked with you about how you can’t find good people and no one understands your food. I told you I wasn’t interested in hearing excuses and repeated that I find your one waitress we discussed before to be intolerable. I repeated that the food is good here. You asked me what was wrong with my order and I feel like my writing is fairly clear. I’m sorry that your restaurant is struggling but other owners seem to find a way to make pleasurable dining experiences while facing the same issues. I said you don’t seem to be making any progress on the same, repeated issues and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. We ended the call. You then called me back not a minute later asking why I was upset and telling me what good people you and your husband are and wanting to explain yourself again. I told you that I did not want to talk about it anymore and we ended the call. I did not hang up on you. I sincerely hope you can pull this restaurant out of the fire, but that starts with taking responsibility for what’s wrong and fixing it ASAP. You have been open for a while now and I am not the only reviewer to mention kitchen and...

I don't like leaving negative reviews for places, but I also don't like lying. The food was more than acceptable; my problems are with the service.

I arrived with a friend sometime after 6:00 on a Friday evening. There was a 30-minute wait for a table, which would've been fine if there hadn't also been an exceptionally long wait for the food as well; I didn't keep the exact time, but it was definitely over an hour after we ordered that we got our food. The service did not seem exceptionally even or well-organized.

After a long wait, one particular item that was to come with my food (spanakopita, a personal favorite of mine and one of the reasons I ordered that dish) did not come with it. When I asked, the waiter challenged whether it came with the meal, and then came back with the menu. I showed him where on the menu it clearly says it's included, and, after returning and checking with the kitchen, he said it would be "a while" before it would come out. Since it was nearing 9:00 by now, I took that to mean "it's too late for us to bother with it" and, since I too wanted to leave by then, didn't press the issue further, but noticed that nothing was offered in return, and I simply had to take the hit. When an establishment is sympathetic to such situations and offers some kind of recompense, I can happily forgive, but when one is both challenged and then knowingly left without satisfaction or recompense, there is little room for me to view them positively.

To their credit, when they saw we had drank all of our special lemonades before the food came out, they did provide complimentary refills. However, I drank mine slowly, and no refill would've been necessary if there hadn't been an hour-plus wait time. The food itself causes this to be a two-star review instead of a one; while it wasn't the best Mediterranean food I've ever had, it was pretty good. Fries were a bit cold, though.

I recognize they're new and that that presents some difficulties, but even so I expected better. It seems like either they're woefully underprepared for their customers or they've hired sub-par staff. Either way, I'm not convinced I'll be returning to see if they figure it out. Perhaps as time goes by things...

We were so excited when we saw that Springfield had a Mediterranean place right across from Mama Jeans. Our friends just went and loved it so we were so thrilled to try it. The atmosphere going in seemed cool and I loved the music. Unfortunately our excitement soon faded. Our server was nice and polite but didn’t know a lot about the menu. He said it was his second day and he was still learning. I joked with him about it being our 1st time so we would learn together or he could totally bluff & we wouldn’t know the difference. After we ordered our food it went down hill. We sat there for quite awhile and our waiter came to our table and said something went wrong with the computer and our ticket didn’t go through so it would be awhile. We were on a date and didn’t have any where to be, so no problem. Then a lady brought out the food and my husband’s order was the not what he ordered so they took it back to fix it. Thankfully we planned on splitting our plates or I would have been done with my plate by the time his came out. Then we realized they forgot his soup. So when the waiter came to see how we were doing we told him that my hubby never got his soup so he left again and got it for us to go. Then we waited and waited for our check and then realized we might need to go up to the counter, so we headed up there and the young man said he was just headed to our table to give us our ticket. There was not good communication and the young man seemed to running the whole dining room. There was a lady that came and brought us out our food but I didn’t see her much but maybe that was just how I was seated. It just seemed a bit confusing and chaotic. My husband said the food was great but the service as a whole was not good and ruined the experience and excitement we had. We will probably give it another shot because the food was good and we love mediterranean food but I hope they figure out the kinks in the service. The service really does make a difference. I just think our waiter needed help or more training. But he was young a new so we tried to be understanding. I just wanted to be honest...