The Vine Cafe and Market — Restaurant in St. Louis

A few friends and I ate here during Ramadan and the food was amazing! Everything was tasty and they had won me over. It was my first time here but my friends usually come here fairly often.

Fast forward to this past weekend and everything wrong they could do, they did. First a friend and I got the banana smoothie and it tasted like milk with a hint of banana. We asked it to be replaced and to the chagrin of the waiter he went ahead and did it. We ordered a bunch of sandwiches (beef schwarma, combination of beef and chicken and others), and every single wrap had meat in it that was way overcooked. Even the beef was super dry, which is hard to do, and to finish it you needed extra sauce. A friend and I got the beef and chicken schwarma and they gave us a sandwich with just beef (not the schwarma). My friend asked for one without tomatoes and they put tomatoes in his. So after we both sent our sandwiches back, we got the right ones but the “cook” came out and kept looking at our table while mumbling to a waiter. If you have an issue, you can come and approach us and we’ll be happy to discuss why we sent the sandwiches back. The only thing good that night was the appetizers (kippeh). It was the 4 of us and the appetizers only comes in threes, so we asked the waiter to charge us the per item cost while ordering because he kept saying “well it comes in threes.”

Finally, we got the check, all paid for it and my friend picked up the charge for the kippeh and saw he charged us $2 for just one extra piece. The charge should have been $1.50 but he just up charged us. If the food and service wasn’t so terrible we wouldn’t have cared a bit for paying an extra $.50. So we called the waiter over and he said “he did us a favor by charging us $2.” I don’t know what the means but charging extra is not doing anyone a favor. Giving us a free piece of kippeh would have been doing us a favor. The fact that they wanted to nickel and dime us knowing we were already have a crappy experience was very disappointing. What made it worse was after he walked away grinning, he walked back and said “well your friends told me to up-charge it.” If they offered us a free appetizer for the trouble, we probably would have come back again but after that, they just lost 4 loyal customers over $7 (total in appetizer cost).

The reason why I am giving them a 2 star and not a 1 star is because of my first experience with them which was a 5...

The Vine is the best restaurant in St. Louis. Not only is their food delicious and economical, but their wait staff is also very friendly and proficient. If you order an entree, you will get enough food for TWO meals. If you order a sandwich and a side of fries, you will get a gigantic sandwich and an entire entree-sized plate covered in a huge stack of their specially seasoned french fries. Their extremely generous portion sizes make this place an affordable option for just about everyone. We have enjoyed all the food we have ordered from The Vine including their salads, appetizers, entrees, sandwiches, and desserts. Their pita bread is the best we have ever tasted. It is baked fresh in their kitchen. We drive 35 minutes from our home in Illinois about twice a month because we all start craving their pita, hummus, and rice. Visitors should know that The Vine does not serve alcohol, and is frequented by many Muslim families. They sell halal meat, and there is a small section which offers customers a selection of imported groceries and hookah supplies. If you visit during nice weather, you may see and/or smell people smoking hookah at the tables on the restaurant's front patio. I have one criticism of this restaurant, and it has to do with the employees who bus the tables. The last several times we have gone there, the bussers have not cleared our appetizer plates nor our dinner plates. We like to order dessert and cardamon tea, and when our waiter or waitress tries to serve that to us, they are always disappointed to see that there is no room on our table because the bussers haven't come by. Customers don't like to sit surrounded by dirty dishes after a meal. This is just a training issue, I think. Other than that minor inconvenience, this place is...

I am sad to write this bad review. The point is absolutely not to harm the business, but to warn the owner, who is a nice man, that the food quality has gotten worse over time. The standard has definitely gotten lower to what it used to be when we came to st Louis 7 years ago. First of all, the food in general does absolutely not have a Lebanese touch. The garlic they served on plate, or the one inside the sandwich is liquid with mayonnaise texture (picture attached), however the Lebanese garlic is supposed to be thicker. They also served "soup" of Hummus and baba ghanouj which were liquid too. They taste exactly like the hummus cans. We definitely know when the hummus is home made. We could open one at home and eat it. The kibbeh is absolutely commercial, because we have eaten the same kibbeh in other restaurants. The picture shows what kind of burned kibbeh we got. The guy who control the food quality he either does not know what is Lebanese kibbeh or he knows and let it go. One more thing is that the Lebanese chicken kabob should not have at all the spice "curry", otherwise you are eating other cultural food. Finally, the sick guy who served us doubly or may be triply fried French fries (picture attached) needs to go home. If you want to do business, do it...