mezeh — Restaurant in Virginia

I am going to make a bold claim. Mezeh is the best fast casual Mediterranean cuisine in the D.C. area. Here are the Pro's and Con's of the restaurant to justify this claim.

Pro's: Mezeh uses the Level Up app and payment method. This creates a rewards program for the number of times you go. Since I like to eat out, this saves a good amount of money. For every $100 you spend you get $10 off. You also get a bonus for signing up and referring friends. Between the various perks offered, I have saved $2.00 off of every meal, on average. This makes each meal about $7.00 which is a great value for the quantity and quality of food you get here. The app also allows for tipping, which is a nice touch because I know that the servers at fast casual restaurants make very little in pay, and it is good to be able to reward them if they do a good job. The food is delicious. I have eaten at Chickpea, Cava, Amsterdam Falafel. You name it. Amsterdam probably has the best Falafel out of the bunch, but Mezeh shines with it's marinated meat selections. The Chicken Kebab is wonderful. I strongly suggest getting the caramelized eggplant - it is fantastic. The combination of flavor profiles you can create at Mezeh stands above the rest. The quantity is great. Originally, Mezeh had a limit to the number of toppings per "category" with lower prices. They recently switched to slightly higher prices and you get as much as you want from the categories - except protein. The amount of food you get is greater than Chipotle and the healthfulness is greater by an order of magnitude.

Con's: Location - Crystal City is not the most convenient place to have a location. Even if it was not near my house, I would go out of our way to eat there. Servers - Depending on the servers you may get more or less food. This is natural of any place like this. Keep asking and you should get what you are looking for, but some are sterner than others. Hours - A small gripe considering everything in Old Town and Crystal City closes down, but they close at 9:00 P.M. on Friday's. Seems...

In 2020, I felt this was the best quick service lunch spot in Crystal City. Very fresh, with a lot of options. The beverage selection was above average: many teas, juice blends, and gourmet sodas. However in 2021, unfortunately, the quality has slid. The soda machine was out of service for months, before they eventually removed it. The staff changed and since then I've had numerous frustrating interactions on virtually every visit - I have to repeat my selections 3 or 4 times and often even then I am ignored: "add feta, add feta, add feta" or "no bread, no bread, no bread" or "for here, for here, not to go, not to go" and I am given bread anyway and the order is bagged up to go. Etc etc. For some reason the tables are bolted to the floor, making it impossible to move things around for larger groups. One of the two speakers has been broken all year, so they play the remaining speaker louder in mono mode to compensate, and its directly above patrons head in line, and contributes to the generally downtrodden vibe overtaking this restaurant. Its not to late to fix any of this, and I hope they do, as this was once a great lunch spot...

The food at Mezeh in Crystal City was fresh and flavorful. Our son, a die-hard fan of Roti, decided he loves Mezeh even more. Unfortunately, the service was so poor that we will never return again. The woman who "helped" us did not smile once. She seemed annoyed that we did not immediately know what we wanted. There was no one in line behind us and we did not take an excessive amount of time to decide. She rang up our order and left our trays of her side of the counter, so we had to reach back in the food prep area to grab them. We sat down and after looking at my receipt I realize we were charged for a drink that we did not order. I went back up to the counter and instead of offering to refund my money she just asked if we wanted a cookie instead. When I told her know that I would like a refund she again seemed annoyed. She handed me the refund and I asked for the receipt as I always try to verify that my credit card was charged correctly. She said she needed to keep it and I asked for a copy. She printed one, handed it me and, without a word,...