Peter L.
Yelp
Food Halls: good idea in theory - like a permanent food truck rodeo, but it's rare to find a good one. The ones in Charlotte and Raleigh are forgettable. DeKalb in NYC lower east side and Reading Terminal market in Philadelphia are unbelievable. 3 of us went to the Durham hall, nearly went to the Yaki one but finally decided to go for this place; each of us got crunchwraps: 2 of us got short rib barbacoa (heaps of shredded beef), one of us got the Chorizo. We got 3 teas (they charged $3 a piece for standard grocery store bottled tea) from them and a large chips with guacamole. Cost was $80 which included $11 for "living wage" charge (unadvertised forced tip essentially), and tip (we chose 2% as no added service was offered by the staff). The clerk neither offered nor mentioned any type of salsa option with the meal, so we went back and asked - the sauces for 3 of us were extra $1.50 plus tax/living wage/tip. No thanks. Without sauce the crunchwraps are ok - adequate vegetables and we just garnished our crunchwraps with the guacamole that we had ordered. The chips given to us were rather a small portion for the 3 of us. Overall the beef in the crunchwraps was fair (not great) quality. The portion size for $17+tip/living wage/taxes=$27/each was miniscule. A hungry average-sized grown man would be starving after just one crunchwrap. For $27 a person we should have felt either very full or receive something unusually special. This was not it.
The forced living wage charge was a nasty surprise given the minimal service the staff presented - please make this a voluntary thing for those who are inclined to support this. The misleading tip percentage indicator was another scam. $10 tip off a $60 total of the meal is NOT 2% but 16.7% - their "calculator" is fraudulent. I feel sorry for those who chose the 5, 10,15% options. This place has a inexplicably over-rated reviews on yelp, restaurantji, tripadvisor, google, etc. I would suggest you drive further down the road and try a variety of much better places like Qshack, fullsteam, refectory, etc. As an afternote, I've noticed that review ratings by people on all rating sites are massively over-blown and over-rated - 4 and 5 stars are given out willy-nilly to the worst of restaurants like this one. Customers need to learn to discriminate between good and bad - ratings should appropriately reflect the experience in order to encourage better food and service. As someone who has lived in the triangle since 1990 I know that Durham NC has just a handful of very nice restaurants and probably 95% very poor to average ones. This is lower than average for a city this size but is so due partly to a transient student population along with the seasonality of the overall population (city business dies during the summer and many promising restaurant businesses fail from it). Unfortunately the surviving businesses may be overcharging for food in an attempt to make up for the predictably poor business in the summertimes. Perhaps all college towns are like this. Therefore I've decided the pricing for this place is forgivable. What they could improve on would be offer a choice of salsa included with the high pricing of their food, consider being much more generous with their chips, especially when they can plainly see that 3 grown adults are ordering. This would lose them next to nothing in profits while creating a sense of value for the high price.
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this is a response to the business owner's points regarding my poor review.
I missed the part on the menu that stated that chips were "unlimited" - this is a very good tip for future goers and I wished the clerk would've reminded us of that. Regarding the "living wage" announcement - I missed that "1 foot sign" at the chaos of the register also, but there's no option to opt out of it still. Regarding the idea that I suggested they were deceiving guests - this was in reference to the faulty chip charge percentages. The "2% tip" is INCORRECT compared to the total charge of the meal - a petty point, but it is inarguably a fraud by definition and leaves a bad taste in the customers mouth and was probably triggered me to review your restaurant. The idea that "not forget the salsas" in your sign means NO SALSA WILL BE INCLUDED in the meal are two different ideas. Why not say more clearly "no salsas are included in the meals?" You don't do this because it is disgraceful to do this. Conclusion is that I don't want a refund and 2/5 rating is well deserved for your restaurant.