Maoz Falafel

[Andrew Fenton]

So there's this Dutch falafel chain. And they've opened their first US branch at 3rd and South St. The falafel is pretty good, and it's really cheap. For less than $6, you get a falafel, hummus and fried eggplant sandwich with as many toppings as you can cram on board, plus frites (thick-cut: either you like that kind or not. I'm pretty neutral). Plus- and here's the kicker- a fresh-squeezed orange juice. It's the latter that really makes the deal, in my opinion.

What I like about the place is that they have a very small menu. Pretty much just falafel, frites and a small salad bar (with lots of olives, slaws and so forth). Downside is that it's wicked disorganized: nobody there really seems to know what they're doing. Worth a try, though, and it's a nice alternative to other South St. junk food.

They have a website, of course. "Trying to spread the vegetarian lifestyle worldwide"... well, whatever. It's no Soylent Green, naturally, but it's a good start.

[rlibkind]

Thanks for the heads up, Andrew. Hafta give it a try.

[herbacidal]

Noticed the place the other day. Didn't know it was Dutch tho.

I did think they had their marketing and interior together much more than most small business owners of that ilk.

[Andrew Fenton]

Yeah, when I saw it I immediately thought "franchise". (And it looks so very, very... Euro...)

[herbacidal]

Yeah, when I saw it I immediately thought "franchise". (And it looks so very, very... Euro...)

Yup. It does look very Euro.

[dkupersmith]

Ate at Maoz on Memorial Day - rainy holiday, figured the area would be empty and it was - able to park two storefronts away.

No complaints about the food. The falafel were excellent (even if they want to call them Maoz), the tahina sauce good and the homemade pita earned some extra points. The order of chips was huge - enough for two people.

My concern is their set-up. When you walk in, the salad bar to top off your falafel, and the line to order are in the same spot. Even on an empty day, it seemed inefficient. I can't even imagine it working on a busy lunch hour. Hopefully they will rearrange things, because I would definately go again if in the South ST. area.

[Andrew Fenton]

My concern is their set-up. When you walk in, the salad bar to top off your falafel, and the line to order are in the same spot. Even on an empty day, it seemed inefficient. I can't even imagine it working on a busy lunch hour.

Exactly. I found myself elbowing aside people in line as I tried to get to the salad bar or the ketchup. Granted, it's a very small space, but I'd have hoped that they would have spent a little more time thinking out their layout.

[herbacidal]

Stopped by here today.

Although I wanted the Maoz Meal with eggplant and hummus, the guy forgot to give me the humus.

The falafel itself was good, as were the fries.

I suppose the salad bar and order counter being one and the same might be a problem.

But I'm wondering if they'll get huge rushes like places closer to the business district.

Their lunch biz may just continually wander in, given the type and number of businesses their customers are likely to be coming from.

[rlibkind]

Finally got to Maoz today and I concur with the previous assessments: excellent falafel, nice salad fixings (I esp. liked the fried cauliflower), good value, and an unworkable layout.

It very much reminded me of the falafel counters you see in Israel, the difference being that in Israel there will be an even wider selection of salads, at least twice as much as offered by Maoz. (At some Haifa falafel stands, there would be three or four times as many different salads).

After reading a blurb from Craig Laban they had pasted on the window, this comes as no surprise. Although it's a Dutch franchise, the local franchise is held by an Israeli.

PS: The freshly made pitas are outstanding.

[Holly Moore]

4 coveted Grease Stains at HollyEats.Com

[Andrew Fenton]

Four stains sounds about right.

About the fries: I've found them to be wildly inconsistent. Once or twice they've been very crispy, other times mealy and limp. I'd chalk it up to whether they'd just come out of the fryer, except that the same thing happens with their salt level. The salt varies from almost none to way too much. I think their workers just don't really know what they're doing. (Hopefully, that should be "what they're doing yet".)

[KatieLoeb]

I walked around the corner to Maoz Falafel today and picked up a "salad lunch" and paid the extra fifty cents for hummus and egglplant. No one explained anything so I sort of milled around waiting for a salad to magically appear from what appears to be a kitchen in the back. Then the guy handed me a small plastic clamshell container and told me to help myself to the salad bar. I wished he hadn't put a wet and soggy wad of shredded lettuce at the bottom, because I didn't really want it and would have preferred to fill the container with items of my own choosing if that's how it worked. I filled up my small container with some tabouli looking salad, a couple of different slaws and some of that good looking cauliflower and placed it on the counter. When the falafels were done they opened the container and put the felafels in on top. I rememinded them that I'd requested the hummus and eggplant and they were going to try and jam it in on top of everything else. Then I made the big mistake. I asked for the hummus and eggplant in A SEPARATE CONTAINER. The guy (whom I presume was the owner because he seemed awfully concerned about cost control) said "We don't do that". "Even if I ask nicely?", I said, "I really don't want the felafel balls to get soggy before I get home". I then even offered to pay for an extra container. You would have thought I was asking for out of season fruit or something. I explained that I also worked in a restaurant and that fulfilling simple customer requests was part of the day to day operations. Still a hostile stare. "We have a system, Miss". My reply, with just a hint of sarcastic tone was, "sometimes you need to think outside of the box if fulfilling a simple customer request is at stake. It's about Customer Service, not your etched-in-stone system". He begrudgingly gave me what I'd requested and said yet again, "we don't normally do this". I told him he wouldn't have to worry about it, there wouldn't be a next time. The other customers in line applauded as I walked out.

Final grade - Felafels A, Hummus B+, salad bar C+

CUSTOMER SERVICE = FAILURE

[Jason Perlow]

Yipes.

[Holly Moore]

I had a totally difference experience, Katie, with the guy I thought was the owner. My first time I just stopped in to look around - already had filled up elsewhere. I asked the guy behind the counter how it works. He explained it. Then he took his tongs, snagged a falafel and handed it to me.

The next day I was back for lunch - my usual obnoxious self. Same guy behind the counter. Made a joke about me being with the FBI, with all those pics. More jokes when I asked for a side of fries, "Included." A diet coke, "Included." "You guys won't let me spend any more money."

Maybe there are good twin/evil twin co-owners. Then again, I know when I had my restaurant, we too had good twin/evil twin co-owners. Me and Me. All depended on the tides, the moon, and who didn't show up and what broke down and what we were out of and whether the guy who kept hitting on my waitress was there for lunch.

Edited July 25, 2004 by Holly Moore (log)

[KatieLoeb]

Does that mean he neglected to tell me to take a drink and ask for my fries too? I guess if he forgets to tell you what's included he saves money. I probably made his day then.

I have no problem at all with the guy sticking to his "system" but my request was neither outrageous, difficult to fulfill or even asking for a freebie. I offered to pay for another container. He was just being a rigid asshole, no more, no less.

I'm delighted other customers aren't getting the "special" treatment I got. It'd be tough to stay in business if everyone got treated that way. Then again, his products cost PENNIES to produce, so he'll probably do very well there, especially if he doesn't tell everyone what's included with what they've paid for.

[Andrew Fenton]

Here's the problem with Maoz: they're massively inconsistent. The differing treatment that Katie and Holly had points to that inconsistency, I think. I've noticed that the quality of service and food oscillates violently between "awesome" and "horrible" depending on who's working, how busy it is, and, for all I know, a complex astrological formula involving the phases of the moons of Jupiter. My guess is that there is no policy, or that the people there don't know what it is.

The worst-- and this, I think, is enough to put me off the place-- was recently when we went in on a busy Saturday. They were out of fries, so we had to wait for freshly-fried potatoes. No problem, thinks I, they'll be nice and hot and crispy. No such luck: the worker took them out of the oil maybe a minute too early, and the fries were flabby and pale. Bummer.

A bigger problem was with the falafel sandwich: when I've been there in the past, they've cut maybe a third of the pita off, leaving plenty of room to stuff your sandwich. This time, however, they were cutting them in half. That doesn't leave much room for anything other than falafel. Not such a big deal either, except for the guy who, as he ate his sandwich, kept going back to the salad bar and adding more stuff, smearing sauce on his half-eaten sandwich with the spoon that he then put back into the bowl... There are times when I wish I could carry around a dehydrated health inspector; this was one of those times.

[KatieLoeb]

Not such a big deal either, except for the guy who, as he ate his sandwich, kept going back to the salad bar and adding more stuff, smearing sauce on his half-eaten sandwich with the spoon that he then put back into the bowl... There are times when I wish I could carry around a dehydrated health inspector; this was one of those times.

GAH!!!

I am so never ever ever ever going back into that place. I'm ready to be physically ill over that one...

[markemorse]

Just FYI...Maoz in Amsterdam is still fantastic even if their plan for global domination didn't work out. Really just one of the best falafel salad bars in town, and obsessively clean (except for the Central Station branch, where I will never eat again). I still go in and get a salad to go, no falafel.

[Andrew Fenton]

Good to know, and I will try them when I visit Amsterdam.

Really, I'd be happy to try them again in Philly, if somebody assured me that they'd changed their policy to prevent dirty hippies spreading sauce all over their half-eaten falafel. Because, yuck.

[markemorse]

Well shit, Amsterdam is NOT the place to avoid dirty hippies spilling their sauce all over anything (and our hippies are way dirtier than yours).

The thing is, the guy behind the counter has to be vigilant with the wiper...

A couple of things: their quality of food is never less than awesome here; there are always fries ready to go (this IS amsterdam); and they ALWAYS put the lettuce at the bottom of your pita and put the falafel on top. If that's a problem for you, you better let 'em know first. I am willing to bet good big money that no Dutch customer has ever asked for three separate containers for a falafel before, and so it's just not in the rule book. Welcome to 'merica, boys!

If you're building it there, the trick is to take the falafel back out again and tuck them between the pita and the plastic wrapper you're holding it in so you can then build the fkn St. Peter's of Falafel in there. That wimpy lettuce is just some kind of bad habit they have, it's just iceberg anyway, just forget it's down there.

Lastly: no Maoz has ever been laid out efficiently. Also not in the rule book, I'm sure. That's just the way they are, the line to order is right in front of the place where the hippies are spilling tahina into the beets. Think of Maoz as a poorly-engineered but beautiful and useful creature, possibly doomed.

EDIT: Readability enhanced, degree of hippie dirt embellished, missing Fs inserted (my F key is gone).

Edited August 14, 2006 by markemorse (log)

[Ducksredux]

I just wanted to add my own Maoz story although its been at least half a year since my only trip there. I ordered my fries, and the girl behind the counter brought a package of fries out and put it in the receptacle. I took them, went off down the street, and ate a few of them, but then realized that it was the wrong size and these weren't my fries. I wrapped them up, brought them back, stuck it back in the receptacle for completed orders and the girl behind the counter gave it to someone else and then got my fry order out. I got some sauce on them somehow, despite the sneezeguard being so low that I clunked my hand with the sauce ladle all over it spilling stuff everywhere, and despite zero help from the girl who admitted to not being able to speak English. Totally disorganized, run by chimpanzees, and the fries weren't any good. And the sauces were salad dressings. Dunno about their falafel.

[markemorse]

hey ducks, sounds like a good one....was this the philadelphia branch or one of the amsterdam branches?

[Ducksredux]

Philadelphia. Was skeptical of their fries at first because I thought Maoz sounds Hebrew not Belgian but the Frites shop on 2nd Ave and like 7th street in manhattan is/was owner by Israelis and wasn't bad (not as good as the defunct B. Frites on 52nd or the ex-place on 4th st and 6th Ave but better than the one on Ave A and Houston).

[MarketStEl]

*major bump*

Remember the fellow that kept us enthralled and ultimately feeling sorry for him with his attempt to open a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in the 1100 block of Walnut Street?

Well, there will be a new restaurant going into the space next door: another Philly outlet for Maoz. Progress has been somewhat slow -- the '70's-funky wallpaper went in back around September, and the sign over the door only within the last month. No word yet on when it will open. I plan to check it out when it does.

[Ducksredux]

*major bump*

Remember the fellow that kept us enthralled and ultimately feeling sorry for him with his attempt to open a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant in the 1100 block of Walnut Street?

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hmm I missed this... was it New Heaven? I still regret my dinner there from 3 years ago. Rude, and bad sushi to boot.