Kolbeh: A Persian Restaurant in Seattle to avoid
unless you are a masochist and love poor wait staff service,
waiting forever for your bill, indifferent management (I complained twice in
writing and never
felt that I was listened to) and a restaurant that likes to violate the law
(one wonders about their obeying health regulations), the Kolbeh restaurant
at 1956 - 1st Ave South near Sears and Home Depot in the SODO neighborhood
south of Pioneer Square of Seattle 98134 is for you. Their web site is
http://www.seattlekolbeh.com.

My date and I ordered an appetizer ($7.50) that was not delivered correctly
(we ordered Baba Gahnosh but got Humous, a different item) and two entrees:
Lamb Kabobs and Vegetarian Fesejan.

Miranda, the waitress who got our appetizer order wrong, loudly argued with
us when we disputed what she brought us and did not offer to waive the
charge for the appetizer which is standard in the restaurant industry when
you screw up. She also did not bring back my half-eaten entrée in a doggy
bag after I asked and ignored my date and myself when it came time to settle
the bill. Needless to say, we did not leave her a tip. Which I rarely do as
I worked as a waiter after college.

The manager, after initially only agreeing to accept the Entertainment
online discount coupon http://www.entertainement.com for only 25% off
because it was after 10 PM (not disclosed on the coupon), agreed to honor my
Entertainment Coupon that would have given us 50% off the meal up to $18.00
for the full amount of $18.00 instead of $10.10 when I made a stink.

He authorized taking an additional $8.00 off the bill in accordance with the
terms of the offer by initially it. Unfortunately, even though I only wrote
that I was authorizing a charge of $35.39, the staff charged me $43.39.

When I wrote the restaurant a dispute letter about this overcharge, I also
let them know that I was disputing the illegal cover charge of $10.00 for
the two of us for the belly dancers which had not shown up and loud music.
This was based on a phone call from the City of Seattle Revenue and Consumer
Affairs, that the Kolbeh did not have the proper business license to charge
admission (and they have been warned about this before.)

We finally escaped as the place was filling up with smokers and what
appeared to be the eagerness of the waitress to get rid of gray hairs
(people over the age of 40) like ourselves.

Keith Gormezano

http://www.scn.org/~bb822