Saturday, March 14, 2009

Jungle George Grill

My mom wanted to try out a new restaurant last night, Jungle George Grill in Goleta. IT WAS TERRIBLE.

Ordering did not go well. The girl had a really hard time. My mom wanted a burger that was normally with chicken, but she wanted meat instead. The lady never asked her how she wanted it cooked. My dad then ordered a bison burger, that seemed to go okay. I then ordered a turkey burger with guacamole and cheese. I happened to look at the top of the menu and saw it appeared to come with a ton of other toppings. I pointed up there, asked the girl if it came with all those things, and then told her I only wanted lettuce. I asked if they had mayonnaise and she said no, they only had home-made thousand island. What burger place doesn't have mayonnaise? I then also noticed you had a choice of buns, so I chose wheat. My mom then realized she wanted wheat and asked for wheat as well. The girl NEVER offered us a choice of buns. We also ordered two orders of fries. At the end of ordering, she said something about two waters. My dad said, "That's three waters, right?". She said yes.

A short time after we sat down, a lady (not the one who took our orders) brought out two waters and walked away. We weren't sure if she was coming back with a third, but she never did. The same lady then came to deliver our food. She put down my dad's burger no problem. But then, she said something about a plain chicken burger. Well, I had ordered a mostly plain turkey burger and my mom had ordered what started as a chicken burger but substituted beef. So no one know what burger this was. The lady then decided it was turkey and said I ordered it plain. Well, it had cheese on it so it wasn't plain. But, it was missing the guacamole and lettuce. So either they thought it was plain or they didn't. I kind of lost my cool with her at that point. She said it wasn't a big deal to fix the burger, but I also pointed out we had received two waters for three people. At this point she offered us a free soda to try to help, but I don't drink soda so not helpful! After we all had our burgers in front of us (my mom's didn't have a wheat bun but she had no desire to argue with them anymore), the lady asked us if we needed anything else. We said we wanted our fries. She said, "Oh, those are coming". Well, why would you ask people if they wanted anything else when they didn't even have all of their food yet????

So while the food was okay (not great by any means), wow, what a hassle. We will definitely never go back there and will tell people how terrible they are.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

That doesn't sound like a good time at all... sorry to hear about it :(

AudreyO said...

We also were not impressed with Jungle George. The food was not worth going back for. We love Kahuna and thought we'd try another burger place. Their burgers were nothing more than the thin over cooked fast food type burgers. The fries were not hot and were over cooked as well. It's my guess they'll be out of business before the end of 2009.

annies home said...

Just dropping you a note to say thanks for coming by my blog
good luck

Anonymous said...

How frustrating! There were too many mistakes there - I would have walked out after talking to the manager

Becca said...

I posted this same post on Craiglist about Jungle George Grill...and someone posted the following reply...wow!!!!

Who the hell would order a chicken sandwich without the chicken?
Yes I would like a chicken sandwich with a burger patty.
So you want a hamburger?
No I have to be so difficult and unique that I want a chicken sandwich hold the chicken.
And for you sir?
I would like a hamburger. Does it really come with all that good stuff on it?
Why it sure does!
Then I only want lettuce.
Then you want a plain hamburger with lettuce?
Nope, that hamburger, minus the stuff and just lettuce.
Ok, one plain hamburger coming up!
And you couldn't just ask for another water, you had to lose your cool at that point. Let me guess, you can't find a good restaurant anywhere in town, ever.

Sarah Glova said...

bad service is the worst. My boyfriend and I both worked as waiters in college so I know it can be difficult sometimes... so we're typically very lenient... but I've had service like that before and it just blows my mind. makes you never want to go back. two waters? i mean-- really?!

Unknown said...

uhh... you really made it unnecessarily complicated.

Becca said...

Why would I pay for food I don't want?

Anonymous said...

While you are certainly entitled to your opinion I have eaten there often, never had any problems ordering nor with the service. As to the comment this is little better than fast food hamburgers....argh

Anonymous said...

It sounds as if Anonymous is a friend of this restaurants owners. It is really not as good as you think and service is not that good. The manager always has bad breath. In a restaurant? How unappetizing!

Thomas K said...

Yes, "I left this review elsewhere"; because it is my review and truly my opinion.

My girlfriend and I were returning to San Francisco from a trip to San Diego, and just happened to need gas as we passed Goleta. We serendipitously decided to give Jungle George Grill a try since it had such a unique and delighful name. What a gem!

The food was fantastic. I had a tropical chicken burger and LOVED it! My GF had a Weisswurst jungle dog and was equally satisfied. I do not usually like sweet potato fries, but the Jungles' sweet potato fries were the best I have ever had! The prices were extremely affordable-especially considering the quality AND quantity of food that we received...

With items such as fire-grilled Ostrich and bison burgers, Wild salmon, Ahi and Mahi-mahi alongside the standard lineup of "steer" burgers, turkey and chicken- and jungle dogs- we could not understand why this places was not absolutely packed with more customers. Jungle George Grill rocked our meal!

We will definitely stop in Goleta again: just for Jungle George Grill!

The staff bent over backwards to serve us and ensure our satisfaction. We did not need to repeat ourselves nor were there any errors in our orders. When you ask for water(or, any drink when you order), you are handed a cup, and you serve it to yourself at the soda machine: noone "gets" water "served" to them.