Damascus

I don’t see any point in writing a review for a place that is no longer there but I have to say my peace, for what its worth. I will truly miss this place. For me and my business partner, Damascus had the BEST gyros meal deals in the city. It was $ 5 and it was massive and it came with hummus and salad or fries. If I could eat it cold from being in the fridge for a day and still melt in my mouth, I know its good. We can’t find any place that had that quality of food and for that price. I was deeply saddened after they shut down. Even the people will be missed. Well there goes our regular Tuesday treat.

Hi,
First off, about a month or so back I had purchase a certificate from
for this place and today we went to try the place out. We drove up and they had a ugly looking 10 X 10 canopy outside with table chairs and looked really poor taste. No other cars were there, but we still went in. A guy was at the counter and handed us menu’s and then another guy came to take our order. We didn’t even get greeted and he saw the certificate and said they cancelled all of them. It didn’t show any expiration date, but they wouldn’t honor it, so we got up and left, which after reading the many bad reviews just now on several review sites, i’m glad we did leave.
We left and went to Serope“s and had a great meal for half the price. I will contact
and tell them what happen. I should have known better than buy the ticket from them, for I’ve always had problems redeeming their certificates!
Sincerely,
John and Catherine Young
Baton Rouge, LA

It saddens me when I have to write a negative review about a business located close to home given that the neighbourhood is so in need of new blood and revitalization, but still… there are limits and Damascus is just not worth the trip.
We had a chicken schwarma plate and a gyros plate — comes with rice, a salad, and hummus with two «Lebanese» teas — total cost just under $ 28.
Here’s what we got…
1) My gyros plate came out with meat so dry that to call it jerky would be complimentary.
2) I took it back and the man behind the counter asked me why I didn’t like it dry.
3) My partner’s chicken was also dry — on the edge though so we didn’t return it (though we really should have).
4) The salad was pitiful — the cheese was powdered — looked like something out of a Parmesan can from the local grocery.
5) The hummus was bland and tasteless as was the rice — not even any salt.
6) If there was any rose water in the tea we didn’t taste it.
Basically, the descriptions of the place by other users are correct so I won’t belabour the point. Essentially it’s an old run-​down building that’s been somewhat refurbished but the reality is that it’s a shoestring start-​up with used furniture (tables with cracks in the tops etc).
The man at the counter handed us menus as we walked in. There was no one else sitting down for a meal though there were several to go orders filled while we were there. The place does appear to have some support from the Arabic speaking community, which we hope will stick with them as they try to build their core competencies.
We would LOVE to have a Lebanese restaurant in our neighbourhood, and we ALWAYS support local businesses — especially when they are so very local. That being said, the quality of the food is so poor and the price no less than more well-​established Lebanese /​Arabic restaurants in town that have far better food that we won’t be going there again.
The service was acceptable but hardly friendly. It was far more «chummy» among the Arabic speakers — basically we were totally ignored, not even asked how the food was.
I have to be honest and say that I wonder if I had spoken Arabic would I have been served gyros meat that had obviously spent hours on the rotating oven and was essentially inedible. I HATE to say such a thing, but I cannot imagine that anyone who was served what came out on my plate would find it acceptable.
Thumbs down all around. If we could have given it a «no stars» we would have.

Damascus Restaurant is a decent restaurant located along Florida. It’s definitely hole in the wall compared to some of the larger sites (such as McDonalds and the old Broadmoor Theatre), and it is definitely a new site in a run-​down building.
The interior of the restaurant looks bland but more modern than the exterior suggests. The food, as well, was decent and on par price-​wise with other Greek, Lebanese, and Middle Eastern establishments in Baton Rouge. It was certainly not a disappointing experience, and given its novelty, I’m sure they will improve as time marches on.
I would give the place 4 stars, but I am deducting one star for two reasons: first, the salad was extremely bland, as the cheese seemed stale and the dressing was paltry, and second, the owners seem to have a penchant for Celine Dion music, and this was all that was playing in the restaurant. Many Middle Eastern restaurants play music from the Middle East, which can be a bit repetitive, but listening to Celine Dion while eating left a bad taste in my mouth such that I was begging for something else… anything else!

After having seen this place a couple times from the road, I finally stopped in while running errands yesterday. I had some high hopes, as little hole in the wall restaurants like this usually try hard for a few months after opening to go above and beyond. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here. Pulling into the lot, the building looks incredibly run down. I’m pretty sure they just renovated it, but it has the foreboding aura of an abandoned haunted house about it. There was absolutely nobody else there and it was just about 12:30. Not a good sign, but I was fairly determined to at least give the place a try. Upon entering, the kitchen and service counter are to the immediate left and the small dining area is to the right. In the kitchen there were three men speaking a foreign language, and though they looked at me, they continued yapping for a couple minutes before one came to greet me. He handed me a menu and we exchanged a few pleasantries before he quickly turned about and went back into the kitchen to continue talking. I looked over the menu and decided within about a minute to get the lunch combo, so I could get a better spread of their food to try. I waited about 3 or 4 more minutes of which I clearly had a view of them talking in the kitchen before he briefly glanced up and saw me waiting, then turned away and continued talking. After a few more minutes I had actually taken out money and was waving it at him, and even still it was a couple more minutes before he came to take my order. At this point, I was getting irate. I placed my order to go and he went back into the kitchen saying it would just be a couple minutes. Which it really should be, considering gyro and shawarma are precooked foods and pretty much just have to be sliced and plated. After about 5 minutes, I decided to take a quick bathroom break. The hallway to the bathroom is about as large as a viet cong tunnel. I actually had to turn sideways to walk down the hall because my shoulders were pressed against the sides. Coming back out, my order was still not up, and another patron pulled into the parking lot. He walked in and after a few minutes and more talking, the worker (owner?) came out and asked for his order. He said he had already called in a to-​go order and the worker acted completely surprised about this before remembering it a few seconds later. It was clear the order had not been started at all. We both had about a 15 minute wait before our food came out, during which we talked about the awful pattern on the walls and the fact that this place probably wouldn’t make it with such terrible customer service. After what seemed like an eternity, and really should have only been about 5 minutes considering the restaurant had been empty when I walked in, the two food orders came out simultaneously. He took yet a couple more minutes bagging them up in a rather unorganized fashion. Eager to get back on the road, I told him to keep the change and darted out. Now for the actual food, there was good and bad. The hummus was rather light and actually quite enjoyable, the pita warm and fluffy. The gyro was absolutely delicious, possibly ranking in the top 10 I’ve had. The shawarma was so dry it actually cut the roof of my mouth, though it did have a decent flavor. The rice was plain white rice, but well prepared so that it wasn’t too dry or overcooked. The tzatziki was rather lacking in flavor and oddly viscous. I wasn’t a fan. The salad was fairly good — thin strips of romaine and an olive with a tiny sprinkling of feta and a house dressing. The dressing was good except that it had a bit too much garlic for a salad dressing. My other complaint is that the salad was dressed. Everybody knows that a salad to go should always have the dressing on the side. By the time I got to eat the salad, it was thoroughly wilted. There were also a few brown pieces hidden at the bottom, underneath the green top lettuce. Overall, I was horribly disappointed with Damascus, more for their lack of customer service than with the food. The combo plate was a good amount of food for the money and I still have about half of it in the fridge. I’d be willing to go back and maybe just try a gyro wrap or perhaps the kafta in the future and if things have improved then I will update… though I also don’t have high hopes that this place will still be open by the time I pass that way again.