1013 Bread and Kabob

I have nothing positive to say other than the bread was good. The sad thing is that even the employees know the food sucks and the service is slow and sheepish.

While the waiter was nice the service was super slow! Took nearly 30 minutes just for a gyro! Although we ordered a humus app it showed up with the gyros!
As everyone else has said the bread is good but the gyro was nothing to write home about.
Sadly I must say its unlikely I’ll make a return here. The bread doesn’t make up for the so so gyros and the poor service.

I’d never had Afghan food before, so I was excited to try Bread & Kabob. And, I think I need another taste of Afghan food. I ran in to get takeout one night from the buffet. The place was totally empty (7:30 on a Monday). The man behind the bar set up up with a big take out container and spooned some of every item from the buffet into it. There was a lot of rice, and some other items. Honestly, I couldn’t tell what I was eating because it all ran together, and it wasn’t very flavorful. The food was pretty oily (it hadn’t looked great in the buffet-​style set up either). However, the bread that came with it was delicious! I definitely filled up on that. I think that if I make it back there, I will opt for an order-​off-​the menu experience.

Probably a 2 star experience.
Food:
The lamb kabob meet was flavorful and juicy — cooked to perfection. It came on a large stale-​tasting piece of flatbread with around 2 tablespoons full of chopped uncooked onion mixed into a teaspoon each of tomatoes and green peppers. The plate came with three «sauces» — all fresh and flavorful — the side of cucumber/​dill/​yogurt was a favorite.
Service:
The waitstaff was nice, not very attentive, but did respond when prompted. Additionally, this was a dinner meal that came to around $ 11 (no beverage). The menu I looked at was «old», and it was nice of the manager to give me the $ 11 price, which was a discount to the «old» price. There is a 20% discount for Duke affiliates that applies to lunch only.
Atmosphere:
I sat inside on a Saturday night, which reeked slightly of hooka (apple), though no one was enjoying a hooka at the time. The restaurant is appointed in a Middle Eastern style, but this style contrasts with the large TV screens, and American pop music (not bad music). A handful of 20-​somethings were enjoying meals, all from the buffet, which I’ll try if I return.

This is a return restaurant. It has been under many different tenants but now it is in its original format with the original owners. If you like Hookahs, they sell these there and the food is decent but not great…

I’ve had dinner buffet here twice and both times have been solid and cheap. At least four dish options, including two meat and two veggies. They cook the meat perfectly and always in a flavorful sauce.
Finally tried the hookah. A bit on the expensive side and lots of options (though they were out of a number of flavors). My companion and I had a hard time with the hookah all night. Not sure if it was us or the prep of the hookah, but we ended up coughing after every few draws. We ended up asking the staff to clear the smoke at least a dozen times. Both guys were really nice about it.

I’m hookah’d on this place.
[groans, crickets, and a frustrated sad trombone]
Bread and Kabob is a favorite standby of mine, and for good reason. Food’s cheap, good, and veg*n friendly* thus able to satisfy a variety of my social circle.
While I’m normally not a fan of buffets (food isn’t prepared as fragrantly or as freshly as it could be, dried out, etc.), the buffet here is totally satisfying. There’s usually 5 – 6 curry options (1 – 3 are meat, 2 – 4 vegetable), rice, salad, and dessert. They’ll also bring you a basket of bread that I’m certain is laced with crack. The buffet entrees aren’t mind-​blowing by any means, and to keep them from drying out in the chafing dish, they’re a little more oily than an a la carte plate, but they’re hearty and filling.
Oh, and the buffet is $ 7.99. Lunch or dinner. That’s just silly cheap these days.
That said, if you can tear yourself away from the buffet and are willing to pay more than $ 7.99, the things I’ve had from their menu are better. Kebabs, gyro, appetizers have all been delicious. Kebab plates run from $ 6.99 to about $ 10.99.
They also have an extensive tea menu (Afghan and Moroccan teas are my favorites) and indoor (herbal) and outdoor (tobacco blend) hookah menu with ridiculous names.
Staff are all super-​friendly, and the owners and family are always around to answer questions and make your experience enjoyable.
It’s definitely worth a trip. It’s no haute cuisine, but it will fill your belly, for cheap, and tastes good. I’ve never taken anyone here who didn’t really enjoy it.
*Note for vegans – this is one of the few places in town that seems to be honestly vegan-​friendly. On the buffet, the vegetarian options have always been vegan when I’ve gone (and I believe they are committed to it, based on a vegan friend’s inquiry), as is the killer-​delicious flatbread. Standard menu contains some vegan items, but mostly vegetarian. I hear awesome things about the veggie kebab.

Good spot for big groups to meet up. Plenty of indoor seating when the weather’s cold. The buffet has a decent selection and is quite filling and well priced. The other items on the menu, like the gyro sandwich is fairly decent too. The teas are excellent, just a little pricey compared to the food. Overall, the service is pretty friendly, though not always speedy. There’s plenty of parking in the back, which is convenient when driving down Main. No alcohol but I think they’re planning to introduce it to their menu soon.

I loooooove this place. Buffet is delicious and the staff are simply delightful. They want to make sure you are being served well and that you enjoy the food. I love their curry chicken and I LOVE the rice pudding. :) this is a nice staple to put in your lunch rotation.

What a pleasant surprise. We stopped in last night as we have been meaning to try this place for quite some time, but just never comes to mind in a pinch.
At first when walking in, I felt like an outsider, not horribly comfortable, but we moved on and ordered drinks and reviewed the menu. The menu was a little bit confusing but after discussing it with our waiter we were set straight and ready to order.
Ill admit, due to the fact I was a little uncomfortable I played it safe and ordered the Lamb Gyro with french fries. My wife ordered the chicken kabob with salad which came with pita bread and sauces. I am not certain what the chili /​vinegar sauce is, but it was really good! My Gyro was really good as well, the lamb cooked well and very flavorful, it is good to know there is a place to go local for a good gyro now. My wifes chicken was very good as well, cooked perfectly with little charred bits of goodness.
Next time we come back we agreed we just was meat and bread! Bring on the Lamb and chicken kabobs!

Delicious, a great bargain, and super-​nice people – what more could you want?
We almost always come for the dinner buffet – there’s a delicious selection of curries and veggie sides, and hot fresh bread, all for I think $ 7.99. The kabobs are good too, and the spicy red sauce is my FAVORITE.

I was very excited to have Bread & Kabob back in the downtown scene when it reopened, but after a few visits I feel that the quality has started to diminish.
I’ve ordered the lamb gyro several times and it has always been excellent. In fact, I think the lamb gyro is still the best item on the menu, but the portion size has become smaller and it still comes without a side. I understand that lamb is a more expensive ingredient to work with, but Broad Street Café offers a lamb burger with a side for the same price.
Aside from the gyros and a lamb curry, I haven’t really been impressed with the food. Susan Z ordered a side of onion, but it came out as a half of a raw onion. We didn’t even know what to do with it, and it couldn’t really be added to any of our dishes. The lamb curry was good, but it is an irregular special and the portion size was very small for the price. The buffet is probably the only economic way to get your fill, but it mostly seemed like canned vegetables and something similar to Indian dal.
I feel that I can recommend Bread & Kabob for any of their gyros, but be aware of the portion size when ordering to make sure you will have enough food.

Bread & Kabob has been open for a while now. Sadly, I have to bump them down one star. The last two time times I’ve been have been consistently lackluster.
Their portion sizes are small. Their kabob dishes cannot compare to Med Deli, it’s not even close. Their menu is also very limited. Their vegetarian menu is more expensive than the buffet, but somehow comprises only of items from the buffet. They need to fix this because it’s a bit ridiculous.
Their Duke discount only applies to lunch. The last time I was really carving middle-​eastern food and decided to come to Bread & Kabob. I regretted it and wished I just drove the extra 20 minutes to go to Med Deli.

Recently went here with friends twice within the span of 12 hours.
The first night, we stopped there for hookah. We were the only customers, presumably because this was a Thursday night before spring break. We sat outside. The music was little loud, but they turned it lower at our request. We got the rose hookah; it was good. Can’t comment on any of their teas or other drinks since we didn’t order any. Also, they don’t serve alcohol. Hookah was $ 15 before tax/​tip.
The next day, we went for the $ 7.99 lunch buffet (+20% discount for Duke students!!). They had 6 choices, rice, a lettuce salad, and rice pudding. The choices that day were: chicken curry, chicken korma, (pureed) lentils, chickpeas, spinach, potatoes. So plenty of veggies. Chicken korma was DELICIOUS. Huge, tender, juicy pieces of chicken. It wasn’t spicy, but very flavorful and sweet. The only dish I didn’t like as much was the spinach, which was a little too bitter (or maybe salty? idk). The rice pudding was also amazing. Cool, refreshing, sweet, and spiced. Great contrast for the other dishes. My friend said she tasted cardamom seed in it. They also had several sauces to use with the food. The cilantro one was my fav.
For lunch, they gave us two baskets of bread. Their bread is also amazing. Some sort of leavened flatbread. Sadly, additional baskets of bread costs money, but it’s very cheap ($ 1.75 I think?).
This place is awesome. In the spring I’ll make sure to go back and order from their non-​buffet menu, TRY SOME OF THEIR KABOBS, drink some teas, smoke other hookahs, etc. Oh, some of their teas, maybe not all, just come from boxes that you can probably buy at the grocery store… Also, we didn’t really have any issues with service. I guess they didn’t check on us as much as some other places, but if you really need something then just say so… Also, one of the owners (maybe?) recognized us from the previous night lol.
Oh, also parking is great because this place has its own lot right behind it!!!

Ok, for the record, I am extremely wary of overwhelmingly negative Unilocal reviews. Usually, even if I have a terrible experience at a restaurant, I’ll try not to write a bad review because I always want to blame some element of the experience on «user error» (implicating myself in the disaster, basically).
In this particular case, my experience at Bread and Kabob was SO overwhelmingly negative that I felt it absolutely necessary to review. Honestly, I wanted to like this place so badly. I love Afghani cuisine, and I was thrilled to find an Afghani restaurant/​HOOKAH BAR so close to my girlfriend’s apartment.
Was the food good? My girlfriend and I ordered several appetizers to enjoy while we smoked a pineapple hookah. We ordered the hummus, bolanie, and baklava. My girlfriend found the bolanie to be lacking and the hummus to be above average. I felt the exact opposite. I thought the bolanie was surprisingly good, and the hummus could have been purchased at Harris Teeter. The baklava was pretty good– they actually thought to warm it up after retrieving it from under a cake dome. To be honest, the two stars they managed to pry from my hands are completely due to the food.
How long did it take us to get our food, you ask? And how about that hookah, did it come out of the pantry quick as can be? You’d have to ask our completely negligent and horrifyingly rude server. When we arrived at half past 10pm, only one other party was parked in the restaurant– they were enjoying a couple of hookahs and they were actually what attracted us to Bread and Kabob in the first place. After an awkward exchange with the hostess/​server about the type of hookah we would prefer, she left us standing in the middle of a near-​empty dining room while she «went to check the hookah options». We were standing so long and feeling so uncomfortable that we eventually migrated to a sticky and salt sprinkled table. I understood that she was the only server, and I was (and, for the record, still am) willing to excuse the cleanliness of the table.
Anyway, after a brief conversation (from across the bar) about what type of herbal hookah we wanted, it took another 20 minutes before we received any service whatsoever. Not even a courtesy check to see if we wanted glasses of water. Which, actually, we would love: please bring two glasses of water! And can we see a menu? I suppose not. We sat without service for so long (in a practically empty restaurant) that I began to wonder/​worry about what had come of our server.
Oh, she was sitting at the only other occupied table in the restaurant, laughing it up with her friends. I’m not kidding. We literally watched her ignore us. I couldn’t believe it. I was so outdone that I couldn’t find the energy to complain– she was the only person who would listen to our complaint and clearly she could care less.
At the end of this first twenty minute spell, our hookah was finally brought out of the back by a chef who appeared to have many other tasks on his agenda. At this point, I am willing to make another concession: cleaning out a hookah can be time consuming, and I don’t think it’s a big deal that he took awhile to prepare it. The coal burned very slowly, and the «herbal blend» hookah smoke was mild and smooth. Overall, I enjoyed the hookah.
BUT CAN I GET A MENU? Once the hookah arrived, my girlfriend finally flagged down our server for menus and water. She brought both– and then disappeared for another ten minutes during which I wondered if the purpose of this establishment was to starve customers and purposefully drive away business. We were paid so little attention that I began to believe we could ‘dine n’ ditch’ without anyone being the wiser. But can it count as dining if you are never actually able to order anything?
But praise god: here come more customers. As soon as I began to truly despair, another group came into the restaurant and parked themselves at a table nearby. Now we’re talking– when our server came over to give her ‘hookah options’ speech, we managed to place our order before she darted back over to her (apparently) paid position as an employee/​hookah taste tester at the other table.
I will not comment on the amount of time it took to receive our food– I believe the best food is rarely prepared quickly, and though all signs point to negligence I am willing to give the benefit of a doubt. Perhaps the cook (the same guy who prepped our hookah, btw) was personally rolling out the dough for our bolanie. Maybe he was harvesting the chickpeas and pressing olives for the freshest olive oil. Whatever. By the time our food finally arrived (about thirty minutes later), mild hunger pains had evolved into the raging hunger flames of a thousand suns and I was grateful for the food placed in front of me.
Apparently, I’ve reached the review length limit. Am I irate enough to give the shocking conclusion in another review? YES.

I had to work two whole days this week while the husband sat at home watching a marathon of The West Wing, but I managed to break him out of his reverie long enough to come sup with me. We hit up Bread and Kebab, less than a block from my office in Brightleaf Square, and indeed we are fans.
We both went with the lunch buffet, which featured four vegetarian options and two meat, plus basmati rice, salad, and sauces, and rice pudding for dessert. With the buffet comes bread, which I thought was quite good. The buffet did not knock my socks off, but it was quick and filling, and I got a 20% discount off the already reasonable price with my Duke ID. The rest of the menu, however, looks fantastic. I can’t wait to try the hummus, 1013 salad, and the 1013 veggie kabob, among others. Great menu!
Two members of the Loynab family greeted and served us. I love a locally owned business run by its owners! They are so unbelievably sweet, too; I can’t wait to come back.
The space is great: all bright colors with an amazing patio that will make for top-​notch people watching in warmer months. It’s so great to have another lunch option on Main Street!

Man! Sadly I just can’t recommend this buffet anymore. We’ve been itching to come back, and finally did last weekend. There were three meat options, chickpeas, green beans, two types of rice, and rice pudding. Sadly, none of the options — with the exception of dessert — tasted as good as before. Almost as if they’re simplifying the recipe to save money? They seemed to be blander, greasier versions of what we’d had before.
Improvements included the fresh-​baked flatbread; really good stuff. I kept trying to finish our basket off, even though I was full to bursting! Also the salsas added to the buffet. These were yummy and helped punch up the food. Not enough to salvage our disappointment with dinner though.
We decided next time we’ll stick with the Bread and Kabob (s) via the ala carte menu.

Bread-​n-​Kabob definitely lives up to the hype.
I went for an early dinner and decided to partake in the buffet because at $ 7.99, it’s a great deal and I wanted to try a little bit of everything.
And a little bit of everything I certainly had, which included plain basmati rice, spinach basmati rice, chickpeas, green beans, spinach, ground beef with lima beans, a curried chicken, and bread, of course!
I think the two meat options really stole the show. While the meatless options were good, I think I would have been disappointed if my diet restricted me to only those. That said, my husband is a vegetarian and absolutely loved everything he had.
The bread is soft and delicious (a kind of hybrid between naan and a saltine cracker), and the sauces are amazing (there’s a red chili one, a green cilantro one, and then one that’s like pico de gallo– please excuse my ignorance of the Afghan name for it). I filled up my sauce cups AND went back for more.
I can confirm what other reviewers mentioned about a lot of the dishes being very oily. I had trouble finagling my scoops of chicken so that I could get more chicken and sauce than oil, and think a slotted spoon would help a lot.
I really wanted to try the rice pudding, but was too full from seconds! Next time, B & K, next time.

Bread and Kebab is not the most appetizing name but the food MORE than makes up for it here! It’s hard to describe this place, the location has morphed from a restaurant to a bar and back to a casual Afghani/​Middle Eastern eatery. So don’t let the American interior fool you, the food is ethnic with some spicy oomph.
I popped in the other night for dinner to meet up with friends and lo and behold, ran into the lovely Christina G and hubby Phil. Of course then you know this place has to be good! Bread and Kebab doesn’t serve beer or liquor right now, which may change, so I did some Boylan sodas instead. They run a lunch and dinner buffet at really reasonable prices but I was torn by the delicious sounding kebabs on the menu. Being the little pig I am, I decided to do the buffet AND a side kebab, problem solved.
Now the buffet doesn’t look terribly exciting, steam trays with basmati/​brown rice, two chicken dishes (curry, korma) and four veggie dishes. But there are plenty of choices and it is pretty darn good! Loved their rich, flavorful korma and the smoky, spinach stew. And the bread? Great stuff! Lightly perforated, nearly cracker-​like but with some chew, perfect for the meal. My kebab was a generous portion of spiced, tender meat, yum. And if you want to smoke a bit, grab one of their hookah’s and sit outside…
While Bread and Kebab isn’t a fancy or impressive place, the great food and really reasonable prices should have you coming back for many visits. One challenge I’ve had in NC is finding cheap ethnic food. Whether you’re talking Thai, Vietnamese, Indian or what have you, prices are actually higher here than often what I could find in San Francisco. Bread and Kebab does authentic ethnic food at a really good price which makes me a happy guy. So yeah, Bread and Kebab rocks because (go figure) they do have great bread and kebabs! Truth in advertising always works for me, my friend…

«Good Indian/​Afghan food with buffet»
Tried the buffet for dinner with the family once and a sandwich for lunch with fellow Unilocalers (Susan Z & Stacy W) another time. The buffet had salad, rice pudding, and 6 dishes (2 chicken, 4 veg the first time; 2 chicken, 1 red-​meat, 3 veg the second)
Pluses:
+ Pretty friendly service.
+ Bread at the table good– cross between pita and a saltine.
+ Lamb kabob sandwich was absolutely delicious– meat was succulent, and sauces accentuated well.
+ Excellent korma and curry chicken on buffet.
+ Great price for a dinner buffet: $ 8.
+ Outdoor seating available.
Minuses:
— Veggies a bit underwhelming: the sauces on them were good, but the veggies themselves (spinach & green beans) tasted to me like they were originally canned.
— Slow service for lunch when we didn’t want buffet– took long time to take our order (though they may have thought more people were coming) and then long time after that for food, and no checking in at all.
— Lamb kabob sandwich by itself was not especially filling– both Stacy W and I were still hungry after we each got one.
— No reduced price for kids at buffet, so they’re also $ 8.
— Variety a bit limited, but they say they’re expanding.
— Parking a bit limited, but there are lots of other places nearby to park.
Synopsis:
Although not the tastiest, this buffet has, to my knowledge, by far the cheapest Indian-​style food you can get in the city… FAR cheaper than Sitar or Dales and even a bit cheaper than Kabab & Curry (which has the negatives of not having a buffet and frequently being closed for no apparent reason). The quality of the meat preparations both on the menu and on the buffet are very good, and even the veggies are OK. They’re clearly trying hard to be accommodating, too, and I give them brownie points for that. I’d come back and do the buffet for lunch, but probably not come back with the whole family given the lack of discounting for kids.
Note: discount for Duke students and employees, though just for lunch.