Zaaki Restaurant and Cafe

I went to Zaaki based on a recommendations for my friends and coworkers! People speaks very highly of the service, food, atmosphere, drinks! I have to say they were absolutely right! The place is always packed and prices reasonable comparing to other places. Mostly important the staff came to check on us all the time. They explained the menu and really I was astonished when the Manager at Zaaki «Mano» came to introduce himself and to check on the service! Really that never happened anywhere else except Zaaki! Not to mention he is really funny and very pleasant, professional and his staff really speaks highly of him! I HIGHLY Recommend The place for other and will go back soon to have the best Smoothie in town!

Ugh.
If you’re here for hookah, then it’s probably a good fit — the atmosphere seems great for this. However, if you’re here for food (specifically the iftar buffet), I would suggest looking elsewhere.
The buffet set-​up was ridiculously unorganized and managed poorly, to say nothing of the varying quality of food. The waitstaff are generally useless (Seriously? You have 50+ people who are all here to eat at the same time and you can’t have a plan for how people should line up? No announcement that is made?) and the food was a terrible representation of the vague «Middle Eastern» food advertised. My husband is Egyptian, so we’ve had our fair share of the types of food presented here, and everything was either too bland or too salty. I wouldn’t participate in this buffet again even if it were free. The «juices» they offer, for the buffet, is gross grape and orange drink. Fruit? Old and browning. Yuck.
I wasn’t in charge of the bill, but apparently there was a mishap between my party and management about water bottles. Apparently we asked for water, and instead of offering tap water, they gave us bottled water… each of which cost $ 3.50! That’s right THREE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS for a water bottle you buy in packs of 24 for $ 5.00. Our group of 16 (or was it 18?) was less than thrilled when we received the bill.
Bad food is one thing, but poor management/​service is quite another. It’s completely unethical to serve expensive bottled water when your establishment also serves tap water for free. At least state this fact up front before hauling out «$ 50» worth of water bottles to an otherwise unknowing party.
The parking situation here is also horrendous — the nearest place to park is a church parking lot or strip mall across the street, which seems wrong, especially when they HAVE a paved parking lot but instead fill it up with tables and chairs. The signs everywhere about «reserving the right to refuse service to anybody for any reason» tells me everything I need to know about management, its relationship with its patrons, and likely its relationship with its neighbors. Pass.

So I ordered my food at 830, waited for 30 minutes then I asked another waitress about it because the first one disappeared. She asked me who my waitress was, apparently the waitress forgot to put the order. Anyway, another half hour passed by, I asked for a manager. The manager very ruddily and cluelessly asked the same stupid question: what is the name of my waitress! On top of that she offered no solution or apology and went about her business. At 11:15 I was approached by another waiter who saw the whole ordeal and offered to make right if I come next time. I was there for that long because I was with friends who were chilling over there. Bottom line if you are a regular they will take of you, if not they will just ignore you.
To add insult to injury, one of them had to explain to me why the needed the name of the waiter. He simply said because if someone had already placed the order (the first waitress who disappeared) the second order will be charged out of the other waitress’s pocket. What a stupid thing to tell a customer! The whole experience was so stupid to the point that makes you laugh.
The food is good, the service is second to none.

One of the better if not best tasting hookahs in the area. Only reason I giving a 4 star is the parking is a bit of a pain on weekends, have to park next door at the church. Haven’t tried the food yet.

My boyfriend and I came here to meet a couple of our friends. We loved it! Our waitress Daisy was so awesome and so attentive to our needs. The hookah was really good too. We got the safari melon dew and it was light and sweet. We will definitely be back!

Great late night schwarma spot. They have hookah, but I usually get my food to go! Chicken is definitely better than the beef.

They have the Best hookah! Best hummus! Bit pricy though. Had to wait 25 min for the food to come.

We stumbled upon Zaaki when we realized it was a 45 min wait for Peking Gourmet Inn across the street. I’m glad we did because we loved the look of the plush white couches in the café area and the outdoor area looked nice and chill. Lots of diff groups were relaxing and smoking hookah. We were greeted with friendly smiles and seated quickly. The ambiance was chill and music was great. Opened up the menus and were surprised by how affordable the entrees and sandwiches were. But that’s where it stopped because we realized that they’re not clear on everything with the prices – we asked for more garlic yogurt sauce and our waitress brought us 2 more servings. Later on when we checked the bill we were charged $ 1.50 for each of the sauces! She did not inform us at the time so we mentioned and it and she did kindly remove it off the bill, so that was nice. Cans of soda are an unbelievable $ 2.50. Gratuity of 18% was automatically added to our bill of 2 people, which is unheard of to me. The grape leaves that I ordered were $ 7.99 as an appetizer which was pretty steep, considering that my shawarma sandwich was only $ 9.99. The good news is that the food was delicious – I got the mixed lamb and chicken sandwich and fries, which were both amazing. The grape leaves were delicious. The food hit the spot when we were hungry, so that was the most important thing. Service continued to be attentive and friendly throughout the whole meal, but for me the snafus with the receipt kind of dampened the experience. We may come back, but might choose to try other Middle Eastern places in the area first to see if we have a better first impression.

This place is a small place to come specially in weekends, due to a lot of customers servers can’t meet the expectations, food is great we had Bryani rice which was delicious, they have arranged place outside for summer season which is gonna be great,

They take a very long time when serving food about 35 – 45 min to get gyros but hookah comes about 20 min. Servers are very friendly and kind but should invest more money on cooks since they walk and do nothing. Also servers don’t prepare hookah well and hookah is much more expensive than usual.
However the scenery is nice and the food is okay.
P.s don’t get the fries and gyro it’s not what you think. My friend and I order a gyro and fries thinking we will get a gyro but got only fries but the way you have to order says you must say gyro and fries first to get a full gyro not fries and gyro to or else you will get the picture on the bottom. Sorry if you got confused the way I said bit this is how the waiter explained. In the other hand the shwarma is good for a decent price.

I LOVE this place! I can go on and on and on for hours, writing about how amazing this place is! But in a nutshell, from appetizer to entrée to dessert to even the coffee, just PERFECT! Please keep up the great food and great service guys!

–No greeting at the door
–First time there, and no enthusiastic recommendations on what to order.
–what we had was okay.
–I think hookah, AND smoking should be in the other room, with one room totally smoke free.
GOOD NOTES.
–Sweet waitress
–the green tea was nice.

So good we got an extra meal to go. Extremely authentic. I 100% recommend this place.

So many things can be said about this little gem, but I will keep it short and simple.
The food is here is absolutely phenomenal, from their appetizers to their main entrees, and for the best prices in town!
A lot of Arabic restaurants tend to over charge for their food, as it’s considered to be a «one of a kind» however, this place is VERY inexpensive, and everything is worth every penny spent.
Service is surprisingly great too, very attentive staff, and very welcoming!

Great food, awesome servers just love this place
Exactly hookah
Guys really know how to do nice hookah and there is so many flavors and also the best part of it that they are open till 4 am everyday, 5 am Friday and Saturday… best time to eat after club or hanging out

Delicious. Nice staff. They have nice food and nice deserts. Hookah is nice. Their small teapot is large is some other places. Awesome outdoor seats.

This place is great. Extensive outdoor seating and the polite waitstaff has always provided what I ask for.
However. I overheard an owner of too manager complaining to the waitstaff about providing tap water to clients instead of bottled water, citing that «this is a business» and trying to squeeze out extra profit. I thought this was a terrible way to treat a great waitstaff and clients that will hurt service and customer satisfaction, hurting their bottom line even more. This was upsetting.
«Americans» may like to stay hydrated without having to pay for marked up smaller portions of water, and it is essential for places that I want to spend my time at that they provide this simple service. I know serving bottled water may be commonplace for this type of establishment, but it doesn’t condone this rude and racist behavior.

The reason i give 2 stars just because of the service. They need to know that we dont eat with our hands. We need forks spoons and knifes. Servers need to understand and sense these.
Makluba is perfect sooo yummy give it a try !!
Their patio is super nice, just enjoy. if you can ofcourse with the crowd (!)
Again again again management management please educate your servers or go educate your self. If not khalas leave the business.
If you are including the service charge in the checks, which i understand why, but you have to give 18% deserved SERVICE !!!

I came by this place the other day to meet up with a friend for dinner. My first impression was that they have a lot of seating, but not a lot of parking. Making the turn from Route 7 (Leesburg Pike) required a bit of patience as it is a busy thoroughfare, especially during rush hour. Keep that in mind if you’re arriving to expect parking.
The waiter was friendly and attentive, and had great demeanor. He did a great job looking after us.
The food did not deliver like I had hoped. Perhaps I hoped for too much, especially since I hail from the Midwest, where the abundance of quality Middle Eastern food seems plentiful. Maybe I am too idealistic when it comes to Middle Eastern restaurants in the metro DC area.
Here is what we ordered:
–Hummus
–Chicken shawarma sandwich
–Kefta kabob sandwhich (I specifically asked for lamb)
The hummus was ok, but it could be so much better. It was just okay, not spectacular. It needs a lot more tahini and garlic as well as some seasoning. All I could taste was the chickpeas. It could be miles better, but it just isn’t
The shawarma was interesting… I didn’t really know if it was strips of meat, or if was in fact shaved from a vertical spit (certainly did not resemble shavings of meat or chicken from a spit). The appearance was a letdown
The kefta kabob (which is usually ground meat) wasn’t what I anticipated. I did ask for lamb, but I think our waiter misunderstood me and brought me a lamb kabob sandwich instead. It tasted fine, though I could have done without the behemoth lamb cubes that were in my sandwich.
The hookah was fine, but was a bit on the pricey side. I can understand charging $ 16 for Starbuzz, but Al-​Fakher is not top quality tobacco and is completely undeserving of a price tag of $ 15. Charging $ 8 or $ 9 is more appropriate.
Also, beware of the fact that a service/​gratuity charge is included in your bill, no matter how big of a group you have. It was just 2 of us and the bill included a service/​gratuity charge. I almost left a tip until I double-​checked and noticed they already charged me for the tip. I can understand a service/​gratuity charge for groups larger than 5 or 6, but to automatically include it on a bill seems somewhat odd

This place was jammed pack on a Friday night. We came for some hookah and drinks. Hookah was good and smooth. Prices was reasonable. We got a free pastry with our drink order. I wasn’t sure what it was but it looked like a canoli with crispy wrapper. It was actually really tasty. We didn’t order any other food but a lot of the tables had food order. The place was very clean the bathroom was clean as well, which is good thing it probably have really traffic.
The place has a very small parking lot on property so it was difficult to find parking. We ended up parking across the street at a strip mall. The service wasn’t exactly stellar. Our waitress didn’t come back to check on us after taking our initial order. It was really hard to track her down to get our check as well. After a long wait we decided to go up front and pay for our check. 20 minutes later we finally got our check and leave. It looks like they have some sort of issue with the point of sale system that was holding everything up.
They have a sign stating 10% discount if you were to check in on Facebook or write a review on Unilocal.Which isn’t uncommon for business to fish for reviews but the manager/​owner asked us to write a better status on our Facebook check-​in in order to get the discount. I find that very shocking.
The was a lot of people smoking cigarettes which was rather suffocating after a while. I’m accustomed to smokers but it got to a point that I felt nausea sitting in the room. It’s just very stuffy since it’s cold and the heat was blasting.
Hopefully they will resolve the computer issues soon and it wouldn’t take more than 20 minutes to pay and leave. I would probably come back again and give the place another chance