The Sivas

Ok. Love the staff, Owner (Met outside) and this Calamari. Oh God.Lol (Bigsean).Was cooked to perfection. I mean, let me be honest, we came back for it again the following week and although it wasnt the way it was the first time, the kitchen was closed and they did us a favor by cooking it for us so i overlooked it. I mean, you talj about intimate and nice crowd, this is it. The had the women dancing to music. Beautiful scene and vibe. This will be a regular because all together, its super cool. One of the best in Atlanta. Mixed crowd Love it!! Felt like home.

It’s amazing how one person can change the whole experience. My first time in Sivas wasn’t pleasant because of a customer service, and I was so skeptical to go there again but my friends insisted so first of all it was Saturday night and very, VERY busy, it was packed but surprisingly service was Great! I’m truly impressed. Our server, Rusky (I forgot her real name) was great ! It’s amazing how she managed all of the tables and still had time to even chat with us, our food came on time and was delicious, (our server suggestion). Plus team work in this restaurant is awesome ! Owner Kamal (very funny guy) was cleaning tables. So I just wanna tell you guys thank you for improvement, I really enjoyed this time 10 stars !

Pleasant surprise after a 7:30 show at the Fox Theatre. Ordered the Falafel– very nice, fresh and crisp. The Shepard’s salad was so fresh and lightly dressed. The Flaming Saganaki was a traditional Greek dish of flambeed goat cheese– served with fresh bread. I’d recommend giving this place a try even if you don’t want to want to partake in Hookah.

The greatest strength of this place is not the food but the hookah mixes and drinks. It is basically a hookah lounge with turkish food served. I was expecting some real turkish food here (I do have a lot of experience with it!) alas the dishes were hit and miss. First, none of the mezes felt freshly made, more like store bought from Publix. Lahmacun (little turkish pizzas with minced beef) were disgusting and tasted nothing like they were supposed to. Musakka was okay, but it came too late after we had all the terrible mezes. I did not try a hookah or a mixed drink, but everyone else who did seemed to enjoy that. Go there for the hookah ambience, I guess…

I had a chicken kabob plate. I loved the rice it came with. I’m usually a basmati only type girl, but this was a nice change. The chicken was really good and I liked the tzatziki sauce. Parking was a little confusing. There is a lot right next to the restaurant, but I don’t think it’s for the restaurant. They have hookah, but I’m not sure if it was any good as I’m not big on hookah.

The only reason they didn’t get 5 stars is because of the parking down here. Food is great and love the porch, hookah is great too. Make sure you do NOT park at the juniper st shops next door, park across the street in the gravel lot by the old border up house

The food was great, and it had such a light atmosphere. I would definitely come back here. It’s perfect for groups of people as well. I recommend this restaurant to anybody who wants to relax and enjoy some good and authentic food.

Backstory: this review is from September 6^th, Labor Day weekend, so it’s long overdue! I needed a reservation for my birthday dinner for 22 people & my first choice restaurant told me they charge $ 45/​person for parties larger than 10 (seriously, what kind of nonsense is that??). I didn’t know about The Sivas until a friend suggested it so I immediately called to make the reservation. They didn’t gawk at the number; they were more than happy to accommodate my large party & even said they would set it up upstairs in a semi-​private area.
We had 2 waiters for the group and they were really great & helpful. They patiently took everyone’s orders, brought out appetizers, drinks, hookah, & food within a decent time, & even had the cake ready without any prompts from us. The food was great too! My friends & family were well taken care of thanks to them!
I would love to check them out for lunch or dinner on another night soon. Thank you so much for being an amazing venue for my birthday, I won’t forget it!

Wow this place is decently a hidden gem. On November 12 I celebrated my boyfriends birthday and we needed a place to finish off the last hours of his day, so we decide to swing by.
When you pull up to the place it looks like a house, when you go inside its a really cool comfy lounge. They have large bar selection, no draft beer. You have many choices of hookah to smoke. Not sure about the food, but from the looks of our neighbors plate it looked okay, not mouth watering.
They play really good music that sets a good vibe for the setting. If you visit this place with a love one, make sure to sit in the corner seat because its great for cuddling.
I honestly can’t wait to visit this place again! I enjoyed myself.

Set in an old Atlanta house, this place, mostly Turkish cuisine (but some Greek), was unassuming at best. The menu was typical of the region, as well. Friendly crew, good cocktails. I decided to try the Lamb Kebob, which I generally never order, because it is too often dry and tasteless. When the dish arrived, the side dishes were pedestrian, but the large pieces of grilled lamb looked fairly good… in fact, IT WAS THE BEST LAMB KEBOB I’VE EVER EATEN. I love getting surprised by a place, and when I tentatively bit into the first piece, it was pure lamb heaven – perfectly seasoned, delicious, and more tender and juicy than any other lamb I have eaten, anywhere. The plate could have benefitted by perhaps one piece more, but it was truly memorable, nonetheless.
For dessert, I had a fairly superb Baclava, and a cup of perfectly brewed Turkish coffee, a rarity among the usual Starbucks in the neighborhood. So the place isn’t very posh, but I’ll never forget the perfectly prepared grilled lamb they served. Excellent.

My husband and I had recently been to Turkey and Greece. So we have a pretty accurate idea of turkish cuisine. We ordered the Beef and chicken Gyros. Pretty good! We were highly satisfied with our meals. The portion size was great! Would definitely look forward for our next visit.
Ps: They are on scoutmob!

I think I read into the hype to very much. It wasn’t the best Mediterranean food I’ve ever had. The lamb and chicken had great flavor. The rice and lentil soup were below average. The server was awesome but my family was the only one in the restaurant for Saturday lunch. I hear the large hookah is 20 $/​small hookah 10 $. I also hear they have a Dj and belly dancer on Fridays and Saturday nights. Perhaps, I should try making reservations and coming at night. It gets crowded according to my server and he says there is plenty of dancing and patio time!

I’ve never been more motivated to write my first review:
Fuck this place. And fuck the staff and owners too. I’m from out of town and walked to this place specifically to smoke hookah after hearing about the place from a stranger.
Just to set expectations, I expect a hookah place to be a chill vibe designed to make you relax. This place has nothing close. They have horribly uncomfortable seating, so I decided to put my feet up and chill to the best of my ability. Within 3 mins of sitting down the waitress already harassed me about «relaxing» in the manner that I was. Thinking that the horrid offense was feet on their shitty plywood tables, I laid down in the corner of the couch and proceeded to relax, taking extra care to keep my feet off anything and everything.
This time, not only did the waitress harass me, she brought the owner to yell at me too. Apparently it’s still unacceptable to «relax» in this setting despite the joint being ENTIRELY empty on a Saturday evening.
If I could give a negative tip I would. Fuck this place. Don’t come here. «Southern hospitality» is non-​existent among the local Turks.

Just a normal run of the mill hookah joint.
Highlights: Good selection of hookah flavors, Location was easy to find with free parking across the street, clean and decent patio seating area.
Can improve: Customer Service! As soon as we sat down and ordered a hookah, the first thing said was «we normally don’t just serve hookah so next time you will have to order some food.» We went in at 4 pm on a Monday when the place had maybe one other table of 4. Plus no where does it mention that food must be purchased to order a hookah. Makes no sense since the hookah itself cost $ 40 and yet we were being given slack for not ordering a $ 10 dollar entrée.
Benchmark: Have not frequented many hookah spots in ATL but every time I visit a hookah place anywhere I am always sketched out by the customer service. I tend to smoke socially at a friends or visit a hookah bar once in a while to avoid such mediocre or bad experience.
Puff Puff Passed on Aug 2015 and will not return.

Love this place. Went on a Monday for food. Really nice atmosphere, not crowded in the afternoon. Attentive employees. It was 10 $ hookahs for Monday’s, we ordered the tropical breeze flavor. It was smooth and was pulling well. Got Spanakopita and Hummus as my meal. Both were delicious. However, the crostini the hummus was served with took away from the hummus, would of preferred warmed pita bread. Spanakopita was delicious and the puff pastry complimented it well. Great flavor! Ordered baklava for desert, it was amazing. Probably the best I’ve had. Would love to come here again during the night! Great all around, would recommend to anyone.

Service is awesome and you are served REAL hookahs! Definitely go for it! Service is awesome!
Ask for Blerta to serve you.

My coworkers and I dined here on a Friday for lunch. When we arrived at noon, the entire restaurant was still empty. Midtown, lunch, Friday – empty? Something didn’t jive so I was initially hesitant. We were seated outside next to an empty hookah area. Our server was prompt with serving us and immediately brought out waters. As soon as he set down my water, I noticed a brown speck floating around and I tried to not make a big deal out of it and instead spent 20 minutes trying to fish it out. I never succeeded and eventually asked for a new water to a seemingly surprised server. I, on the other hand, was surprised the server didn’t notice me trying to fish out a foreign object for the past 20 minutes.
As the only table in the restaurant, it took our food a ridiculously long time to be served. I think we ended up waiting at least 20 minutes. My chicken gyro was pretty delicious and well-​seasoned, but it dripped with so much sauce /​juice mixture that I eventually had to put it down and consume the rest with a fork. As I picked apart my gyro, I noticed a hair on the inside of the pita, right where I would have eaten. I hate to ding restaurants for small things like this because hey, let’s face it – accidents happen, but when my drink AND my food contain things that shouldn’t be there, I start to question the cleanliness. I’d consider coming back here again but it probably won’t be my first choice.

AMAZING!!!
I was a bit skeptical driving to the restaurant as to what I would find upon arrival. All concerns immediately disappeared as we entered the cozy and warm restaurant that is placed inside of a house converted into a restaurant, which contributes tremendously to the warm feeling.
We were immediately greeted by what seemed like the owner/​manager. He was warm and welcoming.
He passed us on to our waiter, Mathew who was a sweetheart of a person. He was attentive from the moment we sat down until we left. He is quiet, but just right… and he’s cute :-)
It was a Sunday evening around 8:00pm. It was a nice surprise that in spite of it being a Sunday the place was lively with great music playing and lots of patrons enjoying food, dessert and most of all their Hookah’s.
Ok onto the food…
The Food — Insanely flavorful! Eye appealing! Couldn’t have asked for more!
We ordered the Mixed Grill $ 36 (meant for sharing) which included an amazing mix of: souvlaki, grilled chicken, beef, sautéed red onions, and several halves of warm pita bread, large plate of extraordinary rice, a Mediterranean salad and slightly spicy, but delicious sauce on the side. I mean this is plenty of food.
Drinks — mojitos… yum as well!
Ambiance — we sat outside. It’s actually an enclosed patio, which was perfect. You get the outside feel without freezing your butt off. The inside seating is lovely and cozy as well.
Hookah — we didn’t get any because we were too sleepy from the amazing food and drinks, but the hookah smelled wonderful. We will be back the next time we are in Atlanta for sure.
Needless to say, I highly recommend Sivas!!!

4.5 Stars. Summary: Enjoy some awesome fast-​paced Eastern European and Middle Eastern music over hookah, drinks, and Mediterranean grilled meats!
We were already in midtown and my cousin was craving hookah and this led us to a chilly walk through midtown from Park Tavern to Sivas! Upon entering the establishment, it looks really small. We were seated at what looked like the only 4 person table. We immediately jumped into drinks and hookah and got pineapple mojitos which tasted pretty awesome with the minty freshness mixed with pineapple flavor. Then we started looking at the appetizers. They have a huge selection of both warm and cold appetizers. We settled on trying the falafels and the albanian-​style beef liver. The falafels were okay. I think i’ve had better ones, but they weren’t bad. They were warm and crispy. The beef liver was new for me. I had not ever tried it before. It was actually really good and it tasted even better with fresh lemon juice on top.
For dinner we all shared the mixed grill ($ 36). Although it is more expensive than other items, it is huge and easy to share amongst 4 people. We shared it with 3 and still it felt too much. It came with pita breads, lamb chop, lamb shank, doner meat, chicken schwarma as well as your choice of bulgar or rice and a fresh salad. This entrée is the epitome of Mediterranean cuisine with meats, fresh salad, and grains. The presentation was awesome also on a wooden tray that is off the ground. I would definitely recommend this to others. It also comes with tomatoes and spicy jalapenos. The meats are all really juicy and flavorful with spices. It was so hard to choose a favorite, but I think the lamb shank was my favorite out of all the meats.
As we were about to leave, we went upstairs to use the restroom and found that this place is actually huge with multiple big tables for parties! It’s very elegant in their upstairs too with pretty paintings on the wall. You can tell this restaurant was converted from a house, but I think that adds to the charm.
One of my favorite things about this place is the music and I think part of the theme is a fusion of eastern european and middle eastern cultures together, because their music playlist had Persian, Arabic, Albanian, Bulgarian, Turkish, and I even heard some latin and Indian music also. I think there was a live DJ mixing the playlist. Similarly, I saw some dishes on the menu from different places in Eastern Europe and the middle east. They also had a belly dancer come out from time to time.
Service was more than awesome. Our server was Albanian and really sweet, helpful, and always checked on us.

Been here a few times both for lunch and dinner. The restaurant recently changed name due to a dispute with Café Intermezzo. We have given up on café intermezzo due to their lack of service.
Sivas is inspired by the name of a city in Turkey. They have a great selection of turkish dishes. We really like their food. They have hooka in they main dining room. Not crazy about other people smoking at the next table while I eat, but otherwise a great place. We often choose the patio for lunch or dinner, which is convenient and we avoid the smoke.
Great food and service. Certainly going back a number of times.