Balageru Restaurant & Bar

Went to this restaurant with a groupon on a Tuesday night. We were pretty much the only people in the restaurant.
The service was awful. We ordered food, simple order, and it came about 45 minutes later.
We wanted to leave the waitress a tip so we were going to order some beers. Then the waitress just basically left. We had to get up and go to the bar to get our own beers. We saw her all of 2 times. To take the order and to bring the food.
Food was mediocre.
Dont bother with this place.

Steer clear of this place!!! & pretty much any place that Groupon tries to promote! I feel like there’s always an issue with Groupon. They’re usually places that are really struggling & are about to close. Having said that, I can see this restaurant closing very soon with the way they run their business. I like to support small businesses, however, unfortunately, a lot of them lack a key element in a restaurants success, … GOOD SERVICE!
My family & I were meeting a group of friends there because they wanted to try this spot out because it was closer to their new house (closer than the usual spot ‘The Nile Restaurant’) There is only 3 street parking spots out front & the rest is all residential parking, which is fine, I guess, it is on Colfax & also right next to a Pot Shop. When we arrived, our table & 1 other couple were the only ones there for dinner. We got there just before 6 & stayed till 8. Only 1 other couple came also during that entire time. Our friend is Ethiopian & knows exactly what to order & he ordered everything for us. A party of 5 adults & 4 children. The food takes very long to come out. They are not friendly whatsoever & the restaurant is a hole in the wall dive. When our food arrived there were no napkins given to us or any sides/​seasonings in the little cups w spoons. Also the portions were very small & we had to order 2 more entrees (which took longer!) I didn’t even see the all prices since our friend had ordered everything but when we got the tab it was a surprising $ 160 (AFTER the Groupon was so-​called «Applied.») the Groupon was for a value of $ 47.95 & purchased for $ 26. It was valid for a 2 person meal including 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, 2 drinks & 1 dessert. So we had ordered 7 entrees total & 2 appetizers & 3 «desserts» a teeny sliver of store bought cheesecake which after receiving the 1 included w the Groupon … & seeing the tiny sliver presented before my hungry children’s eyes … We had to order another 2 tiny slivers, which they mean-​mugged us about ordering, I think because they didn’t have enough «dessert» … Must’ve been from that busy wave of customers that surely came before us & ate all the «dessert») I did glance @ the menu & the prices were about $ 15 per entrée. So anyway we get our bill & the way she did the tab was she gave us a credit of $ 30 off the bill. So previously $ 190 & after Groupon $ 160. WTH??? I just paid $ 26 for a $ 30 Groupon which earned me dirty looks & snarls!!! We asked her why we hadn’t received the full credit for the Groupon of $ 47.95 & she said had we ordered coffee as our «drinks» we would have been eligible for the full discount. Although technically the Groupon is not for a discount. It’s actually states it’s for a meal for 2. 2 apps, 2 entrees, 2 drinks & 1 dessert. So those items should have been taken care of through the Groupon regardless if I only drank water or hadn’t ordered coffee. I guess I should’ve just ordered the coffee for my addtl $ 18 «discount.»
AWFUL! AWFUL! HORRIBLE! I will NOT be returning to this place or be using Groupon EVER again!

I usually want to give small places the benefit of the doubt. I also generally feel badly being the first on a review and leaving a bad one, but it sort of feels like a duty to warn others. Just run away from this one.
We got a Groupon to go here and it seemed like a good deal. When I tallied up the total bill in my head it came to about $ 34 — minus the dessert they were unable to serve. The Groupon was $ 27 — so not really a savings.
The weirdness started the second we walked in. We probably should have head for the hills, but we already had paid for the Groupon, like I said. They stared at us like we were aliens from another planet and seemed really weird when I said, «Uh, two, please?» They immediately said, «Are you Groupon?» We said we were and they asked to see the voucher. They then took my wife’s phone and walked away with it. Um. Hello? What?!
They told us they didn’t have the dessert promised on the Groupon, so we just said that was ok. The Groupon had two apps. There were three on the menu. When we tried to order some pastry with lentils, we were told they didn’t have that either. So we got these salads that ended up being some injera bread chopped up with what seemed like store-​bought Italian dressing on it and a green salad with tomato, jalapenos and onion drowning in more of the Italian dressing. Those were $ 5.99 regular price apiece. The Groupon also had two beverages. We got Sprite, which came in the can with straws. Those were $ 1.50 regular price.
We got a beef dish and a vegetable combo. The food was mediocre at best. The beef seemed like greasy strips of fajita meat with a tiny bit of onion and no real seasoning. The vegetables — green beans, spinach, yellow peas and lentils — were meh. The spinach and green beans, honestly, just tasted like they were from a frozen package and didn’t have any real seasoning on them. The beef was $ 11 regular price and 4 veggie combo was $ 10.
When I have had Ethiopian many times before, the food is generally so freaking amazing that you can’t stop stuffing yourself and want to fight over the last morsel of food. The other places I’ve been also generally include other side dishes with your main. This was just very strange, at best.
We also asked for napkins after we had our food for awhile. I mean, we were eating with our hands, and um, it’s a restaurant, can we have napkins? They found a weird roll of paper towel like the kind you’d find in an automated machine in the bathroom and tore it to make «napkins.» They were presented to us in a silver napkin holder. Um. OK. Weird.
Speaking of paper towels, the women’s restroom was a nightmare. We really should have run when we saw that. Luckily, there were exactly four squares of toilet paper in the bathroom. I used two and told my wife she better hurry up and use the other two I left her if she needed to go. Sadly, I’m not joking. There also was no paper towel. I guess those were the «napkins?» The soap was almost empty and had been watered down. And it was filthy with an open package of wet wipes on the floor. Maybe we were supposed to use those?
All in all, it was not good and incredibly awkward. The service was weird. I would not ever go back. I’m not against holes in the wall — if it’s clean, the food is good, and they are nice. This was a hole in a wall that was not clean, meh food and really awkward service.
In the end, we waited for the two women to disappear so we could run out the front door. It was just so strange, weird and awkward! I feel badly if they are trying to make their living off this. They need a lot of work and help.
Avoid, people. You’ve been warned.