Grape Leaves

closed. Out of business.

had a good gyro and an ok meatpie.
Reminds me of Rose’s Place but less expensive and a little bit less spicy (instead being a little bit tart).
new waitress was nice.

My mom and I went into Ridgewood for lunch for Valentines Day. We got a bit of a late start, so we didn’t end up looking for a restaurant until about 2. Every place we checked out was closed, so we decided to be adventures and try Grape Leaves.
We usually don’t get Mediterranean food — but we spoke to the waiter/​owner — who helped us pick out some things we thought we might like. He was very generous. He put together a sampler appetizer plate that had about 5 different things on it. They were mostly different dips. Everything was pretty good, except for the pita we dipped everything in. They tasted like they were bought from shoprite as apposed to homemade.
Then for lunch we shared the spinach pie and some type of sandwich that was basically like a gyro. The spinach pie was kind of blah — I thought it was going to be more like the greek spinach pie, but this was very different. It was simply spinach and onions, baked into a pie shell. The sandwich was just okay — I can’t really place my finger on why — just blah.

I gave this place the benefit of the doubt and decided to try it. Walked in this afternoon for a late lunch and no one was in the restaurant besides two staff. (Red Flag #1)
Ordered hummus appetizer then spinach pie as my main dish and gyro plus side of fries as his. Came out of the kitchen as each thing was ready: free sides when you arrive (pickles, beets, olives and pita), then hummus and spinach pie together, then fries, then gyro. (Flag #2)
Unfortunately did not like any of the above (Flag #3). Staff person approached us as he gave us the check and asked if he could make us anything else, showed much concern. We thanked him for the service and left hungry.

Amateur hour in Ridgewood last night. The down-​home family feel that we expected going into Grape Leaves turned into a lack of basic restaurant know-​how.
The moment we sat down and were handed take out menus and briefly witnessed the inexperience we almost walked right out.
This place is in the former location of Joel’s Malibu. It is a small restaurant that has a very odd table layout. They need to get rid of the large tables of seven in the middle of the restaurant. They were mainly filled by parties of 2 or 3. Get smaller tables. Duh.
Soft drinks and iced tea come in cans and bottled water are individual Poland Spring bottles. Argh.
They committed one of my top pet peeves too! DO NOT CLEAN THE NEXT TABLE WITH WINDEX!!! It smells offensive to the other diners. Buy some tablecloths!
Food service began with small plates of Greek olives, thinly sliced sour pickle, and beets with vinegar. The olives were extremely bitter to the point of being inedible. We questioned it and the manager brought over some lemon to squeeze on them. He said that is how they eat them back home. It helped a bit. The pickles were decent. The vinegar used with the beets was very strong. I wouldn’t eat them but my wife kind of liked them.
All of these warning signs steered us away from wanting to eat here. So, we ordered several appetizers: labneh, muhamara (fresh red pepper paste mixed with walnuts, bread crumbs and olive oil) and falafel. 15 minutes later the waiter showed up to tell us they were all out of muhamara. Now mind you we were probably one of the first dinner patrons seated on a Friday night. Bad planning to be out of a basic appetizer already. So, we replaced it with hummus and an order of halloum (pan fried cheese slices with marinated tomato and arugula)
They gave us an overly abundant basket filled with pita. It tasted like it was underbaked. It was very chewy.
I found the hummus to be too watery. The labneh was pretty good. The falafel were excellent. The halloum was extremely salty but if eaten with the lemon dressed arugula it was bearable.
While waiting for the check one of the servers was going table to table with free offerings of falafel. I bit my tongue. No thank you, I just paid for mine!
In walking distance of Grape Leaves there are: It’s Greek to Me, Lisa’s Turkish Kitchen and Mediterraneo. I would go to any of these over Grape Leaves.
Doubtful I would ever go back.