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| - Sometimes you just want to give an A for effort...
Or maybe more than three lame stars. As the two other previous reviewers have pointed out succinctly, the man who I assume to be the owner was extremely nice. I made the 1.5 hour drive from Tucson to watch Avatar at Arizona Mills, and my friends and I decided to grab a bite before heading back. We randomly drove down Baseline and pretty much stumbled upon this place. Traffic going westbound towards the 10 was insane. I mean it was bumper to bumper past Rural. Anyway, I ask the guy who I assume is the owner why the traffic was so bad. At first he didn't know, but then realized that the 60 was closed. He politely recommended that we head south then cut across to get back to the 10.
I ordered the Jerusalem Falafel sandwich. It was pretty good. Though, in all honesty, falafel is not one those kind of dishes that one can gush over. In my opinion, it's pretty hard to mess up deep frying ground chickpeas. I ought to point out that the ingredients were very fresh. This also applied to the side salad that comes with the combo meal. My two friends opted for the gyros, and it looked good. The meat was thinly sliced, which is somewhat different than others I've had. They seemed to enjoy the meal, but I don't think they were quite overwhelmed by it either. In fact, we didn't mention anything about the food during the hour and a half trip back home.
The food is by no means bad at Pita Shack. It's adequate to serviceable in terms of Mediterranean food. The positives regarding the food have to be its freshness and price. In fact, I spent no more than $8 for a sandwich, salad, and drink. The service, as noted previously, is undoubtedly the most shining spot of the place. As we were finishing up our meal, the guy who I assume is the owner offered us lentil soup on the house. We declined after being quite filled and satisfied from our respective sandwiches. I believe another reviewer had the same thing happen to him, and he had positive comments about it. Now, for me it's was the food that really matters. Accordingly, I gave three stars, as opposed to the four that I was close to giving. Should I ever return to the Tempe area hankering for food in a pita, I would most definitely give Pita Shack another shot; if only to support a genuinely nice guy's business.
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