This review is mostly about the service at St. Clair Shawarma and Falafel. The falafels we had were pretty decent. Solid three stars. But the service was just...well...torturously slow.
To be fair, we put in a large order. 10 falafels to go (we were the designated picker-uppers for our family that evening), so we expected to wait a little while. But this was frankly an operations nightmare. Everything was so darn inefficient! I wanted to hop behind the counter and help the guy out, but instead I waited helplessly for 40 minutes (that's 4 minutes per falafel, if you're keeping track) looking at him hack away at cucumbers and onions (he had run out at 6pm), cook falafel balls one at a time, walk back and forth to get bags from the same pile again and again. My business school inner voice was screaming: Why don't you cook the second batch of falafels WHILE you're making the first 5 sandwiches instead of waiting until you realize you're out of them? Etc...
Let's put it this way. I may have almost flunked operations (hey, it's hard!) but I know that 10 falafels don't take 40 minutes to make. I also felt so bad for the other couple of customers that came in while this was going on. Sorry, guys. We'll never put in a big order again!
Vegetarian Score: 6/10. Falafels, yes, but mostly meat at this joint. There also aren't the yummy salads (like Tabbouleh) and dips here that tend to show up at falafel stands. It's mostly fried fish and chicken and shawarma.