Address: | 7795 McKnight Rd, Pittsburgh, PA 15237, USA |
Phone: | +1 412-364-1760 |
Site: | tajmahalinc.com |
Rating: | 4.2 |
Working: | 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM 11AM–10:30PM |
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Shannin Zevian
We went here because we were craving Indian food and were going to be in the area. We landed here on a Saturday afternoon around 3pm. It was a buffet day, which was great because wed never been to The Taj Mahal before and we were looking forward to trying all they had to offer. I havent been in Pittsburgh long & Im still on the hunt for a great Indian restaurant. The place was about 1/3 full, which we figured was a good sign. The food on the buffet was hot and fresh. There was a lot of variety and mostly the food was tasty, even if it wasnt as spicy as I would have hoped. That said, I will never, ever go back. The service was absolutely awful! At first the hostess tried to seat us at a table where there was no way for me to get into the chair since it was so close to the table & chair behind it. The guy that was at the table nearby even gave the hostess a look that, to me, seemed to say, youre kidding, right? At 54" and under 150 pounds, I dont require much space, but there was no way I was going to squeeze into & out of that seat without bumping into the guy behind me every time I got up to go to the buffet. We asked for a different table, which didnt seem to be a huge problem, but the hostess was determined to seat us at a 2-seater even though the place wasnt even half full. The many tables that were waiting to be cleaned off made that impossible to do right away. Thus, we waited patiently for her to clean a table, even though we were standing by 3 perfectly clean (& set) 4-seater tables. After that, she was just plain rude to us. We sat down & waited for a while, but nobody came by to bring flatware or napkins or offer menus. So, we walked over to the buffet, helped ourselves, and picked up some flatware from a neighboring table. Still no drinks though... We grabbed a few glasses from a nearby table and put them on our table hoping that one of the people that kept walking through the dining area w/ water pitchers would fill them. Still no luck. That darn hostess, who was now pointedly ignoring us, even replaced the glasses on the table next to us & STILL DID NOT BRING US WATER or offer any drinks at all. It wasnt until I spotted a cart full of water pitcher and went to fill our glasses myself that an very kind, matronly woman offered to do it for me. We did get one table-side refill, but I eventually ended up going to get a water pitcher & bringing it to our table before we left. We were here 45 minutes, tops. We could not get out of there fast enough. To round out the awful service, the place is filthy. The walls are dirty. The black tablecloths were covered in curry & various sauces. The salt & pepper shakers on our table looked like they hadnt been cleaned in ages (very glad we had no need of them). The buffet was clean & tidy! However, the floor was covered in food from one end of the restaurant to the other. Lastly, vacated tables sat there dirty for far too long. Tables that were waiting to be cleared when we came in were just getting cleared as we were paying our check. The search for a great Indian restaurant continues.
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A Private User
When I saw the jar by the cash register with money, I immediately became suspicious of this practice because some restaurant owners get most of the tip money and they give little to the servers, waitresses and waiters. In this case the owners, I believe husband and wife, admitted to me that they did not share this money in the jar with the waitresses and waiters. (People leave this money as tips for the servers), I asked why not. The answer was: Because we pay the waitresses and waiters well, they make a lot of money and they do not need extra money. I said, regardless how much they make, people leave this money as tips to them not as extra money for the owners; my intention is to leave the money as tips to the waitresses or for the waiter in our case. I do not intend to give you extra money as the owner of the store; you charge me enough for the food, why do you keep the money meant for the servers. The husband went on arguing with me, this is discretionary, nobody is forcing you to leave money over here. And the wife came and said if you really want to give money to the waiter, go ahead and put it in his pocket. This is what I did before I left the store; I gave the money to the waiter in person. Later, one of my friends told me that, putting the money in his pocket may not work either, because some restaurant owners force the waiters to put the money in the jar even the customers give the money to them in person. I will personally follow up this case; I am going to write a letter to the ownership and to make sure that the tips are not extra money for the owners. I do not know but there may be 5 servers there and if each one of them generates everyday 50 to 100 dollars as tips and all the tips go to the jar, the total is 250 to 500 dollars a day; making it average $10,000.00 a month. Let us be conservative and calculate it with three servers with only each making 60 dollars a day; total 180 dollars a day and almost 5,000.00 a month. I am wondering, if IRS comes to the picture, how the owners are going to explain it in their tax papers. Beware of this bad faith practice.
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Juwaria Baig
Worst place ever. I will never ever order for a party from here or eat here again. I ordered for an iftar and dinner for 100 people, which i was looking forward to for awhile. I had a total of 80 people over the age of 10 (and a few of them were not able to make it in the last minute) and around 50 kids under 10 for which I had a friend make pasta. They didnt give us enough food for even 80 people when we had ordered food for 100. They gave us only 2 trays of biryani for 100 people. The biryani hardly had chicken in it. In the ladies side we had to mix white rice into the Biryani so that it would be enough. The mens side didnt eat properly but my husband had sent the biryani from the mens side to the ladies side just so it would be enough for the ladies. They gave us very little chicken 65. Half the people didnt eat dessert. Some of my friends didnt even know what was for dessert because it was finished before they could have any. Nothing was left over, except salad which was made from home, raita and the some vegetable curry. I ordered from here thinking that they would give a generous amount of food. I was really looking forward to this dinner and wanted everything to turn out well. When I called the manager and spoke to her nicely about it, she told me someone told her the food was more then sufficient, she was very rude and just hung up on me. They failed to aknowledge that they didnt give us sufficient food and were very rude about it. I had a very bad experience and will never come here again.