Roti Mediterranean Grill

Last time I went, I got so many disgusting bits of lettuce in my salad.
Add that experience to a lackluster product and it’s just disappointing. Can you sell this location to Cava Grill?

vegans/​vegetarians: falafel and mixed veggies as mains, almost all sides, + tahini, spicy, and vinaigrette sauces
yummy but my boy was still a bit hungry after his meal. his fault for not getting a free pita. I still shared.

They catered half the food for our office holiday party this year, and I’d definitely recommend them. It was easy to place the order over the phone, and they called the day before to confirm. The food was ready to go when we arrived, and everyone enjoyed it.
If you’re dining in, they can have a bit of a line during lunch, but it usually moves fast. There’s a decent amount of seating both downstairs and upstairs. It’s nice to have a fast-​casual Mediterranean restaurant close to my office for the occasional lunch.

Good food but the staff is VERY rude. They know they will always have business for the location so they do whatever they want. I was there Dec 29,2015 at lunch time and the guy was super rude to my mom who is from out of town and was trying to understand the concept. The worse part is that there was absolutely no one behind her, so there was no reason to be rude. Big F to customer service at this location. Should have gone to district taco!

This review is for the 1311 F St NW location specifically. I have also been to the 1275 First Street NE location and quite enjoyed my lunch and left with a good impression. I like the concept of this chain, and I want to eat here. But F Street is to be avoided. After several visits I have concluded that the quality of food is consistently poor here and the portions uneven and often small (though due to the poor food quality, small is okay). Bottom line is you pay over $ 13 for smallish portions of hot-​tray cafeteria food slapped on a paper plate with a fountain soda. The food at this location is often tasteless and over cooked. Even at 1220pm the food looks looks like warmed over leftovers from yesterday. If you ask for hummus (cheap) they slop on a giant soon full of about ¾ of a cup or more and give you a small pita nub to eat it with. But ask for cheese and you get a few crumbles. A few Olives? That will cost you more. The meat choices are lackluster and not particularly appealing. This store has the feel of a franchise owner only interested in milking a cash cow created by the goodwill and tasty product of other locations. No more for me.

Good food. But as a guy who doesn’t really live vegetables, I would like to have more hummus and more rice with my meal. I feel like I lose out on some of the food when I order due to the fact I don’t eat their vegetables.
Good sauces and humus.

First time finding a place that offered GF pita bread! Both gf and «normal» pita bread was warm, light and absolutely delicious! The atmosphere reminded me of chipotle, build your own Mediterranean meal. I would definitely come back here if I were visiting DC again. For those of you who are gluten intolerant, this place is a MUST!!!

This place is a Mediterranean/​Greek food version of chipotle and it is DELICIOUS! I was in DC for work and was taken here by a coworker.
Walk in– the place has a line to the door of customers, I would say at least 20 people in line… I figured it would take a while but it only took about 3 – 5 minutes to get to the front of the line and create my email.
You get to choose between a sandwich, rice plate or salad. I opted for sandwich
Next was choice of meat — I went for the chicken kabob
After that was dips– I went with the tziki and hummus
Following was toppings — tomato/​cucumber mix, couscous, lettuce, grilled veggies, and more.
After that my wrap was complete! It was so tasty. I wish they would open Roti in CA because I would be a return and repeat customer.
They had downstairs and upstairs seating options.

The food, good. The service, not so much.
Look, I understand that you’re downtown and super busy at lunch. The line is very long, but moves very fast. Too fast.
How about not putting toppings on my order as you’re asking me if I want them? How about not ringing up a customer before they even get to the register and barking «$ 8.75!!!» at them and thrusting your hand out for payment? If you added a few seconds to the assembly line time, you would have noticed that I actually had 2 orders and was only charged for one, which I noticed once I got back to my office. I also wanted a piece of baklava, but I was so flustered and rushed that I just handed the cashier my credit card and took off, afternoon snack-​less.
All in all, I guess I would go again.

Wow. Just wow. Delicious! Got a rice bowl with hummus, olives, and hummus with their spicy sauce. So good! We have a place back home with a Korean riff on this same theme called Bibibop and I’d put this place on the same level. Sooooo good — and a great deal for the money too. $ 13 and some change and I’m completely satiated. Bravo!

It’s a hit or miss so take it for what it is. Average food placed in a convenient location with unthawed couscous. I’ve come here well over ten times and my visits are never consistently good or consistently bad. Some members of the staff are actually kind and do their job great, while others I could do without interacting with. Roti is basically the Mediterranean version of Chipotle, so it offers you fast and somewhat healthy food on the go.

I’ll start by saying I actually like Roti — but my review is about this location. I always get the salad platter with beef — and for some reason the meat is not cooked well at this location. I’ve had the salad platter with beef in other Roti’s and it is delicious but again here it lacks flavor and seems undercooked. The toppings are fine as with any Roti but stay away from the beef!

To preface this review — I was one of the most avid fans of Roti when it first opened. I brought my colleagues to Roti, told my friends about it, etc. It was a superb lunch choice in the beginning. I still think the food at Roti is pretty good, I like that the falafel is organic and they have some sustainable choices. BUT… the service at this location has become atrocious. It started with a small infraction about a year ago, and since then, it’s been worse and worse. Today I reached my limit, and I think today was my last visit to this place.
First of all, the lines are long during lunch hour, and when I get to the order counter, there are usually 2 – 3 people directly in front of me, standing between me and the counter. But that doesn’t stop the staff from yelling, from 15 feet away, asking me what I want. It reminds me of Starbucks (on 14^th and G) that also loves to yell out requests for orders from a mile away. It makes me uncomfortable (and maybe my voice isn’t strong enough) to respond by yelling back over the heads of 2 – 3 people.
Second, once I am closer to the window where I can put in my order in a civilized manner, my food is then passed down along the chain, and once again, I find myself standing behind 4 – 5 people (the distance between me and the staff gets longer with each part of the process), trying to tell staff what toppings I want. I can barely see the toppings, but that doesn’t stop them from pressing me to tell them what I want. I mean… let me come closer, so I can see what the heck I’m ordering!
And finally, once my food is packaged (after a laborious and stressful process), the staff just THROWS the food onto the last counter for someone to put a sticker on it. It just feels crappy to see your food tossed like a bag of trash at the end of this process. It’s FOOD. Something I will eat. It’s not crap. It’s not trash. It’s not a sack of potatoes. I am not cattle. I am not a pig. I am not a lion. Throwing my food is a degrading gesture (and as a vegetarian, I would argue that animals don’t deserve their food thrown, either). It really upsets me. It’s uncivilized and disrespectful. It feels like a slap in the face. So, the staff at the checkout could be doing cartwheels, but at that point, they already lost me.
So, I’m only giving 2 stars because the actual food is good. But I can’t stand being treated with so much disrespect and all the yelling.

I went here during the height of lunch hour… Oh boy! This place was packed to the MAX, it reminded me of Chipotle (only Roti Grill doesn’t skimp on their toppings lolol). At any rate, the line moved very fast so it didn’t really matter.
One must guess that it was so many people there because the food is JUST that delicious. *nom nom*
I ordered the felafel pocket with most of the toppings. Can we say fresh fresh fresh? The staff was pretty nice (with the exception of one cashier… rude gal). I thoroughly enjoyed my lunch and I will be going back there again!
The reason I didn’t give this place 5 stars is because of the seating. The chairs and table are too close to each other. I had to do act like I was in a maze to get to my seat, get a drink, leave etc. :/

I decided to try Roti out because District Taco next door was packed and the line was long. I ordered the chicken kabob platter with 3 sides. I would say the chicken and overall sides was pretty bland. There wasn’t any flavor to the chicken and it was pretty dry. I wasn’t too impressed with their selection either.

Wanting to try District Taco, we were turned off by the line going out the door, so we opted instead for Roti, located right next door, with no line whatsoever.
That was our first and most critical clue, that we should have just nut up and stood in line for some D-​Tacos con cerveza guey.
Now, I’m not a fan of Chipotle, because their menu and format gives me a fucking headache by requiring me to read all the different options, directions, variations, sides, sauces and other complicated bullshit in order to get a meal. It’s like being given an algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus pop quiz all at once, before you can order any fucking food. I’m so hangry, I’m about to explode.
In my opinion, Roti appears to be the «Mediterranean» version of Chipotle. This was critical clue number 2, which I also ignored instead of making like a cartoon character and leaving an outline of me running out the door, with a puff of smoke in my wake, the way the road runner smoked the coyote each and every time, as I learned at a very young age, to appreciate classical music.
At any rate, we each order something different to share. I forgot what I ordered but after a few bites of it and all that fresh out of a can sauce poured on it, I decided I would reserve my digestive juices for dinner instead. Perhaps there might be a pigeon outside, munching on a leftover hot dog, that he wouldn’t mind sharing with me. Somebody shared a grilled chicken something or other, which was actually decent.
Let’s just say that the next time I see a Roti, I will think of Chipotle and just walk the other way. Beep, beep!

The food is decent. Sometimes I feel rushed thru the line and other times the employees have time to say hello (conversation isn’t the reason I visit). Parking is a challenge but if you are already downtown, it is worth a visit. Cheers to the 43nsjfhidi ehskf falafel (sorry had to wipe away the drool while typing). You can stand aside and wait for fresh yxdidshd hhhifheitis falafel (more drool). The salads are my favorite. You can load as many veggies as you want. Shout out to the olives and dressings. In a word falafel.

The Mediterranean version of chipotle is really what this is, good quality food that’s quick, affordable and much healthier than most fast food places, and it’s really good. I enjoyed my chicken kabob plate with hummus, tomato & cucumbers and coucous. It’s got enough variety to want to try again, and you can sign up for reward points to get free food after the first visit. It’s worth a try

So after coming here a couple of times a week, I have figured out my routine. I used to always get the roti chicken rice plate, but I’ve realized it is just too much food for me. Instead, the sultan sandwich basically has all the same things without the rice! Less carbs but same content! It is still a huge sandwich but slightly cheaper, so I am happy with my routine. I always get the iced tea and mix it between the green tea and unsweetened tea as I find the green tea really sweet.
The chicken roti is the only meat I’ve ever gotten there, then the eggplant salad, couscous, and the tomato/​cucumber salad. They always ask you if you want hummus first for some odd reason. I always say no to hummus and get the other 3 sides. For the sauce, I take the cucumber dressing.
Also, free wifi is great there. I can get on my tablet if my phone dies, which has happened before.

When Roti first opened in DC, I was the biggest fan imaginable. I literally ate lunch at the Penn Ave location multiple times per week. The food was unique, fresh, tasty, and the portions were huge.
Then, after they captured everyone’s hearts and tastebuds, they started the Chipotle squeeze. Portion sizes dwindled, they no longer would give you double meat for free, and getting them to properly douse my entire meal in red pepper sauce suddenly was like pulling teeth. Frustrated and saddened, I stopped going to Roti.
Then here comes Columbus Day, the holiday that only maybe 50% of DC actually gets off and yet 100% of the restaurants close (even Starbucks?!). Wandering around the post-​apocalyptic emptiness of downtown and whining about the lack of food trucks, I stumbled into Roti because District Taco was tragically also closed.
My rice plate was tiny, the roti chicken has lost its flavor, and even my favorite red pepper sauce tastes different and is no longer my favorite. Also, the new rice mixture is terrible. The only redeeming factors were the couscous and the eggplant, which at least still taste the same as I remembered. In a city full of delicious lunch options, I will not be returning to Roti. And next Columbus Day I’ll remember to pack my own lunch.