Reston, VA (Reston Town Center)
Jim Ramia
Its a great place to dine in but I realized after ordering to go a few times that there is a huge difference in the quantity and quality when you order the same items to go.
So in summary, its a great place to dine in but never order to go from here.
Miss Val
I drove 2 hours from PA to VA for an event and stopped in late afternoon for takeout. This was my first experience with True Kitchen. The environment was pleasant and it wasn’t very busy. I ordered a half size chopped salad and margherita pizza to go. I waited about 35 minutes. When I got my order I headed back to my hotel. I opened the pizza box and the pizza looked good however it was cold. Colder than what I was thinking it would be for having only driven 5 minutes to my hotel. It occurred to me that I did wait 35 minutes for the food and maybe it was ready before that and they just forgot but I was the only person waiting in the takeout area. Who knows but it wasn’t what I was expecting for the amount of money I spent - about $27 including a $2 tip. I did eat some of the pizza because I was hungry and was too tired to go back out. The salad was ok. There were no utensils or napkins in the bag but luckily the front desk at my hotel was able to give me a plastic fork for the salad and a couple napkins. I likely would not stop in here again the next time I’m in the area.
Solitaire Carroll
Went there for lunch on a Saturday and the service was not good, we waited for our food for 90 mins and when it was all brought out, it was luke warm. The food was delicious but the service was not good. They might have been understaffed that day
Karen Clineff
Food was bland. Decor and atmosphere were nice.
Marcus Perry
I have to start by saying my entree was delicious; however this place leaves a lot to be desired, especially for the price. Decor is bright and friendly and waitstaff was accommodating, but not engaging which made the whole experience rather sterile. The menu was a QR code, which is okay, I like the technology, but it limits the waitstaff to basically being food runners. While the food was good, it is definitely overpriced. I had a steak over some type of grain and a drink. The bill was $40 almost $50 with a tip. This was not a $50 lunch experience. There are less expensive options at RTC with better atmosphere and food just a good.
John Davis
Good food, but poor service. The waiter was incompetent. He never took away the menus, never removed unneeded wine glasses, never cleared used dishes or asked if we wanted more drinks. I assume this was due to inexperience.
Sam Biesenbach
Interesting experience at True Food Kitchen in Reston Town Center. I had some family in town for my sister's birthday, and my wife had heard great things about True Food.
We scheduled an earlier dinner at 6PM for 5 adults and 1 child. Had a great experience checking in, and heading over to the table. The staff was welcoming and friendly. After sitting down at the table is where the problems began.
First, I want to make it very clear, our server was very nice, professional, and knew her business, but the speed of service was atrocious. Upon sitting down, we asked for a round of waters, about 10 minutes later our drink orders were taken, about 10 minutes from there our food orders were taken, and 5-minutes after that our drinks were delivered. 25-minutes for the first drink order. When the drinks were delivered, we again asked for a round of waters as they'd not arrived.
In the current climate, I anticipate a little slower pace to service due to the lower staff counts in the restaurant industry, and overall challenges operating a restaurant with limited staff. That said, there were about 4 tables seated when we arrived in a restaurant, in a location with 30-40 tables, and seemingly full-staff.
30-minutes in, we have water and our drinks, and our food order has been placed. We ordered a variety of dishes, and the server let us know that the Korean Steak that I ordered took a little bit longer than some of the other dishes (about 20-minutes). We ordered appetizers, so this shouldn't have been a problem. Appetizers are delivered to the table about 40-45 minutes into the meal and were finished right around the 1-hour mark.
Another 15-20 minutes and entree's are sent out. While a longer meal experience is never really an issue when things are moving at the right pace, everything this evening seemed to be behind schedule. We weren't really provided updates or recognition that things seemed a little behind schedule.
Maybe Friday at 6PM is the wrong time to come for dinner, but as a previous FOH manager for Restaurants and Catering, something was very off. Maybe the FOH manager wasn't there that day.
All-said, the food was good, but not so good that it justifies the service experience. With the options available at RTC, I think we'll pass on True Food Kitchen the next time we go out that way for dinner.
Benjamin Pitts
True Food Kitchen is located within Reston Town Center, which is a shopping center with a lot of different restaurants and shopping options and is great place to spend a warm summer evening.
The atmosphere is very bright and spacious but I wasn’t a huge fan compared to the many other more atmospheric options in NoVA. It feels like you are “on display” in the center tables due to the lighting and how far everything is spaced out.
As far as the food - I had a burger when I was there. The burger was good but there have been better ones I have tried locally. I guess the main selling point is that it is lower calories than a similar burger somewhere else. When I was there, my girlfriend had a grilled chicken plate and it was some of the driest chicken I have ever tried. After our experience, we decided against coming back due to the plethora of other nearby restaurant options.
Stephen Pollard
Our second attempt after my wife found hair in her soup. This time I found residue on my fork. Manager offered to comp my wine then charged me for it. Waitress ‘Shy’ was the bomb!!!
Mike DiSalvo
Food was good and like the vegan options. Server was really nice too, she explained the options well. I am giving it 3 Stars because the wireless pay did not work with Android phones. Most restaurants take both apple and other forms of wireless payments from phones. This place did not work and ended up paying in cash.
JB Benimon
The food and drinks were very good. The service was a totally different story. Drinks were very late, wrong drinks were given to us, and someone's food went to the wrong table. It wasn't very busy so I didn't understand why there were so many issues
Matt Herbert
Food is very good, and I like the theme they're going for. The service is very lacking, literally will drop the food off and disappear like a ghost until well after you've finished the food. Inattentive hosts, standing by the door, but facing away from the door while ignoring new customers. I watched two potential tables arrive and stand around the host stand for 5 min without being attended to, before leaving the restaurant disgruntled. Atmosphere isn't bad, but the space is too open. Feels like a dining hall with their table setups. A table sat inside with their dog (did not appear to be a service dog), which would be fine for outdoor seating, but indoor is a different matter. I would order takeout from here due to the quality of the food, but wouldn't come again for a sit down meal.
Nikhil Dogra
Extremely bad experience.
Understandably past 2 PM we were late for lunch but food and service both were below par. My visit to other TFKs have been much better
Firstly the napkin with silverware wrapped in had a prominent lipstick mark. Clearly not properly washed after the last use.
We ordered triyaki Quinoa bowl with tofu which is my usual order. Quinoa was too dry, vegetables were dry and chwey, likley due to reheating. Tofu was missing.
Ancient grain bowl had dried, almost burnt/ scraped grains which were brittle and the sweet potatoes were too hard and chewy, again as if multiple times reheated. And again no tofu.
Chicken parm sandwich was very watery and the bread used for sandwich had turned soggy.
Worst experience in the reston TFK
Carla Atalla
I’ve never picked up an order from the Reston location without having to wait an extra fifteen minutes from when they say my order will be ready. Disappointing
Diane Yorkshire
The food was good. Not many choices.
Service was poor.
Boris Nemirov
Unless you are a health food nut, you will not enjoy this place. There are just no options for someone who does not enjoy quinoa, zucchini rice, etc. My wife is fine with this stuff and enjoyed her poke bowl. However, I did not enjoy my steak tacos nor the sides they came with (corn and zucchini rice) and would have loved to have some options of good old potatoes/fries or at least something basic like a Caesar salad. I also struggled finding something to drink there - the OG that was suggested and which I was told was not at all spicy burned my mouth and throat immediately. When I told the server of this, she suggested another drink, but still felt it was fine to charge me like $6 for the undrinkable OG. Also, the service speed here was glacial and our serve was MIA most of the time (and the food took over 30 min to come out). Even just paying the check took like 10 minutes and she was taking orders at another table after walking away with my credit card.
Jeff Myren
Food was nothing noteworthy but the ordering and payment experience was incredibly frustrating. There is a QR code on the tables and our server told us that we could use that to order or order through her. There was four of us and were were going to have three separate payments so we figured separate checks through the app would be easiest since the server said we could pay through the app and itemize if we wished. Person 1 ordered and said they were part of a group (it waits to send the order to the kitchen). Person 2 placed an order and said they were solo. Person 3 entered an order for myself and my wife and I also said that I was NOT part of a group. It ended up merging both my order and person 2’s order together and the person who said they were part of a group ended up being the solo one. Ok very frustrating. Then the server came over and asked if we placed one or two cocktail orders. We confirmed there was supposed to be two, but one of the food items was not showing up in the order screen for person 1. We asked the server to confirm there was four entrees ordered. All drinks and food came out as expected and were decent but nothing spectacular. When we finished we went to the website (no app) to pay. I clicked the Apple Pay icon and it didn’t take me to Apple Pay. I had to enter in my full credit card details and it failed to process since it said I had an invalid three digit code. For some reason it trimmed the preceding zero which was a valid digit. Then there was no way to itemize the items we ordered…confused I went back to the start and then refreshed the page. This time when I tried to check out it I got a new screen with three options to 1) pay in full 2) split evenly or 3) to select which items I wanted. I picked the third option and and choose the items we ordered. On the checkout screen all of them items on the check showed up. I was confused since I should have only had three items. There were five items on “our”check” with three of the four people from our table. My subtotal, tax and tip were for just my three items but it was very frustrating that it didn’t show me which items I had picked to pay for in any way. I expected to either see only my three items or to see my three items as picked but then to see the other items in a separate section. By this time I realized this website checkout process was a dumpster fire and I was just going to move on. I completed my checkout process. I then took the phone of the other person and tried to complete the checkout process. Once again it didn’t allow itemization until a website refresh. After refresh it allowed itemization but then when it came to picking which items we wanted to pay for all of the items said they were paid for (which they were not). At this point I walked over to our server and told them the website was junk and that it was telling me everything was paid for but I believed that NOT to be the case. They confirmed a payment was made but they did not have the detail as to which items were paid for. We then tried to complete the checkout again on our phones but this time choose to pay remaining balance (instead of trying to pick items). This again failed because on the next screen it said everything was paid for. We gave up and presented a credit card to our server. Please get rid of this app. It left me in such a bad mood (plus the food didn’t wow me) that I do not plan to return.
Sudheendra Muppavarapu
Good food, but trainee host was not given basics. Table conversation was interrupted 3 times. Was asked for order "while looking at printed menu". Got the check right after my last spoon. Faulting the trainer not trainee.
All Nuts No Bolts
Food and drinks Overpriced.
Alcoholic drinks very weak
Elyse Rawlings
Terribly disappointed in my order. I’ve visited the Mosaic-Fairfax location several times and have thoroughly enjoyed my meal. I ordered through Uber Eats and 1)I didn’t receive my drink orders 2)I ordered the ancient grains bowl with salmon and it was dry with uncooked sweet potatoes. Will not be returning to this location.