Flavor 180

The food offering is very limited.  And the price is a bit pricey.  Overall quality of the food is pretty good.  The owner is super nice.  I'm not sure if they use really good ingredients but the price point does not justify the aesthetics of the establishment.  If it was cheaper (or gave you more food) this place would be a hit.  It's not in the part of the city where you can do expensive fast food.

A day after my uninspired meal, the very gracious owner gave me a call. They left a voicemail apologizing for the meal and asked me if I would be willing to give them a chance to earn my patronage. I came to pick up a re-do with the Asian Cajun burger that they didn't have the day before and the wings. I had an entirely different opinion afterwards.
1. I did request to have the fries put in a separate container to avoid the soginess. The fries that before we're soggy and tasteless were hot and crispy, and well-seasoned. I had a mix of regular fries and sweet potato fries, they put some chipotle aioli on the side that was amazing with just a hint of heat.
2. After some discussion with one of the owners, who was very pleasant and accommodating, I think I pinpointed my problem with the wings. Their mission is to create healthy, tasty fast food. Therefore, they bake and then sauté their wings in a pan. I'm more accustomed to bake and then frying wings or in some cases grilled wings. These just aren't my cup of tea, the skin of the wings just has an unappealing (to me) texture. That being said, they are healthier. Their mango-jerk sauce is still delicious, sweet with some more bold heat.
3. Their Asian Cajun turkey burger on the other hand is, nothing short of, perfection. It is moist, flavorful and interesting. My fiancé ( whose has a very discerning palate) said it was the best turkey burger he has every had and I agree completely. I can completely understand how they sell out of them daily. Hard to believe it was healthy, ground turkey.
Overall, I was thoroughly impressed, not solely with the food but also with the way this small business dealt with criticism. They wanted to fix the problem, and keep gaining a strong customer base by earning it. They've won me over and I'm truly happy. Since they are down the street they can expect me to pop in again and grab a turkey burger with some of those fries. And word in the street is they are opening another location in the Lincoln park area. Good luck ( not that you need it)!

SERVICE REVIEW
My girlfriend and I went there today for lunch because she had purchased a groupon, and we were very hungry.  We adjusted our order after reading the fine print "no seafood with Groupon or Lving Social" and ordered the Peach BBQ wings, a salad, and jerk chicken tacos.  The cashier/owner told us that there would be a 25 min wait for the wings (25 min, damn?).  So against our better judgement we decided to wait.  We dined in and sat down and watched ESPN on the flat screen.  After a 15-20 min wait the salad and the tacos came out but no Peach wings.  My girlfriend and I shared the salad and I began to eat the tacos believing that the wings would be out shortly.  Boy was I ever wrong.  My girlfriend began to get impatent and after waiting a total of 45 min, she spoke to the cashier who said that it would be an additonal 15 min.  For chicken??? U gotta be kidding me.  I took a conf call for my job that lasted 45min and still no food.  I checked the receipt and looked at the time we ordered and the current time and it was 1hr and 15 min.  To say that we were livid is an understatement.  I went to speak with the cashier and asked him what was the problem, and I was immediately turned off by his condecending attitude, as if it was normal to wait over an hour for chicken wings.   There used to be a saying that the customer is always right, but it seems as if its news to the cashier.  Its sad that instead of apologies, the cashier could only offer a million pathetic excuses . . . "we had a lot of customers, its the lunch rush, last day of Groupon, they got slammed yesterday, Obama won the election." Im sure u get my point.  When I pointed out to the cashier that we had been waiting for an hour and a half, he argued me down that it was only an hour and 12 minutes.  Is he retarded?  Its as if he's been programmed with a cache of poor excuses to explain away their poor service.

MESSAGE TO OWNERS
Stop making excuses for poor service!  Man up and correct the deficiencies.  
Whever youre wrong, apologize to the customer and make it right.  Do not insult your customers by making them feel as if they did something wrong by being upset for the long wait.  The behavior displayed by the cashier was totally unacceptable and I will never darken their doorsteps again.  As a black man, I support black business, however in this case, I cannot.  

FOOD REVIEW
Salad - very small  lettuce not fresh and cut into tiny pieces, fair to poor.
Tacos - actually not bad at all but not much meat at all.
Wings - they were actually tasty, but definitely not worth the hr and half wait