Maoz Vegetarian

S. and i were so excited to learn that maoz opened up stateside! we were looking forward to revisiting our amsterdam days by visiting this little joint in berkeley… except it’s CLOSED!!! =X
SO SAD!!! *sigh*
SOL. better luck next time… now i have to go to texas or one of the other states to get my all-​you-​can refill falafels! =(

While it’s no Chick-​O-​Pea (RIP, homie), this riff on the same Middle Eastern falafel/​salad bar does the trick if you’re in the hood and want to take your tastebuds on a journey to the shore of the Dead Sea… or just a delicious respite from the street kids harassing you on Telegraph.
I usually go for the salad bar and while the portion of greens they give is a bit… small…but the bowls allow you to pack a surprising amount of tasty toppings (carrot salad, variety of pickles, roasted veg, hummy, cilantro sauce, cabbage slaws, chickpeas, etc).
My dining mate rated the falafels «average» — nothing to write the Israeli embassy abt — but seemed to have no problem packing them in – so overall, a solid place to have around for a casual nosh. To make the meal a feast of champions, follow it up with Yogurt Land. Mmmmmm.
Oh, salads are $ 6.95 and most of the combo meals are around $ 10.

I’ve been here multiple times.
I love the falafel salads and the unlimited add-​ons. (I go for EVERYTHING.)
Everything is super fresh and the salad bar is always stocked.
The rice pudding wasn’t bad either ;)
(Neither was the lemonade… haha)

A damn good Telegraph option. My sister and I split the Mediterranean falafel «pizza,» and it was awesome. Crispy, not greasy, and with just the right amount of red onion (which, for me, means few enough to easily pick off and flick to the side without leaving any gross raw onion taint on my food).
Heh heh… I said «taint.»

Maoz, I went from having a little crush on you from the first time I came during a Unilocal event and then recently I fell in love with your Maoz falafel sandwiches! YUM!
The flat-​bread falafel is unique and good, however the Maoz is where it’s at! Fresh, tasty, inexpensive, and filling. What more could you ask for in a meal? The staff is very nice, the venue is very clean, bright, and I love the green wall/​ceiling tiles. I highly recommend getting a Maoz sandwich, fill it with their amazing and fresh vegetables and some sauce. The garlic sauce is garlic-​tastic and is an excellent flavor enhancer.
I’m excited to come back again soon. This is my new local falafel spot!

Got a MuncOnMe deal for a falafel flatbread pizza for only $ 4.99! Normally they are ~$ 5.99. Thanks for partnering with them, Maoz.
FOOD
— Specialty Falafel Flatbread Pizza (5 Stars): a flat falafel the size of a paper plate loaded with pesto, tomato, olives, and feta cheese. Delicious! The veggies looked and tasted fresh and the olives gave a real kick to the «pizza.»
— Mediterranean Falafel Flatbread Pizza (4 Stars): toppings were hummus, tomato, cucumbers, red onions, and cilantro. This was not as flavorful as the specialty one, however I loved that it was loaded with cucumbers.
— Both dishes were a steal with the MunchOnMe code! But at its normal retail price, it’s still pretty decent too.
— BUT the falafels were a teeny bit oily, as noted by the soaked-​through paper plate peeking out as we ate more.
ATMOSPHERE
— The walls are a nice bright green and there’s pop music blasting. Not a place for you to come to study and eat, but its location on Telegraph and proximity to campus makes it a perfect spot for a quickie lunch.
— Seating is ample and you can definitely come here if you wanna eat with a slightly bigger group of friends
SERVICE
— The cashier was friendly in answering our questions about the most popular ordered dishes and which flatbread she liked the most.
TO TRY NEXT TIME
— Falafel sandwich! I think I like falafel balls better because they seem a bit more soft compared to the flatbread.
I wish I ventured in more when I was still a student here; can you believe that my first time was practically a year after graduation? A shame for me!

I don’t even like falafel, but this place is very fresh and tasty! Not to mention cheap.
There are just a few choices here, and the junior size maoz (pita with 3 falafel balls) is enough food for me. I can’t even finish the combo fries. Their fresh toppings bar is amazingly fresh which translate to yummmmmm.
Place is clean, and bright, the only down side is there is no bathroom.

I’ve been here a few times to come to a consensus that this place is really awesome. This is a great place to eat if you are ever craving a falafel. They always have someone give out free samples right in front of their place. I remember having a couple but I still wasn’t that convinced. It wasn’t until I went to a couple of Maoz sponsored Unilocal Events that I fully had the Maoz falafel experience. I fell in love with their falafel and have gone back ever since. I usually get the Junior Maoz with the free toppings they offer at their salad bar. I take it to go and a person wraps it up for me after I’m done putting my toppings in the sandwich. The staff is very nice and conversational. The ambiance is also cool in that the seating is very chic.

Like many of its fans, for me, falafel is more than just great food. It’s evocative of culture, or tradition, or a cherished memory. Mine was Yankee stadium circa 1990. The visiting team won but the falafel my friend had brought for us (almost) made up for the Yankee’s defeat.
And if falafel balls were baseballs, Maoz’s would be screaming out of the ballpark at 300 mph — a definite home run! I was lucky enough to have a taste of their fare at a Unilocal event earlier in the week. The falafel was so enjoyable — crisp on the outside, chewy & succulent on the inside — that I vowed a quick follow-​up to their actual location. And I’m happy to report the in-​store deal was as good as their special event fare.
Moreso, as many have written, the salad bar offerings (unlimited for a pita or salad falafel) are a serious step up in flavor, freshness and variety from any competitors. With personal faves of roasted cauliflower/​broccoli (!), the marinated carrots and the roasted red pepper strips, the bar sports an excellent array of sauces as well. James the manager told (almost encouraged) me to make repeat visit back to re-​fill my toppings. With the full-​sized $ 4.99 falafel pita, you can definitely get a good, and delicious, intake of your daily veggies. I went full-​throttle with the $ 1 addition of their mighty fine hummus.
The interior décor is minimal without being stark, and cleaner than many similarly sized campus quick eateries. A later lunch offered relief from the crowd other visitors reported, with fast service, multiple seating options and languishing at the salad bar. But given the good grubs I’d hit them up at the high noon with gusto.
Excellent food, excellent value. Fellow falafel-​heads, you owe yourself a visit to Maoz.

Changing the falafel game, one ball at a time.
For a person who isn’t into fried food, I rarely go a-​huntin’ for a stuffed pita. This is slightly embarrassing, given that I’m a Hebrew teacher and should be doing the falafel dance every day before I do my yoga poses. But somehow I can’t get into the groove.
Nevertheless, Maoz (pronounced Mah-​OHz, with a little pause between syllables – not MOWZ) makes good food.
I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to go to the restaurant on Telegraph prior to tasting their food at an event. But now that I know whats up, I could actually go for another falafel. Don’t eat too many, though. Bad times come to those who eat too many. Buh-​leeeeeeve me. But a few, and you’re good to go.

I’ve been hearing about Maoz for years from Jeffrey B. and I was glad to find one in Berkeley.
Here’s the deal. You get either a pita falafel sandwich or a falafel salad and you pick whatever you want from the «salad bar» to put on your sandwich or salad including a number of sauces. You can also get fries and a drink in combo form. In addition you can add on hummus, eggplant, feta, avocado, babaganoush or hard boiled egg.
Coming from the Detroit area, I know good falafel. I haven’t had good falafel since moving to California, but Maoz has the stuff. It’s crispy, flavorful but not dry or greasy. It was perfect. The salad bar had everything I could want on a sandwich.
The fries were served in a cone, Belgian style (not French or Freedom style).
The inside was modern and austere. There were a few tables but it’s not a big joint. I imagine this is more a grab-​n-​go lunch spot.
The only negative was that it was a bit of a wait for the sandwich to come out. However, it was remedied by good fresh falafel which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Just get the falafel salad :-) I had forgotten about Maoz and my friend suggested a place that she wanted to check out and apparently we both were wanting to eat at Maoz.
The host gave us a sampler of the falafel drizzled with tahini sauce. I saw people getting the salad box and stuffing the veggies from the veggie bar. Great place for veggie lovers. Any order except for the kids meal comes with 5 falafel pieces. so filling and I had to drop the idea of having dessert after.
I only wish they open at several locations!

Finally, I do not need to fly to Spain to get me an amazing Felafel!
I am not sure if you are allowed to get unlimited felafel bar or not but I went back with no shame and refilled my pita pouch.
They use the app «Punchd» here. With your phone you can get a free felafel after 10 purchases… so 4 more times with my girlfriend and the 5^th is free!
A lot of great restaurants on that Telegraph strip though, this just adds to the list :)
P. S. This place has good people watching views as well!

I’ve been a fan of Maoz since it’s been open. Granted, the 5 stars might be the result of me comparing it to other Berkeley southside restaurants. The falafel balls could definitely improve in texture and taste and their lemonade, lemonade/​ice tea does not taste good… but still.
For southside, I give it a 5 for their unlimited salad bar and good prices. I usually get the Jr Meal deal, and just keep filling the pita with delicious broccoli (which I never liked before), yogurt, beans, and beets. It’s a nice place to meet up with friends and stay for an hour or so catching up and eating veggies. Cute decorations, too.
I usually can finish about half of the pita, and then I fill my pita up again to take it to go for my next meal! All for around 7 dollar! There are groupon and campuscred deals, too so be on the look out. Their fries/​potatoes fries are quite good. I’m always recommending the place to people when they are looking for places to eat around Cal.

I’m a huge fan of the sweet potato fries that they have here. For $ 3.00, I would come here for the fries as a meal any day. Definitely go with the garlic dip on the side. 5 stars easily for fries alone. However, from here, it kinda goes downhill…
The meal deals that they have are definitely on the pricey side though. I ordered their combo number one, which is a eggplant falaffel sandwich, sweet potato fries (+$.50 to upgrade from regular fries), and a drink. Price: ~$ 10. I’m all for supporting the underdog businesses here in Berkeley, but this is a bit too much for too little. They need to get their price down to stay in business as the place is always empty.
The unlimited refill filling bar is some what of a gimmick. It seems like quite a deal when you look at it, but when you actually try eating a pita and then refilling it, you’ll see what I mean when I say it’s about as hard as balancing a basketball on a toothpick (random analogy~). What it comes down to is eating the toppings you fill onto the top of the pita, grabbing more, and repeat. It’s incredibly difficult to get a bite of your toppings and the sandwich innards. You’ll give up quickly and unlimited quickly becomes a few (probably 2) servings.
I would recommend, but price needs to be lowered and the idea of an unlimited bar would be better if they gave you a plate or something to put it on the side.

Food:
1) Falafel sandwich: For those of you who haven’t been here, you order whatever you want (i.e. a falafel sandwich like me) and then there is this salad bar and you can put all these extra toppings on your sandwich to go with your meal. So there’s a variety of toppings, but my favorite ones were baked broccoli/​cauliflower, tomato with onions, cilantro dip, chick peas, pickles, and their yogurt sauce. (There are a ton more toppings but those were just the ones that I was interested in) The really really cool thing is that once you are done eating your toppings, you can go back for MORE toppings! It’s almost like a buffet! So as long as you still have some sandwich left, you can get more toppings! It’s pretty cool… and with the amount that I ate, I’m really surprised that they made any money off of me… haha!
The actual falafel sandwich was pretty good too! The falafels were not too dry and it had a good consistency. I ordered it with wheat pita and the wheat was still soft and tasty. I’m pretty satisfied with the sandwich overall. The only reason that I gave it 4 stars is because it was good but NOT the BEST thing I’ve ever had. But it’s seriously REALLY close to 5 stars… REALLY CLOSE!
Service:
You order at the counter, get your sandwich and then it’s a self serve salad bar thing. So not much service, but the guy at the counter was super friendly and nice! He even said «Thank you» when we left and most SERVICED places don’t even do that! :)
Ambiance:
It’s got nice music playing, I’ve totally got to give them credit for that! It’s new so it’s cleaner and very modern looking interior. It looks like it’s geared towards the younger undergrad crowd which makes sense, because we are at Berkeley! It’s not very crowded or popular, so there aren’t that many people there, so I feel like I could just buy a sandwich, sit there indefinitely to study and keep refilling toppings and be set and fed the whole day… but that’s just the cheap, frugal grad student me scheming to take advantage of the system. haha.
Price:
It’s pretty cheap, sandwich was under $ 5 and considering how many times I went back to refill my toppings, I think I really ate like $ 20 worth of food!
Overall:
I’m definitely going back! Great food and endless amounts of it… sign me up! *munch munch*

International Vegetarian Falafel Franchise Restaurant? I wouldn’t have believed it, except we saw a Maoz in Madrid last fall (
and
) What’s the Euro to USD exchange?
Anyway, cute green décor with dark wood benches and tables. Friendly guys behind the counter instructing bewildered customers on the magic of falafel and the salad bar.
#1 Regular Combo ($ 8.20) comes with falafel in pita with hummus & eggplant (extras for a la carte sando) Belgian fries and drink. Sweet potato fries are +$ 0.50 which I did. Apparently the $ 10 Groupon didn’t cover tax so I fished out $ 0.75 or so and grabbed my drink.
They have canned drinks, some fresh juice options (+$ 1 w/​combo. can’t remember a la carte price), and some pre-​made iced teas, lemonade, and Arnold Palmers (½ & ½ iced tea + lemonade) in plastic pint cups which is what I ended up grabbing. It was watery and bland. I wondered if they were made with ice which had melted to dilute the cup.
The falafel pita comes pretty packed, especially if you get the combo with hummus & eggplant provided. I only had room for a smattering of Israeli salad (
) before it looked like things were going to spill onto the salad bar & floor. I did go back a few more times being careful not to touch the utensils to my already partially eaten food.
I can see where people’s concerns about sanitation are coming from, though I was the only one I saw go for a refill in the half-​hour I was there (8 – 9 other diners).
The sandwich was OK. The falafels were tasty, but dry. The pita held up well through the whole meal. Toppings were mixed. I liked the tahini, but the garlic sauce was weak. The tabouli was unique and refreshing with no tomatoes and heavy on the mint, but the previously mentioned Israeli salad was very coarsely chopped and a little awkward; too easily slipping off the sandwich onto the table while trying to take a bite.
The sweet potato fries were a big serving and good. The best part of the meal (
)
Falafel Sandwich + Toppings: 3 stars
Sweet Potato Fries: 4 stars
Arnold Palmer: 2 stars
With Sunrise Deli & D’Yar right around the corner, I’ll probably stick with the locals.

Came here with the boyfriend and a Groupon in hand. We each got a Maoz (the falafel sandwich) and added hummus to one to reach the $ 10 minimum for the Groupon.
It was a short wait for our food to come out and then we quickly filled the pitas at the salad bar. They had a good varietty of veggies including broccoli and cauliflower, cabbage, cucumber salad, onions, etc. There were also sauces like tzatziki and garlic sauce.
I’d like to point out to some of the other reviewers that *technically* if you get just the falafel sandwich it does not say it comes with an unlimited salad bar. It says «unlimited toppings» below each the Meal Deal and Junior Meal Deal but the sandwiches don’t say unlimited toppings.
The only problem with Maoz was that it was hard to fill the pita with the salad bar toppings because they put in the falafels before they give it to you and you have to hold it in your hand as you fill it because they don’t have plates. All the salad bar toppings end up on top, which I guess that makes sense since they are «toppings» but it makes the bottom half of the sandwich pretty empty. This is where going back to the salad bar would be beneficial even if you just get a sandwich and not a meal deal.
Falafel is probably my favorite vegetarian meal so I’ll be back, but I wish they would make the sandwiches unlimited toppings as well.

Dude, this place is delicious. My favorite additions on the salad bar are the red bell peppers and their coleslaw!!! (surprisingly i like the beets too. OH and the broccoli/​cauliflower mix. who knew i’d ever like cauliflower?)
Basically I always get a plain salad box and shove in AS MUCH STUFF AS POSSIBLE! The falafels are REALLY delicious. seriously, a lot of times they can be dry or bad, but these falafels are pretty amazing. Did you know they’re gluten-​free (according to one guy who works there)? Well, not that I really care. but for those that do…
It can get crowded during the college lunch/​dinner flows, but it can calm down a lot too.
I can eat about half and take the rest to go…
OH I tried their rice pudding and that was yummy too… sticky and cold!
AND their sweet potato fries are yummy. (but really, i’ve never had bad sweet potato fries — those are hard to mess up)
AND i liked their carrot juice.
I’ve been there twice and yeah, heartily recommend it.
Perhaps it’s a tad pricey. Perhaps it’s a tad confusing. Perhaps … yeah, there *is* something a little missing for me to say that it’s «as good as it gets» but i’m definitely a fan.

I eat a lot of meat.
Wait, read that without a hint of perversion.
But anyways, there is not a hint of anything that used to have a pulse here, and most of what they serve is even vegan, and/​or gluten-​free.
Now, my bestie is currently a vegan, which I totally support (from afar). We ended up meeting for lunch (SAY WHAT) and so we ended up at Maoz (as neither of us had tried it, and of course, I had not thought twice about it after seeing that it is vegetarian).
The ceiling and walls are clean and green (themey? yes. but so cute) with exciting light bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
The menu proudly procaims «VEG OUT», BAHAHAH.
I got a Maoz sandwich and my friend got a salad box. I got my sandwich with hummus and feta cheese, and doused it in salsa and garlic sauce (MWAHAHA). It was effing delicious. I usually need meat (in my mouth, har har har, get your mind out of the gutter), but this was AWESOME. I forgot how deliious falafel is, and this definately gave me a good reminder.
My friend got the salad box which got jam packed with fresh veggies and fun stuff (that I would not normally eat) but was apparently delicious.
We topped off our meal with a split order of sweet potato fries and a fresh squeezed lemonade. These were HANDS DOWN the best sweet potato fries I have ever had. DELICIOUS. The lemonade was impressive (it’s that fresh flavor).
As much as I eat like a dirty fat man, I can deal with this. I actually ate here just about an hour or two ago, and I’m already craving more falafel…