Barasti Bar & Grill

This was the worst restaurant experience I have ever had. My friends and I, there were six of us, arrived at Barasti restaurant following a day exhibiting at the St. James Art fair. It had been raining on and off all day, and most of us were wet and chilly. After sitting down, I was particularly cold, And mentioned to the waitress that it was cold in here. She said she thought maybe the air conditioning was on and would check on it. She came back shortly and said she had put the heat on. We ordered our meals and waited. Everybody had a jacket or sweater or some other layer or layers on. I had a fleece vest and a raincoat and I just sat there cold waiting for a little warmth. After 20 minutes or so, and still feeling cold, I asked the waitress if she could turn off one or more of the ceiling fans. There were seven or eight of them on, spinning rapidly. It seemed to irritate her somewhat, but she turned off one of them and slowed down another. There were still several spinning pretty fast. We ended up waiting about an hour for our food, and by the time it arrived my fingers were numb. I can’t say much about the food. It was okay. Certainly not worth the wait.

This place is a disaster. I don’t know how they are still open. The hookah is decent. The bartenders put no effort into the drinks from what I’ve seen my friend order. However, the real reason I am leaving a ONE STAR review is because of the service. The service is so bad it is almost embarrassing. I have only been to this place once when it was actually busy and a weird old man was being extremely creepy and inappropriate towards me and my friend (literally all up on us), so we hurried and asked the bartender for our check. Ten minutes later, the man is still following us around the place so we just sat some money behind the bar and booked it out of there. We went to this bar two times after that and the place was completely deserted, so you’d think maybe the workers would be more timely when it comes to serving you. NOPE. SLOWEST SERVICE I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED and I don’t understand how when there are virtually NO OTHER CUSTOMERS. The last time we went, we got our menus right away, but it took the girl working there LITERALLY FIFTEEN MINUTES to come back over and ask us what we wanted to order because she was just leisurely standing around talking to the only other customers there. Eventually, my friend ordered a margarita and I ordered a hookah for the both of us. Twenty minutes after we ordered — no exaggeration — the bartender made no attempt to even go behind the bar to make the drink and had JUST STARTED TO SET UP THE HOOKAH. Keep in mind there are NO OTHER CUSTOMERS except maybe three people in a group. TEN MINUTES LATER, she comes back over to us to let us know they are out of the flavor hookah we had ordered. I asked about two other flavors and she said they DIDN’T HAVE THOSE EITHER (if you are running a business you should stay stocked up with items that are ON THE MENU). All they had were flavors we DID NOT WANT but we figured we would order one of them anyway because after waiting for so long it didn’t matter one way or the other. Ten minutes later, the chick working there WAS STILL slowly making the hookah while chatting with one of the customers. We decided to just leave. We sat in the car watching the worker from a distance and about TEN MINUTES LATER she had finally started to bring the hookah to where we had been sitting and turned around like an idiot because we weren’t there. SHE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE WE HAD LEFT. This place is a joke. I will never go back there.

This is a neighborhood place for me so I may be a little biased in liking it this much. However, I enjoy the food and beer selection. I know it’s partly a symptom of having few customers, but I always get the seat I want. The truth is the 3^rd Ave Café space stayed empty for way too long. I welcome new development to the Old Louisville neighborhood. I stopped short of five stars because the service is less than superlative. However I recognize that it’s a family business and I think that the quality of the product is pretty great, considering. Every time I visit they are working on new cocktail recipes and have new specials running. I feel that if this business keeps going they will rise to meet the needs of the neighborhood. I have to say, I have been pretty impressed with the food, despite some disparaging comments below. I haven’t had any interest in trying the hookah. But, as one commentor noticed, there is no shortage of hookah bars in Old Louisville. Barasti meets my needs outside of being a hookah bar – it’s a good place to hang out in my neighborhood.

I give this place 2 stars because of the atmosphere. It’s beautiful inside and comfortable. Nice staff. Weirdly dressed, but nice. Music nice and chill. But the FOOD ?!! way below standard. I ordered a simple club sandwich and fries. How do you mess that up, right? ?! Plenty of ways! Sandwich made with packaged deli meat, Kraft American cheese and .99 sandwich bread. basically I could’ve made that at home. But you couldn’t find those cheap items in my house! And the fries would have been good, but they were over cooked and wayyyy over salted. Im disappointed. Especially paying $ 8.99. Needless to say, I’ll drink here or purchase hookah, but eat? Never again.

I came here for the first time maybe alittle over a month ago and since then I’ve been coming about 2 – 3 times a week. The food is excellent, the burgers, wings, etc… so good! The atmosphere is very chill and the place is always clean and very modern and urban for this area. the service here is great and they’re always friendly with a great big smile and welcome you as if you are family. this is my go to chill zone when I’m done with classes during the week just smoking hookah which is also the best I’ve had compared to several other hookah joints around town.

Like old Louisville needs another hookah bar. I don’t even know where to start. The food is way overpriced at 13 for a basic burger and fries. The burger was way over cooked and flavorless. I realize this is a hookah bar but tut the smoke is obnoxious.
In addition being s hookah bar attracts a unique douchie clientele of also generally obnoxious people.
The staff barely paid any attention even though there was only one other party. Hopefully this place will close soon and a rea restaurant will take its place.
The renovation is definitely an improvement over the old third street café though.

This is my first time to have a hookah there. really nice falvor and the food was great. the one who was on the cashier was so kind and served as very well.

Ewe! Food is crap! THE worst hummus, salad, lentil soup I’ve ever had. Server was half asleep with dirty nails. Only positive was the falafel was pretty ok

Went there over the weekend after dinner to smoke some hookah. We get there and was surprised it was salsa night. They had a guy there teaching anyone basic moves of salsa! It was so fun to watch. The staff is very friendly and they know how to make you feel taken care of. They come around and change the coals out for you and make sure your hookah is always smoking right. We had a couple bourbons and the bartender was very nice. He came around and collected any empty glasses throughout the night. The only thing I don’t like is that it gets really cold inside. I’m guessing it’s because all the uncovered windows. So if you’re going during the colder months bring a jacket other then that I highly recommend this place.

I really want to like this place… great atmosphere… staff is great… first visit back in the summer I got an over-​priced unimpressive burger and was overcharged for an extra side… Most recently got buffalo chicken wrap which was good… but fries were undercooked in old oil… never have seen more than a few people in there… hoping they will get it right and succeed. …

My friend and I had a nice time here, we met the owner and he’s got really great ideas for the place. The atmosphere is nice and the food was great!

UPDATE: Sam called me this morning and assured me that he was fixing every level of dinner service personally, and asked that my group please return at our convenience so that he can correct the many things that made me lose faith in my favorite restaurant. This is the level of integrity that we all want to be able to rely on and hope we never have to actually see.
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Previous review…
Wow, it really went downhill. Reservation for 12, manager even called to confirm and make sure we didn’t have any special requests. First, «dino» our server kept asking my husband what he wanted to order for me until I told him that *i* was the one paying. Next came 2 appetizers, on salad and 2 of the entrees at the same time. Then a third entrée which was wrong, then the replacement had jalapeños when it was supposed to be a mushroom swiss burger. Then the Caesar salad came for another of our party which was just a house salad with different dressing. Now 6 of us are done eating and one more burger comes out. The onions on the shish kabob are completely raw. Black bean burger is still MIA. Look now, here comes an appetizer after the entrée for one of our party. We have been here an hour and a half and have been insulted, neglected and starved. Come on, man, you confirmed I was going to be here with 12 people and couldn’t staff for it? For shame…

I’ve been there twice and both times the food was excellent. Their humus and pita are above any humus or pita in the city. My fiancé enjoyed the chicken which is an interesting take on buffalo. The burger came well done, which is too done for me, the fries are excellent. I also had the kebabs, these were perfect. The atmosphere is great and the décor is modern and stylish but not over the top. I can’t wait to go back.

Recently opened in the old 3^rd Ave Café location. Very nice renovation! The staff was very friendly. We ordered a Philly cheesesteak with a side of macaroni and cheese and an order of the fried ravioli. The ravioli was delicious, with a thick, flavorful marinara sauce on the side. The cheesesteak was seasoned just right, with lots of onions, peppers, mushrooms and cheese on a nice toasted bun. The mac and cheese was cheesy and very good.
Definitely worth checking out.