Turkey Red

A nice bakery/​restaurant on our way back from
Independence Mine. Some nice healthy dishes and home made baked goods. Our steak salads were good although not memorable. Friendly albeit abut slow service.

Veggie option: Spinach crespelle was really tasty.
Meat option: BLCT salad is a must try.

Now that I’ve been here again and again, the food is AMAZING. Not just for Palmer, but in general. They are consistent with dinner and their specials are always worth the expense.
I just tried their breakfast for the first time and will definitely be back. I had the French toast which came with a berry compote and fresh berries on top. The dollop of Greek yogurt was perfect on top.
Very impressed and glad I kept trying.

Wait staff is usually very friendly. That’s the only thing going for this place.
The food is hit and miss (quality).
The prices are not just high, they’re astronomical.
We had a plate of fish and two salads and a bowl of soup — $ 73 freakin’ dollars!
And now they lie to the customer. They’ve raised their prices by 20%, but instead of changing their menu they just place a piece of paper on the table stating that they are going to apply a 20% «forced gratuity». There’s an oxymoron.
Never again will we eat at this establishment.

The food is good, the atmosphere okay, but the service sucks. I have eaten here many times over the years. The service is always generally slow, but it seems there are no shortage of staff standing around the front counter. First of all you should be aware that now they add gratuity to all tabs, no matter the party size (however they don’t bother telling you until you get the check). I believe they had to do this because they probably were not getting very good tips because of the service. I have had some nice servers but of course the ones I remember are the rude/​slow ones. The host that sat us tonight was completely lacking in customer service and people skills. I walked into a barely half full restaurant and was told that I would have to vacate my table by 7pm because it was reserved. Ah, okay… ??? Maybe seat me at one of the many other empty tables then? I think I can finish dinner in 2 hours, that is if you can bring me my food in a timely manner. I felt like I was intruding and that I was burdening them by spending my money at their establishment. He repeated the same to several parties after me, even moving a seated couple to accommodate the reservation that was still an hour and a half away. They had music playing that sounded like rave music and only added to an already loud atmosphere. Between that and the cook yelling out «order up» I was not feeling it. Finally when we left, no” thank you for coming”, from any one of the several staff members just standing around at the front counter ignoring us.
They should get a host/​hostess that has customer service skills and knows how to organize the seating and the customer traffic, without making patrons without reservations feel unwanted. Maybe set aside some tables for diners without reservations so they don’t have to give them ultimatums. They should play music that is more suitable for dinning. And finally, treat their patrons with a little more hospitality, after all we are paying your salary.

I don’t get the chance to go through Palmer very often, however since discovering Turkey Red in 2014 I’ve made a point to stop here each time.
I like the style of foods offered, and it is usually delicious.
My most recent visit was uncharacteristically disappointing.
The sausage quiche with mushroom & jalapeño was devoid of any jalapeño flavor. The beef lentil soup tasted like beef, lentils & water.
Now, any kitchen can have an off day. Given my past experiences here, I’ll just cheer them on to have a better day tomorrow.
But on my table, I found a note explaining that due to a court ruling over tip sharing, I am now automatically charged a 20% gratuity.
If I’m paying 20%, I expect a certain standard of service.
After I was shown to my table, after 10 minutes of waiting, the hostess asked if my server had been by yet. He hadn’t, she said she’d take my order for him.
When my food was ready, a man with dreadlocks delivered my food in the style of a drive by. Practically tossed on the table, and he disappeared. If the place had been more than half full, I could see that. But it was at about ¹⁄₃ capacity.
When I finished, and pushed my plate to the other side of the table, I saw him for the second time. He said «all done, would you like some dessert» as more of a statement than a question. I asked for a dessert menu, which he grabbed for me, then left again.
I quickly made up my mind, and waited another 10 minutes without seeing him again. Thankfully, at this point the lovely server for the table next to mine (Kim) took my order. She was also the person who was filling my water throughout the meal, after giving my server an appropriate amount of time to do it.
It is disheartening to learn that a very good & observant waitress such as Kim, will receive exactly the same compensation as a man who could be replaced with a kiosk and not cost me an extra 20%.
It’s your business, your choice. But, even though I’ve enjoyed you for a while, either your waitstaff is brought up to a standard commensurate with a 20% gratuity, or I’ll vote with my dollars elsewhere.

I used to adore this place. That is until my family and I were greeted with a leaflet telling us that WE were going to have to subsidize the paycheck of the waitstaff by being forced to pay a 20% gratuity dine-​in, 5% take-​out. Are you serious? The owners are doing what they can to get around the recent Supreme Court Ruling that servers don’t have to share their tips. For such a «sustainable» type of restaurant you would expect the owners to have the decency to pay their wait staff a decent wage instead of making the customers foot the bill, whether or not the service was decent (it can be incredibly slow at times). *Extremely* disappointed in this change. Your customers and your servers deserve better than that, Turkey Red.

Firefly Chai and Bread Pudding. Delicious! Lovely people and usually when timing it well, we can always get a seat at the window. I do not like the new forced 20% tipping policy. Owner: Pay your staff what they deserve. Tipping should never be forced. It’s how we tell you a server needs work.

You can tell all the food is made with care, and you get what you pay for. It’s the best restaurant in the valley. The burger, pizzas, spanakopita, moussaka, and sandwiches in particular are great. The one downside, which was pretty annoying when it happened, is that last time we went, we had to wait an hour to get seated even though we had a reservation. The waitstaff all seemed very stressed out and overwhelmed– it was a Saturday night, maybe they need to schedule more people to come in? I always feel bad when it seems like the servers and cooks are being overworked because the owners didn’t want to pay more people to work, which is what it seemed like.
TLDR: Great place, hope they get their life right on busy nights.

Best restaurant in the valley. I’ve been to Greece a couple times, I’ve had a lotta moussaka. This place has excellent moussaka. Speaking of moose, the lemon chocolate mousse cake is ridiculously good. Speaking of hoofed mammals, their burger is crazily good.
This is one of the only places in the valley I’ve been to more than once. The only downside is that if you go for dinner sometimes they take a long time. I wish they had cooking classes!

This is a relatively mediocre restaurant and bakery that I think is over rated. They have many interesting items on the menu however most are poorly executed. Even quite simple items like their pizza is tasteless and is served on burnt dough stiff as plate. Soups are watered down except for their stew which is pretty good. Do not expect the so called Mediterranean menu to deliver what you would expect. Strong on description, weak on preparation. They used to do a better job and it is disappointing to see the decline.
Particularly egregious is their policy regarding an across the board automatically included 20% gratuity. This allegedly is mandated by law which is not true. What this restaurant owner decided is rather than pay a decent wage to kitchen workers, cooks bus boys, etc., is to make their customers subsidize their labor costs and customers pay 20% on top of their bill whether or not you actually received good service or not. I don’t mind tipping 20% for excellent service but anything less is not deserving of a 20% tip. I personally will not let the owner decide for me how good the service received is or was so I will not be going back.

This place is wonderful! On our way back to Anchorage from the Matanuska Glacier, I started to get hungry and so of course, I Unilocaled, and this restaurant came up. Again, thank goodness for Unilocal because I didn’t have to drive much further to eat.
THE FOOD:
We started with an appetizer which was a baked brie with sherry infused figs, cherries, nuts, and honey and let me tell you, it was the BOMB! I’ve never had brie with honey and sweetness but the combination is excellent and is something I will look forward to having back home.
Since it was cold outside, I had the firefly chai tea which had rooibos, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves, and vanilla. This tea had two sides which were cream and honey and again, magnificent! The tea was not sweet at all and it just warmed me to the core which was perfect for the weather since it was snowing outside.
For my entrée, I had the honey and mustard pistachio encrusted salmon with brown rice and asparagus and it was delicious! Just writing about it now, makes me want it NOW!
We got the yogurt cheesecake with raspberries and that too was yummy. It wasn’t too sweet and had the right amount of tartness to it. My husband loves fruity stuff and he was in love with this dessert.
Everything we had here was good and the service, great! I would totally come back here and highly recommend this place.

I tried this place again when I came home to visit family. It was still just as awesome.
Our waitress was super knowledgeable about what was g/​f for my bf and what was d/​f for me. We ended up sharing a lot of hummus and fish and it was great.
Bf said the flourless chocolate cake was amazing and the macaroon I got was spot on perfect (even better dipped in the raspberry sauce that came with the chocolate cake)
The prices are a bit much but it is Alaska and it’s well worth is for great food and great service.

I loooooove this place! Everything here is amazing! The salads, the sandwiches, the desserts… The teas! High quality foods! I plan to eat here more often

It doesn’t look like much on the outside but it’s warm & beautiful inside. But interior design is not the real reason I visit. The food is just omg! I keep coming back for the chicken & figs. And the cookies… The chocolate cookies are so good. Moreover, the staff is consistently friendly & attentive. It may seem a bit pricy but isn’t everything in Alaska? I’ve only been out here for dinner but will have to stop by for lunch & more pastries sometime soon!

I’ve been here a handful of times (each time ordering a sandwich) and am always impressed by their food. The lentil burger is incredibly tasty; easily the best veggie burger I have had in my life. AND, I think it’s getting better – the first time I had it, it was a little hard to manage because it fell apart pretty easily (the fate of many veggie burgers.) I ordered it yesterday, prepared for it to fall apart and it stayed together admirably.
The bread that the sandwiches are served on is delicious, as are the soups/​salads that can accompany the sandwiches. Prices seem decent considering the quality/​portions.
Why not the full 5 stars? Service can be quite slow, I usually excuse this for normal lunch-​rush but a couple of times I have been here and they have seated me down the «hallway» past the kitchen and I’ve bee ignored for a long time. However, service is always friendly and the food is good enough to easily ignore the slow service, assuming you have time to spend.

This place is awesome!
We were new to this place and someone suggested turkey red. We were amazed with the service moreover food was very fresh and good in quality.
There are lots of option vegetarian and vegans.
Spinach crespelle is my favorite here!

If you care about great food and best service, almost zero waiting time, you MUST come here, it is awesome restaurant:
Lentils hamburger, special turkey sandwich, white beans and ham soup, YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THE TASTE

Disappointed with the service and we haven’t even been seated yet.
Came in for lunch with a party of four (all adults in our early 50s). We had no idea that we needed reservations for lunch… Our bad. We were told it would be about 5 minutes. About 5 minutes later, another party of four came in (2 parents with 2 kids about 8 – 10), did not have reservations (we heard them say this when asked). The hostess told them it would be about 10 minutes, «unless we put two high tops together, would that be ok?» We were never offered this.
15 minutes later, the hostess tells us it should only be a few more minutes, and tells us that others seated before us had reservations. We reminded her about the high top family. «Oh, we normally don’t offer that to ‘older folks’ because they’d rather wait for a regular table.» Um, no. We’re hungry, not ancient, we have obey and usually tip well.

WHOA.
WHOA.
Sorry to sound like K. Reeves, but that’s the first thing I think of when I remember my food here.
This place would be notable in ANY city in ‘Merica, let alone one in Alaska, let alone PALMER, Alaska.
I was in the area, feeling dreadfully hangry, and hurriedly browsing the mobile app for a solution to my condition.
I’ll admit. I was skeptical of this place, despite the positive Unilocal reviews.
I am not a big fan of some «bakeries». You know the setup. They have coffee and cookies and bread and scones and maybe they’ll toast or microwave something small for you… which is fine. but it’s not something I want to eat when I’m hungry. I am a real man that requires real food. A scone is tasty but it is like shooting the T-​Rex that is my hunger with a BB gun. It may feel better for a couple seconds, but in the end it’s just gonna make things worse.
Anyway, this place.
I went here for lunch and it was one of the best lunches I have ever had in my stupid little life.
I had the brisket sandwich special. It’s probably the best brisket sandwich I have ever had. The meat was melt-​in-​your-​mouth tender. This brisket puts about 99% of dedicated BBQ eateries to SHAME. And it’s just a «bakery» (which would explain why the bread bookending the meat was so crusty-​tasty). The soup was some sort of turkey pesto and it was nearly a meal in itself, not just some cheap, throw-​away item as soup so often is. The service was also prompt and snappy, I was in and out in no time.
This place is so good I would make a special trip up to Palmer to visit it. (and apparently so would many others, as «Anchorage» is one of the keywords for this place)
If I happen to be in Palmer, I will ALWAYS go here. It would be criminal not to.