Aladdin Cafe

This place was delicious. We stopped here on our drive back to Oklahoma City from Ft. Leavenworth, and I was really pleasantly surprised. They had a lunch buffet going for $ 10, and it was well worth it. They had hummus, baba ganoush, saffron rice, Greek salad, beef kafta, falafel, gyro, etc., etc. Whatever dish you might be craving.
The gyro meat was the absolute best I’ve ever had. It just melted in your mouth. The baba ganoush was full of flavor, and the beef kafta was amazing. So tender. Should I ever find myself in Lawrence, KS again, we’ll be stopping here.

This simple place has some of the best food we’ve had since moving to the KC Metro from the Bay Area last summer. All the ingredients are fresh, the flavors are well-​balanced, and everything we tried on the buffet was yummy. Each dish was solid: there was really nothing I or my husband (who’s Persian) didn’t like.
The restaurant is clean and the server, friendly and attentive.
We also tried the new Jerusalem Café across the street since the KC one is so well-​known and it was fine, but we’ll stick with Alladin in the future.
Really the only tiny improvement that could be made would be to serve Olive Café pita bread. What was served was great, but the Olive Café stuff is awesome.

We stopped there for lunch, we were recommended to get lunch buffet since it’s much cheaper than ordering regular meals… maybe that was the mistake. Buffet was not good at all. I could not eat anything except very very dry and crunchy rice and potato and carrots that were in the chicken curry. Chicken in the curry was so hard to chew, but the veggies had good flavor. (Maybe that was the only good part) everything else, I tried, but I could not eat more than a bite. I’m usually not a picky eater, so I was kinda shocked that I could not really eat anything at their buffet. My husband just kept eating hummus because that was the pretty much the only thing he could eat. (But not the best) I heard this place was supposed to be good, so I guess only their buffet is not so good??? we should have just ordered from the menu I guess. Server was very nice and friendly, but she forgot to bring our to go drink.

Not great Mediterranean food. Chicken was salty, salad was dry and baklava was microwaved. I would better drive to Kansas City for good food.

only ok… food was not tasty… Felt like wasted my money. Tried the buffet, did not like a single dish… Only can give it 3 stars…

This is my favorite restaurant.
My fiancé and I came here on Valentine’s evening. It was pleasantly quiet. We had falafel, hummus, sumac chicken, shish taouk (sp), sage tea and everything was absolutely delicious. Thank you. The only thing I missed was the Arabian music channel wasn’t on.
I can’t wait until the weather warms up and I can sit on the patio again.

Part of my family is Lebanese and this place makes me feel right at home! I had the sampler appetizer with hummus, baba ganoush, grape leaves, felafal and more, and it was all wonderful! Very quiet for noon on a weekday downtown, and very attentive service.

The Unilocal listing indicated beer and wine. No beer or wine served here. I ordered chicken gyro and recived the gyro meat. That meat appeared to be precut into strips and then reheated.
The food was OK for a college town restarant.

Delicious. Fresh pita, felafel was crisp outside and soft inside, and the dressing on the salad was tangy and fresh! The service was also excellent. Highly recommend.

–falafel and hummus sandwich
One of the best parts of the meal was the lentil soup, worth getting even when it’s hot out side. The falafel sandwich was good, and it comes with a side of basmati rice.
I would return and order this again.

Came in here once before and it was pretty good. Stopped by tonight for dinner about thirty minutes before closing, and they already had all of the chairs up, and were sweeping the floors. Guess they close early on sunday if they feel like it. Plenty of other places to go in this town, so, I will.

My wife and I came in and had an early dinner/​late lunch, around 3. The place isnt much to look at from the outside (not unusual for Mass Street) but it was very clean, smelled great and service was prompt and friendly. We ordered the shrimp and feta app… and good god it was fantastic! We could have made a meal of that! The salads were very fresh, great tasting. Wife had shwarma and I had a gyro platter. Grilled veggies that were PERFECT… meat on both very skillfully handled. Two huge thumbs up!
We’ll be back, and often!

Came here for a quick lunch, but it wasn’t too quick. It took at least an hour for 3 simple sandwich orders. As others have said, the service was slow and not super attentive. The food was good to okay. Didn’t knock my socks off, but it hit my gyro craving just fine. I’ve had better experiences at their KCMO location.
The place could use some cleaning up, especially on the bathroom walls and what not.

Great food and large portions. My main complaints are
1. They charge full price for a toddler eating off of the buffet. Seriously, my two year old can eat 12 bucks worth of food?
2. Waitstaff varies from decent to shotty at best.

One of my favorite restaurants in Lawrence. Love the friendly service and abundance of vegetarian options!

The Shawarma Chicken is a favorite. I love this restaurant. Service is good, portions are generous and everything I have tried at Aladdin Café is great. Love their hummus and tzatziki sauce, too! You will not be disappointed.

Good food at reasonable prices. The Cauliflower Zahra, Gyro & Hummus, Shawarma Platter with chicken were all really good. Entrees come with lentil soup (and love the pita bread). The cheesecake was worth every calorie.

We stopped in on a really, really cold December night. We both ordered gyros and split a tea that sounded spicy, warming, sweet, and good — it was. The gyro’s were nothing spectacular, but they were filling and the flavors were in the ball park.
It was an enjoyable dinner but the one thing lacking was warmth. It was cold outside but no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the chill. I ate with my coat on and even the tea didn’t seem to alleviate it much. This discomfort probably affected my overall experience in a negative way because when I’m cold, I just can’t relax. The restaurant’s fault? No, probably not, but they could have turned up the heat a little. I mean the front door blasted cold air into the dining room each time someone came or went which was at least a half dozen times during our visit. So, I’d like to try it again when it’s a bit warmer and see if I like it better.

I came here with 9 others around 12:30pm on a Saturday. There were maybe 4 people eating here at the time; otherwise, it was pretty empty. We sat in the back because we had a large group. The menu had a variety of items to choose from and we all took awhile to decide before our waitress came by for our orders.
I ordered the Shawarmah Platter ($ 10.99) with chicken. I was debating if I should order that or the Curry Chicken ($ 10.99) but went with the Shawarmah Platter. It came with a choice of salad or lentil soup and I chose the lentil soup. After a few minutes, the lentil soup came. It was not bad and I would probably go with the lentil soup again after seeing that the salad wasn’t really special. The pita and hummus were good and that was gone pretty quick at our table. The Shawarmah Platter came out and it looked good. It tasted great in my opinion and I wasn’t disappointed in my choice. I would recommend that if you can’t decide what to order. The Morocan Cous Cous looked good as well as the Beef Kabob. I’ll have to try one of those the next time I’m in Lawrence and want some Mediterranean food.
The food was good and service was good as well. Come check it out!

I really like Aladdin Café. But I don’t love it. Aladdin Café has been around Lawrence for quite some time. The food is fairly average on the whole, but some of it is really good. For instance, at my last visit to Aladdin, I had the vegetarian platter which is really more like an appetizer than an entrée. It had hummus and baba ghanoush that were ok, but the stuffed grape leaves and red pepper dip (genie dip) were pretty good. I’ve never had bad service here and sometimes have had great service. The last time I was here was one of those occasions when the service was great. Even though we had a pretty large group, our waitress managed to serve us all quickly, efficiently and with a smile.
If you happen to be seated in the back of the restaurant, you’ll see that there are lots of hookahs for sale if that’s your thing and also some Mediterranean groceries including really big bags of basmati rice.