Manara Cafe

Best Mediterranean food in town! If you’re looking for something fresh, healthy, and tasty this is your place. I come here almost weekly now and am never disappointed. The restaurant is spotless and the service is prompt. The food itself is the closest you can get to authentic in West Texas. Everything on the menu is good, but the grilled chicken is absolutely amazing!

What a little hidden gem Manara Café is, tucked away on 50^th street in the section between Indiana and Quaker were some city planner had the bright idea to create a 50^th street access road parallel to 50^th street more fitting the manner of I-​35 than a mid-​sized city street, but I digress.
The options for authentic food from the Levant is a rarity in these parts, so I am exceedingly grateful that Manara Café is here, and judging by the crowd on a recent trip, the place seems to be thriving, and rightfully so. I had the Chicken Schawarma, which comes with a generous helping of saffron rice. White meat chicken is something that I tend to rank extremely low on my pantheon of acceptable meats, and yet Manara finds a way to balance the rich spicy flavor of the cooking process while not drying out the chicken, and I will admit to being extremely sensitive to dry white meat chicken. The sauces complement the foods well, and the small strip mall built in the 1970s location strangely works for a place such as this.
A word of caution is that one should not expect to come into Manara and be treated like a king. During my recent visit the service was prompt, but certainly not remarkable in its warmth — curt is the word that comes to mind to describe the experience. On my particular visit, the liveliness of the food and the patrons around me made up for that.

The hummus smelled like cat food so I couldn’t eat it and there was mold on my gyro. I tried to address the issue with management and was cussed by an angry man running the place. I kindly spit in his face and told him to have a good night. Terrible food terrible service.

The service is slow so that drops Manara Café a star but the food is spectacular and that bumps it up like 10 stars, so Manara is a 5 star in my opinion. It’s my favorite restaurant in Lubbock. I usually get the gyro platter. The sauces are awesome (they have a spicy sauce that is so good) and I get saffron rice, which in itself is enough for 5 stars. The gyro meat is plentiful and tasty. Occasionally, we get hummus and it’s very authentic. Also, the service is slow but personable and great. The owner is kind and welcoming. I love this place.

Highly recommended for their Falafel. I usually get Falafel Sandwich and its the best Mediterranean food in Lubbock. The owner might not be very friendly but I wouldn’t mind it because their food is good. My friend love their Chicken Shawarma sandwich and lamb and Gyro sandwich. And their garlic sauce is yummy :) :)
The only drawback is their customer service. The owner doesn’t care to serve and also he gets pissed off if you stay for more than an hour. If its improved the restaurant is a definite 5 star :)

ITS PRONOUNCED YEAR-​O! Love the food, the funky style, casual attitude and reasonable prices. But please, it’s not Jyro or gearo. They won’t correct you, so go ahead, have a Jyro. The chicken and combo beef lamb swarma are good, the tzicki could be kicked up some, but for Lubbock, it’s great! Give it a try. Switch Gear-o’s!

Excellent gyro and chicken shawarma.

Very filling, and tasty. The tzatziki sauce lacked flavor, but the chicken shawarma made up for it.

Great place to eat food was tasty. I ate there 3 years ago and always remembered how good it was. Highly recommend getting the Dolmades

Excellent chicken shawarma sandwich. I also recommend the Kafka Kabob sandwich. Also, the falafel was cooked to perfection. I’ll definitely be coming back. Bravo!

I came here and got the gyro and falafel, which are the two dishes I use to judge any Greek/​Lebanese restaurant. The building is really nice and cozy inside. Dimly lit and relaxing. The woman working there the day I went, while friendly, seemed painfully shy and made me feel a little awkward ordering my food. The food was made fresh and took about 10 minutes to come out to me, but to be honest I was not impressed. The portions were fine, but the falafel was not thoroughly fried and thus soggy and raw in the center and the gyro had French dressing on it instead of tzatziki sauce, which I had never seen before. I looked it up when I got home and evidently it’s fairly common, but I am definitely not a fan and was tempted to send it back and ask for authentic sauce, but instead I just bit my tongue and finished my mediocre meal. I love Mediterranean cuisine, but I have not returned to Manara and have no plans to.

Great entrees! Salad was a bit heavily dressed and nothing special but the chicken shawarma was delicious as was the gyro platter! I hope the restaurant succeeds!

The only bad thing about this place is I don’t live in Lubbock! This is the best food I have had in a long time… Great throwback of the Middle East! Definitely worth trying.

Since there aren’t many Mediterranean stops in Lubbock, I had a lot of hope for this place.
The food is lacking but has great potential. One thing that is definitely hurting their business is their limited hours of service. Almost every time I thought to stop by, they were closed. I hope to see them grow!

My boyfriend took me here on our first date and it was delicious. It’s a small place in a strip shopping center and I wasn’t expecting much but I was pleasantly surprised. Their rice is awesome too.

An excellent local place to get your fill of wonderful greek food! I was pleasantly surprised, that was about 2 years ago, and I have bev a regular ever since. I visit Lubbock often from southern California, and this is always my first stop. Good is consistently awesome!!!

If you didn’t know this place was here you would drive past. Very authentic food. No frills, small tables, basic setup. The doblas were very tasty, lots of olive oil, lemon and garlic. The only reason for a 4 star is the beef and lamb gyro plate (maybe it should he described differently) I thought j would be getting hunks of lamb and beef, what you get is lamb and beef ground together and served on the plate in bite size pieces. While extremely tasty it just was not what was expected.
The parking is not great and most likely have to park in the back.
Great food for something different

Love love love! This is one of my usual spots. I always order the beef and lamb gyro sandwich with a side of fries. The pita is so soft and the meat is so tender. I’m typically not a fan of lamb because of the gamey flavor, but the gyro meat is perfect! No gaminess at all. It’s a small family business and they work really hard. They are Always friendly and courteous. I have never had a bad experience! The only thing is they have short hours on Monday and Tuesday so watch out! Gogogo now!

After reading all the Unilocal reviews, my wife and I were excited to try this place out on our day trip to Lubbock, but unfortunately this place did not live up to the hype. I’m not sure if we have been simply spoiled with great Falafel in Seattle or what.
My wife ordered a lamb gyro and I ordered the gyro plate and we received about the same thing. The pita I received seemed store bought and slightly stale and the tzatziki sauce was very bland. Considering the only other thing on my plate was lamb and rice, my gyro was lacking into the flavor department.
The service was decent and the price was good. Also, considering that there doesn’t appear to be much else in terms of Middle Eastern restaurants in Lubbock, I suppose this place will do if you are really craving a Falafel or gyro and find yourself in the area. However, it is nothing to start watering your mouth over.

Wonderful Mediterranean restaurant. I didn’t even know it existed until we had a work lunch there. It was my first time having Mediterranean food so I really didn’t know what to expect.
I got the shwarma sandwich like most of our group members did. I really enjoyed the meat, pita and the thick white sauce. Since then, I came several times for lunch. The quality of food was always consistent.
The restaurant is a little small but it is very clean and well decorated with colorful paintings. They scratched many items off the menu so even though some things are listed but you can’t order. Regardless, it is still a pleasant surprise for a place like LBK and it sure adds diversity which is what this dust bowl desperately needs.