Shak's Mediterranean Bistro, Vista CA

Best Mediterranean restaurant in the area. Affordable, authentic food and great service. Lots of indoor and outdoor seating.

What a great Mediterranean restaurant. Everything was fresh and flavourful! The Shaks Mezza was a great way to taste a little of all the delicious vegetarian options and dips! The Kebbe is an explosion of flavours in your mouth. My husband loved the rack of lamb perfectly cooked and the zaatar seasoning was superb! Staff go out out of their way to make sure you have a pleasant dining experience. Will definitely be visiting again when in the area.

Leah and staff gave our large party over the top service. They accommodated our requests and were very attentive. The only thing that would have made our experience better would have been accommodating our request to eat inside. It was hard for our elders to get to the bathroom from outside. One has many allergies, which is why I had asked Luke to sit us inside ;however, given our party's size, they only had outdoor seating that would accommodate us. If you are a large party with elderly, immuno-compromised people, please be aware that they will be sitting outside. Otherwise, everything was excellent!

The Habibi drink was very floral but delicious, not too sweet. The hummus was some of the best I've ever had.

Place was pleasant, clean, and friendly. Food was amazing, and I am very impressed that they don’t charge for sharing. Will come again and again.

We live Shaks! Everytime we come here it is a wonderful experience. Great service and great food. Can't compliment this little gem enough.

Food is delicious and consistently good everytime, servers are friendly and helpful when ordering Can’t go wrong here it’s been our family’s favorite restaurant for years

My favorite Mediterranean restaurant! Their salad is perfect. The garlic sauce is so good! My parents have been going for over 30 years (since they were in Carlsbad). My mom flew half way across the country for their Kataif (sorry, I’m sure I spelled that wrong)! We love supporting family run businesses too.

One negative: on the beautiful leather cocktail menu I was given, right in the middle of the cover was a crusty large green booger. Yes, a crusty piece of noise waste, right there, very first thing I see when I sit down. Not a good start. Good thing the meal and service recovered from a bad bad thing.

The new menus are beautiful, letter pressed on mounting board, beautifully designed and laid out. Really sets a nice tone. And if my cocktail menu didn’t have a booger on the cover, I would have said the same thing - they are really well designed.

The food was beautiful, very tasty, super fresh.

The service was just amazing. Friendly, attentive, and timely.

The patio is nice when the weather is good, but needs a little bit of an upgrade. If the patio was as nice as the newly remodeled interior bar, then this place would be the nicest and best date-night spot on Vista.

Despite the booger and the outdated patio, we’ll absolutely be coming back for a second visit!

Great place for Mediterranean. Great atmosphere and service. Portions are big and the food is excellent.

The service was fantastic and the food was amazing. They have great vegetarian options as well.

Just amazing food, and drink and the best part, an amazing staff! Love this place… definitely will be back!

I had an unusual experience at Shaks Mediterranean Bistro in Vista last Friday. Despite ordering a meal that came with soup, I noticed an extra $10.00 charge for soup that I never received. The refund process involving cash payments and tipping was a bit confusing, and it seems the refund didn't actually go through. My attempts to sort things out with the restaurant have been met with silence, which is a bit frustrating. Despite sharing details and having a conversation with the owner, I've encountered vague hints of using surveillance tapes for legal reasons. The owner's claim of not seeing me near the bar while exchanging money with an employee is puzzling, given that I wasn't seated there. And it makes me wonder: how does he recognize me? While the food is definitely tasty, the whole overcharging situation and potential legal issues have unfortunately soured my view of Shaks as a favorite dining spot in Vista.

The owner has threaten me more than once with his closed system surveillance in this dispute over soup. This is an exact quote from our chat:

The fact is you did receive the soup, I have footage of it at your table, that’s why I’m confused you are saying you didn’t. It was at your table. I’m not sure why you are not telling me the truth. It’s evident I’ve tried my best to make this situation right but for some reason you are not wanting to tell me the truth when I have concrete proof of what you are saying is not adding up to what actually happened. I tried my best to make this right on multiple ends of finding your checks to make sure you are charge the right amount and truly not being charged twice, which I did. When you said you didn’t receive items you paid for I looked into that because it’s not right we take money for things you didn’t receive, but you did receive all the items you paid for. At this point I’m not sure how to make you happy.

Lovely food. Lovely people. Great location for dates and for family.

Will definitely be back again.

Food was so good I forgot to get pictures! This restaurant is top notch. Loved the menus, the decor and the staff were so courteous and friendly. I had been driving my this restaurant for months and finally got a chance to stop in. The chicken kabob plate was excellent and a lot of food! The hummus was so fresh! And that garlics sauce! Chefs kiss! I will be back to try more!

Be there few times, but I have to say I am so impressed with service and food. They are one of the best Mediterranean food around.

Everything was amazing! I had a cheeseburger and everything tasted so good! Generous portions too, will definitely be coming back.
Also the chicken lemon soup was the best!

Great food matched by the great service. Veronica was our server and she did an amazing job. The only reason I marked it down one star was because another server was giving attitude to both us and Veronica.

Hands-down, the best Armenian restaurant in all of San Diego County! Outstanding service, fantastic food all around. Great and relatively quiet location in downtown Vista. An absolute must visit.