Palais Casablanca Authentic - (303) 871-0494

Decided to take my boyfriend to this place for his Birthday. Neither of us had been to this restaurant before but read the "good revues" from City search so I made the Reseverations. ( in retrospect felt completely duped & after my awful experience with the owner.. I wouldn't put it past him to have written the positive reviews himself ( or Have his family/friends write such false claims) My boyfriend & I arrived early to have a cocktail before sitting to dine but the owner promptly insisted to go ahead & sit at our table that " we could take our time & enjoy our cocktail" before having to order. This was fine since WE WERE the ONLY Customers in the place. Our 1st couple of sips of WINE ( which is all that is served or offered), A young, timid server asks for our order. We told her we would like to finish our glasses of wine & texplained " what the owner" had said & agreed to do. Still within a 15 minute timespan- she came by 4 more times requesting "our order" with her expression looking more & more stressed. We watched her go back into the Kitchen & could hear the owner berating, belittling her about being more forceful with us to order food. Finally he came out with her to our table & started reading the menu items to us. I interrupted him to ask if they had full reservations or expected a large crowd. He replied "no". We were still the Only Patrons in the joint. The poor server seemed very embarrassed & My Birthday guy appeared uncomfortable by all the pressure, so we went ahead ordered our food. 5 minutes later the owner came to our table to tell us " We would be getting A different appetizer, not the one WE ordered but the appetizer he feels is best. We objected to his selection 1) it should be our choice- we are the customers 2) the food item the owner selected my boyfriend hates sooo we told the owner to skip the 1st course. 10 minutes later- our server comes out places the "appetizer" we didn't want or order . She profusely apologizes to us. I told her to get the owner. He came to our table to tell us "you might as well eat it because it's included". Not wanting to ruin My boyfriends- I simply moved on & asked for the wine list so we could have a bottle of wine with our meal. Guess What? No one list! however the owner eagerly hustled over to our table to tell us his inventory of wines. I asked the prices of the wines but he was evasive. I distinctly told him to bring the least expensive wine. He stated I will take care of you. The Evening & experience consistantly detoriated just too numerous to write down so below I've summed it up. Bottom line- The owner humilated his servers, our plates were removed while we were still eating from them, the owner tried to force my boyfriend to feed me food from his plate, The owner litteraly rushed & bullied us, Making my boyfriend's birthday dinner the worst dining experience for both of us. As we left " this high pressured rip-off thug" There was only 1 other table with customers & this was on a FRIDAY night so what does that tell ya? Best of all-"That least expensive" bottle of wine cost $125.00 total of our bill was a whopping $ 275.00 I was seething, disgusted & appalled that this Restaurant owner treated customers & employees so atrociously & could still be in business. Do yourself a favor & take your business elsewhere if you don't want an awful experience. More importantly don't get suckered by the " supposed" positive reviews or you'll be left feeling ROBBED twice! Be forewarned & beware!

We received a gift card for Palais Casablanca, initially were enjoying ourselves but thought the food was OVERPRICED and not WORTH the money. Then when we went to pay the owner told us we could only use 50.00 of our 100.00 gift card. Clever, he replied "this way, you get to come back again." So a little frustrated my husband got out the credit card to pay the difference. We left a cash tip and then a few days later realized the SCALY OWNER had charged an additional 16.00 to the Credit Card. I have read the other reports and it appears this wasn't the first time he has done this. I WOULD NOT recommend this place and if you must go here, pay in cash. We were excited to celebrate our anniversary only to leave feeling scammed. If you want to be scammed and eat overpriced food which is okay in taste this is the restaurant for you! Also on a FRIDAY night at 8pm there was 2 other tables there, I guess that is why he feels the need to take extra money.

Casablanca is the sort of place you talk about for months afterward. It's tucked away in south Denver, and the owner is one hell of a character. I came here on a Tuesday night to find that only one other table was being served. He explained quite a lot of the menu while we lounged on a couch that took up an entire wall of the restaurant. The food was tender, spicy, and several standard deviations outside of the Americanized norms of north African restaurants. My date had spent several years in various parts of the Middle East and North Africa and talked about how he hadn't eaten something like that in the years since he left. It is tremendously tasty and hard to replicate. The owner also made the meal an experience! Dishes are explained in detail and eaten with ones (right) hands. Casablanca seeks authenticity away from S. University from the hanging tapestries to the hookahs.