Hola Café and Market — Restaurant in Burlington

UPDATE: Just started being sick from the few bites of food we ate here today. We will be calling the food inspector on Monday. Give this place a miss.

UPDATE following response from the owner: to be quite clear, I texted the owner after being ill to let him know that my family was being sick from what we ate. His response was to say that he had been in contact and had agreed to a partial refund, to which I very clearly stated that offering only a partial refund on an order worth more than 100.00 which ultimately made my family sick was entirely unacceptable. No additional refund has been offered, a full day later I continue to be so ill that I am currently missing a very important zoom meeting, and still the owner is responding by pretending that he and his establishment are not at fault for what happened to me and to my family. It's absolutely disgraceful, so not only will I be calling Halton Public health requesting a full inspection be done of their food handling practices after the holiday weekend, I will be moving forward with complaints to inspection Canada, the better business bureau, and the Consumer protection agency for the owner's failure to respond appropriately to poisoning his customers. I am appalled by his unwillingness to take full responsibility for causing food poisoning, and even more shocked by his repeated acknowledgement that the food that made us so sick was made in a manner that was "up to standard" according to him. Clearly those standards need some serious consideration before someone gets even sicker than I currently am.

Cute little restaurant, staff was personable (however one of them doesn't speak much English, so when I called on Thursday to advise about an issue with the website malfunctioning, she wasn't very helpful and it seems she did not alert the owner to the issues as she had promised she would, since I asked about it when I picked up the food today and they had no idea what I was talking about), but the food is a hard pass.

I was expecting edible food in the Columbian style that we are so familiar with and fond of as a family, but what we got was completely inedible. We all tried to eat it, but none of us could stomach it. We eat Columbian food, especially Arepas regularly, so we knew what to expect; but this couldn't have been further from meeting our expectations. I feel like the pictures speak for themselves; but in the case of the guacamole, it's fair to point out that it tastes like thick glue and comes in a tiny little condiment container. I LOVE guacamole (we just had incredible Guac yesterday at Burro/The Mule) but this stuff from Hola was like a joke, it really was THAT BAD!

We aren't hard to please generally, but this food was so inedible that we ended up calling to talk to the owner. When he finally called us back, he had no explanations for why the food was so completely inedible, and offered nothing more than to give us extra points for use on their website. No offer of refund for the terribly inedible, flavourless food was made, no proper explanation was given. He simply acknowledged that the food was terrible and showed complete lack of concern for our disappointing experience.

We obviously will never go back, and I would strongly discourage others from bothering with this place. We spent well over 100.00 for lunch and are now thoroughly disgusted by the mere thought of eating any more of this awful stuff, we'd...

I was first exposed to these glorious empanadas one week prior, as someone dropped them off for the campaign. I could not help but devour 5 of the veggie empanadas, while no one was looking. After a bit of reconnaissance, I discovered the alleged location from where the empanadas originate. I knew the only way to find out, would be to ride over there with my bicycle myself. I entered the small shop and shared a lovely exchange with the owner. She carried a slight accent, confirming the authenticity of this restaurant. Without speaking we both knew that I would be getting two veggie empanadas. I was informed it would take a few minutes which was nothing compared to the lifetime I had waited up to this point. As I waited, I observed the wonders of the store, boasting many products from the South American home. I felt a desire to travel to Columbia and across the world. Before my divine empanadas could arrive, I discovered another item that I could not resist: dark chocolate covered golden berries. Golden Berries are a superfood commonly consumed in that region of South America. Finally, my empanadas arrived. I took a bite and the only thing hotter than the freshly prepared empanada, was the burning in my heart to be reunited with the fried potato and corn flour goodness. The empanadas were just as I remembered, except they were even better because they were fresh. I savoured each bite, before I bicycled home and watched YouTube videos on how to...

Weird vibes. I was in the area, just wanted a coffee, figured I'd try this place. I walked in, and it seemed like the conversation between the barista and other patrons stopped when I walked in. I ordered a drink, the menu said $3.50. I got charged $5.40 though. The barista said it was because the menu wasn't updated, which seemed odd, since it was the only menu there, and that doesn't seem like something that would be that difficult to update? Plus, that's a big difference in price, to just brush off as a lack of updating. Anyway, I paid, looked at their website, and the drink was $3.60. It was a really good drink, but it seems like the type of place where if you're a regular, you'll get treated more fair than just a person off the street looking to support a local business, I guess.

Update: I initially gave this a 2 star review, but, as the owner replied to my review, I went back for the free drink offered. The service was way better this time. Very nice and upbeat. There were two staff people there, so I felt kind of weird saying that I was there for a free drink because I gave them a negative review. I paid for the drink and it was good. So between my 2 experiences, I will give this place a middle 3...