Playa Cabana Cantina — Restaurant in Toronto

ROACHES...

I arrived Saturday around 7:15 pm with no reservation. The restaurant was about 80% full with open tables but they were for reservations. We were seated at a narrow ledge parallel to the bar which ran along a wall with bar stools. If you sat dead on to the ledge you faced the wall. Not the greatest seating arrangement BUT definitely doable. Our server was a super charming tall male who was very friendly and knowledgeable with his products. As we were settling into our seats to my surprise a small cockroach (pine roach?) crawled out and scurried along the ledge. Of course, I tried to calm myself but I stood up immediately and allowed my guest to try to resolve the situation. We called over a female server who was completely surprised and embarrassed. She grabbed management. "Management" arrived and to be quite honest he was not compassionate about the situation. He was confrontational. He informed me that all the "papers had been filled out" and offered them to me to read. I declined and asked for a different table. Of course, there were no tables available so he moved us further down the bar. "Management" then proceeded to be snarky. "What? Do yo guys like Calamari? What? What do you want? Whats going to make you happy? What? What a round of drinks? I don't know what you want me to do?". He also blamed the roach on the fact that they are a "historical" building and they cannot control if they live in the walls...... PARDON? Then you should not be operating in such a building. Completely blown away by his comments with no empathy or genuine concern for the overall guest experience I accepted the round of drinks. I was on a dining with a guest and did not want to make a big scene so I bit my tongue and sat down at our new location. It's a Saturday in the junction at 8:00 pm there is nowhere else that will have space available.

As a guest, I felt as though all of a sudden I was a burden to him. As if I caused him harm or brought on this stress. I am completely taken back by my whole experience. I used to work several years in the food & beverage and I am currently still involved in the hospitality industry. "Management" did not handle the situation professionally. I would not have written a review had it been handled differently. Management needs to re-evaluate procedures and protocols with how to deal with such situations. Let a lone maybe a course or refresher on customer service.

We obviously stayed and dined. The food was really delicious and our server was great. It was a bit of a struggle to really enjoy myself without the thought of what I just saw not affecting my appetite. However, worst things happen all the time. There will always be reoccurring health or safety challenges. To me a successful business is one that knows how to ensure the guest experience is not altered but only enhanced with...

Kind of a weird experience here. As soon as we sat down our server came over and asked "Would you like some guac to start?" before we even got a chance to look at the menu. Like, it was literally it was the first thing he said. Maybe I'm just monumentally stupid or something, but I thought the guac would have been complimentary (he didn't provide any other information or elaborate further, and I didn't even get to see on the menu that they had guac, he just asked if we wanted guac to start) so I said OK sure. To be fair, restaurants sometimes serve complimentary bread to start so I thought this was just their version of an "authentic" starter. The guac came and I knew I was in trouble - it was a large serving so there was no way it was free. But whatever, I felt kind of cheated and that it was pretty shady of them to do, but I accepted my fate nonetheless. And then I ate the guac, and I got pretty mad. It was probably the blandest guac I've ever tried. And when I looked at the menu, I confirmed that it was 13 dollars, basically for some tasteless chips and guac. The salsa was the only thing that had a real depth of flavour to it but it was also more sweet than sour/spicy. I reminded myself that I was in the Junction and the food here was going to be catered to uppity, rich white people, so I was like OK, expect to food the be bland. And it was. From the guac to the mains, it was pretty bland. It wasn't bad, just... underwhelming. Tasted like it was food some extremely health conscious, organic only, white, wine mom would make at home, or something that could be served at a university canteen. Also, the servers were kind of strange. I wouldn't say I received bad service (except for being kinda bamboozled into ordering guac - that was pretty large by the way, so it kinda messed with my appetite) but they were kind of stand-offish. Just behaved super awkwardly and made me feel weird.

Anyway, sort your guac issue out please. I looked around me and literally every table had guac on it, and I'm pretty sure the majority of those people (if they were first-timers) didn't know it was to be paid for. I wouldn't have ordered it if I knew 1) it was 13 dollars and 2) that it was that large. Pretty weird thing for the restaurant to do. Otherwise, bland-ish food and aloof servers were to be expected for a place like this, I guess. Only thing I can do about it now is warn others who care about good, authentic food at reasonable prices not...

On Feb 2nd my wife reserved a big table at Playa Cabana to celebrate her birthday. We followed all rules imposed by them (which involved sending two emails, filling out a form, providing credit card details upfront…).

On the email where they confirmed the reservation, they explicitly said that we could bring our own cake and that they would not charge anything and provide us with plates and cutlery. As soon as we were finished singing happy bday, the waiter came to our table saying that we had not informed about the cake (which was not the case) and that they’d be charging us between 30 and 35 CAD as a “cake fee”.

I showed them (the waiter and the manager) the email where the person who took the reservation confirmed we’d not be charged. They tried to argue with several (invalid) arguments to make us pay for the fee, including quoting a portion of the email where they informed that “availability was subject to change”. I asked her what availability had to do with bringing a cake, to which she stayed silent.

While they (reluctantly) accepted not charging for the cake we brought, near the end of our stay they messed up the order of churros and brought one extra portion nobody had ordered (all orders had already been served). The manager, after hearing from everyone on the table that nobody had ordered that portion, simply left the churros on our table and turned her back to our complaints (literally and in a rude manner).

To prevent any further disappointment and stress (at this point my wife was almost crying after having her party ruined), I’ve simply told everyone on the table that it was okay and I’d pay for that.

The lack of professionalism was clear in many levels. From the messy reservation process, messed up orders, angry faces from the waiters and inability to handle unexpected circumstances (which have been created by them, not us).

We will never return there, despite the food being very good (Koodos to the kitchen staff) and decoration being great. I wouldn’t be surprised if this had to do with us being immigrants from (you guessed it) a Latin American country.

I hope you take this feedback seriously and do a very extensive retraining of your staff, who was rude, didn’t believe us (despite email evidence) and forced us to pay for something we...