The Coconut Room — Restaurant in Sal

This is the worst restaurant experience I've had in my life. We waited nearly two hours for appetisers so we asked the owner who was sitting next to us (doing literally nothing the whole time) how long it would be. Instead of apologizing or recognising this was a long wait he started yelling at us that we should wait our turn. There were only five tables in the restaurant, and they hadn't told us there would be such a long delay otherwise we would never have ordered.

We decided to leave and left 2000 escudos on the table to pay for 1900 worth of drinks and told the owner this was what we were doing. He started following us saying we need to pay for the food but we clearly stated we had waited long enough and there was nothing to pay.

He then kept following us round dark back streets saying he was calling the police. At this point we started feeling scared because he was speaking English on the phone to the police in a Portuguese speaking country so we thought he was calling our bluff and threatening us so we started trying harder and harder to escape. He followed us all throughout the town and kept pretending to speak to the police. We finally asked someone to call the police for us because we were scared and didn't want him to know where we were staying. We just wanted to eat somewhere else and be left alone.

The police came and we had to go all the way back to the restaurant where they clearly saw that we had paid for our drinks and didn't owe anything. The police couldn't believe his behaviour and the staff said we were ok to go but the owner just wouldn't let it go so my husband ended up paying for the food we didn't eat just to get out of there and to let the police do their business. He gave us takeout of the now cold food which went straight in the bin because we didn't trust it.

As soon as the police left the owner got really aggressive and said "now they've gone" physically squaring up to my husband and shouting at us, calling us loads names and saying he's from London and we shouldn't mess with him.

The food we didn't eat was worth 1500 escudos! He threatened us over that small an amount for food that we didn't eat that took nearly two hours. We were really shook up and shocked that someone would act like this. It is no way to manage a business and I genuinely felt scared and couldn't relax again after this experience.

The restaurant looked pretty sad and tired and as if it was in its last death throes of existence and clearly the owner is behaving angrily due to a failing business. I'm glad we didn't eat the food because other people have reported getting...

Having seen the fantastic reviews, we were super excited to visit! We arrived at 7:30pm, to be told the grill wasn't ready yet but would be at 8:00pm if we were happy to wait.

8:00pm rolled around, another couple came into the restaurant and we overheard them being told they would have to wait until 8:30pm to order.

8:45pm arrived, and we were finally allowed to order - we opted for a chicken dish and a fish dish. The other couple next to us also ordered, 10 minutes after us.

30 minutes later, the couple that arrived after us had one dish brought out but it was the wrong food and they sent it back.

We were approached by the owner and offered a free complimentary soft drink and beer due to our wait time.

Finally at 9:30pm, having arrived at 7:30pm, our food started to come out. First out was the sides! 10 minutes later came the main (so the sides were cold by the time the main came). But it gets WORSE! Our food order was also wrong, being a vegetarian, my wife had ordered the fish and X2 chicken dishes were served to us, with the waitress telling her that her dish was fish (clearly wasn't).

I went to complain and we said we would like to leave and pay for our drinks, the owner got really defensive and insisted I pay for my meal and that I could take it away in a doggy bag!

After much complaining, we eventually coughed up the bill and left without eating any food.

PS - also check your bill as they tried to charge us for our 'complimentary...

We saved this restaurant as our last night in Cape Verde and honestly the experience we had is nothing remotely resembling the other stellar reviews we saw on trip advisor or Google. We arrived at 6 pm and ordered some drinks which were inordinately slow arriving. We ordered food and 2 1/2 later.. yes 2 1/2 hours and two hungry kids… we had two of our main courses delivered wrong , whole pepper fish served stone cold, kids meal of chicken pieces delivered without and accompanying fries or salad. Jerk a chicken carcass 80% of meat removed. Was hardly any meat on it at all. Stray dogs coming in and around restaurant with no attempts to shoo them away by owners. I’m all for carribean easy relaxed living and attitudes but… this places service was beyond pedestrian . They were serving 4 tables and had 5 staff none of whom seemed to be doing very much. Very poor food and please read my other reviews as you will see I’m not at all a whinger when it comes to these kind of things. What REALLY annoyed me was when I went to pay I was asked if everything was ok ? I had to say “ not a good experience” all The London carribean owners had to say was “ it was a busy night for them” I had to challenge the fact that only 4 tables were taken this was really not good.. all I got was a very grumpy response from the male owner. I just paid and left. Perhaps we caught them on a bad day but we had a very poor...