Arenal Bongos 2 — Restaurant in La Fortuna

As written by my 12 year old son who clearly loved this restaurant:

After a long and tiring day of adventuring in the around the Volcan Arenal, my family and I drove along Road 142 looking for a place to eat dinner. As we were going to enter La Fortuna from the west, we came across a restaurant by the name of Bongos. We put it onto our list of maybes, and then kept cruising down the road. We found a few other maybes, but I persuaded my family to circle back to our original idea of Bongos.

As we entered the open aired restaurant with clean tables and three televisions, providing for entertainment of all sorts, we were greeted by a kind server. We sat down and looked at the menu, which had a variety of styles of food.

My sister and I ordered the chicken soup, my mom ordered Ensalada con Pollo, and my dad had the Pizza Diabla. When our food arrived, we saw that it was ornately constructed and all the plates of food looked beautiful. It smelled amazing. We tasted the various dishes and found that they pleased our taste buds just as much it delighted our nostrils. After the wonderful meal, we thanked our waiter and left full, not only with great food, but...

Ate dinner here for two people. Food was great and came out fast along with our first drink. But service was inattentive for the restaurant to have been pretty empty ( only about 3 tables,and about 6 ppl with 3 employees there). Only one drink at the beginning and server didn’t come back until the end of the meal when we asked for two shots and boxes to go. Receipt was wrong and even when I pointed it out to waitress I still had to go back up and get the right change back. Menu charged 2900 colones each for cocktails and they rang up for 3900 each. We asked for shots and they charged us for a different brand than we got. They also charge 250 for two To-go boxes. With the corrected bill: 10% service charge and then the usual 8-13% tourism tax the meal was about 31,000 colones for two cocktails, two entrees, two shots, two to-go boxes. I liked the food but the playing with the money takes this restaurant...

It was our first night in La Fortuna and we didn't want to drive too far for a restaurant. This place got good reviews and I suggested we go there. While the food was fine, we were VERY disappointed in the waiter. When the bill came, he told my husband that tip is additional and must be paid in cash. I heard about this scam. It was awkward, as my husband was using his credit card and didn't want the waiter to do something unscrupulous afterwards. We gave the tip. I would not recommend this place, as they take full advantage of tourists. The sad thing is that the restaurant wasn't busy at all. If this is how they're treating tourists, then shame on them! I hope the owner reads this and speaks to his staff about this terrible practice. On a more positive note, the next day, we enjoyed an amazing dinner at another restaurant with no request for extra tipping. It made up for this...