Ape Regina Italian Restaurant — Restaurant in Budapest

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Unpleasant Experience at All You Can Eat Italian Restaurant in Budapest

We had reserved a table for 17 people for a friendly gathering, but two couldn’t make it, so we were 15 in total. Upon arrival, we were not seated together and instead were spread across different tables. When I asked if we could either be seated at a single table or have the tables pushed together, they said it wasn’t possible.

The food quality was average, but the service was truly terrible. When it came time to pay, we requested individual receipts for each person, but they refused, insisting that we must pay for the entire table together. They claimed it was not possible to split the bill for each person.

When I spoke with the manager, he initially refused to give his name. After I informed him that I am familiar with Hungarian law and tax regulations, they finally provided me with the tax receipt. According to Hungarian law, every establishment is required to provide separate receipts upon request, but this restaurant refused to do so.

Additionally, we were charged for 16 people even though we were only 15. I suspect this may have been because we are foreigners, and they assumed we wouldn’t be familiar with local laws. I asked for the customer book to write it down and they didn’t give it to me and i could not see it any where!!! I will be following up with the municipality office and tax authorities as well this week to ensure this issue is addressed. Every business must understand that they are obligated to provide proper service to their customers, regardless of their nationality.

Updated:

I requested separate receipts for each person, as each person had individual service and requested to pay separately. One person wanted to pay in cash, and another with a card! Which section of Hungarian tax law gives you the right to dictate whether payments are made individually or as a group?

Where on your website have you clearly stated that you only issue one bill? I have gone through your entire website and taken screenshots with the current date and time! There is no mention of this policy anywhere on the site!

So please tell me, which section of Hungarian tax law allows this? Also, you provided service to 15 people but charged for 16! Please explain the reason for this. I have kept your receipts, and even the table number on the original bill is different from the one on the corrected bill.

I know exactly what I am talking about, and you are aware of it too. I will follow you down whichever path you choose, and the choice of how to proceed is...

I have eaten at this sad excuse for an Italian restaurant a total of three times. Once for lunch, once for dinner, and lastly for the dinner buffet. Each “experience” was met with the same next level rude and lousy service matched with equally bad food. My most recent visit was the worst and will absolutely be my last. I decided to give it one last chance by trying the dinner buffet this time with a group of friends. We waited for 15-20 minutes after sitting down before one person from our table stood up and walked over to a server to get their attention. Each and every employee there had the same terrible attitude, not just towards our group, but the tables around us as well. It was obvious that we were an annoyance to them. We actually had no idea who our server was the whole time and when we asked for anything it was met with the same word for word response by the entire wait staff, “one moment.” They’d respond this way despite very well knowing that we’ve been patiently waiting and have asked multiple times. Everything we requested was either never brought out or asked a minimum of 3-5 times before anything was done. Oh, and of course someone from our table had to stand up again to get a “server” to bring our check. It has been an unfortunate experience for me while living in Budapest to discover a very very common sentiment amongst these type of establishments located on a hot corner or busy street. No matter what they’re going to stay in business because of their vicinity to a ruin bar or some other attraction and it shows with how they treat their cliental. This makes all of the other hard working Hungarian businesses and business owners look bad! This will keep on happening unless a new standard is set by local consumers and business owners who stand up to this type of business ethics or lack thereof. Again, terrible food and service, but what sets this place aside from your typical bad dining experience is the appalling manner in which every single waiter and manager working here handles complaints or even the simplest of requests. It is quite clear that whoever owns this establishment does not care about his/her customer base because it’s probably mostly tourists that come here who don’t know any better. Don’t let the nice aesthetic setting, good Trip Advisor, or Google reviews fool you. This place is in it’s own class of garbage and has now set a new low personal standard for dining in Budapest. It’s not just bad. It’s...

It all started when I was looking online for a good restaurant for Valentine's Day and saw amazing reviews. and the second part starts when I got to the restaurant and everything quickly went downhill. The restaurant itself is complicated. In many all-you-can-eat restaurants you simply order from the waiter. But here You have to order from the part of the kitchen that makes the dish. If it's pasta, then to the pasta station. If it's from the oven, then to the oven station. But of course we didn't know so we called the waiter who explained as if it was obvious and we are idiots. and after it took us a while to understand his partial explanation we went to order a focaccia starter dish, which took an hour to get to us because they brought the first dish to another table and didn't notice. (which it turns out happened not only to our table) and in addition when they say eat as much as you can from the menu they don't mean the whole menu, and don't write it anywhere. half the drinks are an extra charge. and after it took us a while to understand which ones are included and which ones are not the waitress told us "but I already told you four times". which was Very rude of her considering that she ordered us drinks without first saying that it was extra money and it wasn't written anywhere. the waiters don't pay attention to you at all and can easily forget about you, the service is horrible and the waiters are very rude. (although there was a cute one who tried to help everyone because all the other waiters forgot they had work to do) After we ordered the main dishes which also took an hour because the waiters claimed that there was a rush. and I completely understand the waiters I was a waitress, but I have never had a table that ordered from me and not get a dish after half an hour delay. after we had already received all the small dishes and we were not hungry because we ate Starter courses, we decided to pay and here I almost fainted. the price was high and unjustified. and the price for the horrible service was even higher which was even more unjustified, but I paid with displeasure and it ruined the whole evening for me. In conclusion the price is not worth it. the food is delicious but small portions and the delay only causes frustration, and I even won't start talking about the service, save money, go to a pay per dish restaurant and it will be...