Mercado 174 — Restaurant in Playa del Carmen

First of all, I always believe that a a customer’s satisfaction should be the prime focus and perhaps the ultimate goal of any establishment’s success. Yet, let let me break down below my utmost disappointment as I agree and add on to the several negative comments and reviews made by previous customers:

We sat down for drinks on the eve of my brother’s birthday. Shockingly, no one greeted us until we were all seated and ready to order.

We were presented with the happy hour deal of the day/week whatever you want to call it. In a nutshell, a duo cocktail for the price of one (tequila sunrise and piña coloda). I have worked in a Mexican restaurant in the past and I have made countless cocktails and drinks like that, but this!??……Both drinks did not contain any alcohol, the taste was horrid, one tasted like sweet water and the other was coconut water. I cannot explain the foamy feeling you get with that combination. When we asked the server, whose manager was standing over watching - the reply was sorry I was told to bring it that way. No change was possible. You can imagine the drinks were then left there. I even offered to give the server one of the drinks to taste himself and give his own opinion which he declined. So we left it at that and none of us drank it.

We called for the bill, and as you can imagine the server begged for a tip. I said no way after that exchange and they were pushing for something we did not drink.

We left with a sour taste and an unforgettable disgusting experience. I did not pay the tip and don’t think anyone should for such a bad service.

My recommendation - simple: the manager needs to not just stand there idle watching and intervene in times like these. The establishment should propose alternative solutions and not request more...

Food and location were good on 5th Avenue, I had been there 3 times in the last couple months on a couple trips to Playa. Last week I had gone and taken some friends for dinner and they forgot one of my guests meals, so that person needed to wait 10-15 mins for them to cook it. Accidents happen I can understand but what I found completely disgraceful was when the bill arrived I decided to pay for the table and provided our waiter Luis with a card for the bill and put a tip in the billfold in pesos for him, roughly 13%. The waiter Luis came back to the table a few minutes later Infront of my guests and opened the billfold and placed the bills out for everyone to see and said the average tip here is 20% could you add more.

Tipping is meant to be based on quality of service and food (Both previous visits I tipped over 20% as the waiters were fantastic).

This time to be embarrassed by the waiter wanting more will be the last time I go there, I’ve spent over 10,000 pesos at the restaurant in the last 2 months and this type of service/tip obligations when meals are forgotten are terrible.

I won’t go...

Had lunch there today, ordered a tostada with ceviche, which was really very good! But had also ordered "arrachera", saying to the waiter,I would love to get it after finishing the tostada. Unfortunately the arrachera arrived 2 minutes after the starter - so I had to eat the main course first. Arrachera was not so very good, side orders were absolutely not typical Mexican: Mashed potatoes and a kind of warm carrot-cucumber salad. I was not too happy with this experience ! - But I wanted to give them another chance and went for dinner - I should have dropped the idea. The food was good. What I hated this time, when I asked to pay for my dinner, the waiter showed me the invoice, but immediately added 18% tips. The amount I owed was 740Pesos, He asked for 874Pesos. When I asked, if they do this all the time, he answered, 'well I was free to give tips'. I told him, that he just tried to cheat me. - Very slowly I start to not like Playa anymore. So many cheats and tries to rip off people. It...