Zanzibar Beach & Restaurant — Restaurant in Curaçao

The short review: TERRIBLE service, and just okay food. Avoid this place.

The longer review: My family is in Curaçao from the US for the Christmas holiday and there are 6 of us. We are staying in the Jan Thiel area so we stopped at Zanzibar which is on the beach.

We get there and they are not busy, not crowded, there's no line, there are plenty of open tables, and we are seated immediately. It's everything else for the rest of the meal that goes downhill from here.

We give our initial drink/meal order, and after the first round of drinks is delivered...we officially don't exist anymore. Nobody comes to check on us, or ask us if we need more drinks. And this lasts for about 50 minutes. And it's not like we ordered anything complicated...2 pizzas, a fried shrimp appetizer, a tuna steak, and 2 rotisserie chicken meals. Pizzas cook quickly, tuna cooks quickly, breaded/fried shrimp cook quickly, and rotisserie chicken begins cooking way in advance...in other words, NO reason whatsoever why it should take us 50 minutes to get our meals.

I finally ask why it's taking so long and if they can check on our food and the server says the manager is looking into it. If anybody had bothered to come by during the 50 minutes where we were ignored, we could have told them our food was taking an awfully long time.

They finally bring out the fried shrimp for my Mom...and then the hostess bumps into the expediter bringing the food and he dumps the dipping sauce for the fried shrimp on my brother's shirt and shorts.

Then me and my other brother get our rotisserie chicken, they bring out the tuna steak for my Dad, and the side salads...and then they forget a salad that we ordered, and it's another 5-10 minutes before the pizzas come out for my older brother and his wife. The manager comes over and apologizes for the expediter spilling sauce on my older brother (the expediter did come over and apologize which was nice...plus we knew it wasn't his fault the hostess bumped into him when he had his arms full of food) and also apologizes for it taking a friggin' hour for our food to come out (mind you, in the time between ordering our food and actually receiving it, other parties of 2 and 4 were seated, ordered, received their food, ate, paid the bill, and left), comps my brother a beer and my Mom a glass of wine, but offers zero explanation for why a bunch of very simple dishes took so damn long. It's not like we had a bunch of special requests. In fact, we had none.

Once our food FINALLY arrives (all of it), THEN they start checking on us every 5 minutes to see how things are and if we need more drinks (it sure woulda been great if we had more drinks during the 50 minutes where nobody said a word to us or bothered to check in on us).

And after waiting so long, the food was...not worth the time. The pizzas were just okay, the tuna steak was just okay (but it was cooked properly), the fried shrimp were pretty good and had a nice dipping sauce that had some kick (this is the same sauce my older brother was now wearing on his clothes), and the rotisserie chicken was nothing special. They were both ordered hot & spicy and the sauce/glaze that was on them...zero spice, zero heat, and almost zero flavor. The side salads were good though.

All in all, a very poor dining experience. We weren't loud, we weren't obnoxious, we weren't rude to the servers, and we didn't make a bunch of special food requests (we ordered straight off the menu). By the time we left, my whole family was not in good spirits and most of us were pissed (not 'pissed' like in 'drunk', but 'pissed' like in 'anger') when we left.

I am very disappointed in Zanzibar. My family is here for another week and we will be eating out several more times...but none of those times is going to be...

HORRIBLE. Dark skinned girl with dreads working there.HORRIBLE. no customer service. My husband ordered 2 cups of ice because he had his water he wanted to drink. MIND YOU FIRST TIME AT THIS BEACH. Most beaches in curacao allow for your own small snacks and water. There was no sign entering this beach that its not alliowed and even if there was we sure did not see one. After my husband got the two cups she followed him back all the way to his chair and insulted him infront of other people at the beach. Super loud started saying shes going to call security because you are not allowed to bring in your own drinks or food. He said all i have is my water and a snack. My husband then said its fine i will buy a drink from you i did not know. She kept persisting that she has to take the water from him or he needs to go back all the way to his car to put it there. For a 2 guilder bottle of water!! We were planning to eat there for lunch and order actual other drinks and snacks. They just lost customers because of her lack of customer service and she should be fired! How awful to talk to people who are at the beach! Who paid to get in and paid for 2 chairs! You see more people around who have their own small snacks and water!! Also for their kids! How awful! There are ways to talk about something. But no she wanted to be loud and ugly and shame us about the situation! My husband then went over himself to the security and he said it was ok to bring small snacks like fruits and a water. Just no alcohol or actual food food. Which we did not have!! Nor do we drink alcohol. Zanzibar please please please look at this situation. Certain people with horrible characters like this should not be working with tourists or even local people! How Awful! The yelling the insults the verbal harrassment and it was my husbands first time at this beach and last. Im sure these people do not even care because they will keep getting customers. Look nothing against the restaurant or the beach! But dark skinned girl with the dreads has got to go! She should not be working ever ever ever in hospitality. The other bartenders spoke to my husband and were shocked at this behavior. They said "all of this for one water?". As you can see everyone was confused and shocked by her vulgarity and behavior. Your job is to serve people not attack people! Her job was to come nicely to us and say "oh hey guys not sure if it was your first time here but kindly letting you know that you cannot have any snacks or water of your own if you did not know it is fine but just wanted to kindly pass the message to you. You can order any drink or food with me" but no Instead we got insulted, yelled at and accused. Awful awful awful. We kept our cool and bought a water like we said we would but never again. I hope this girl gets some serious training or they need to let her go....

What a shame!!! I had dinner at this beach restaurant bc it showed good reviews. The place looked great, it was clean, nothing broken, the food was really good, and the restaurant seemed to have a lot of staff. But my god, what a disorganized outfit! We went there for dinner and sat down to order at 6pm and only left at 9:15pm. Our waitress knew nothing about the menu and had to leave to ask questions twice. Our appetizer took over an hour to arrive, and also only arrived because I finally flagged down a wait staff to ask where our food was. Then suddenly our app arrived within 5 min of asking. Drink service was just as slow and we had to flag down wait staff to get more drinks (no one stopped by to ask if we’d like more drinks after sitting there for an hour!!!!) After we finished our appetizer, the waitress asked if we would like our food now. What kind of question is this? Yes of course - I said. We waited another half hour for that. Payment for the bill was also slow. After the plates were removed we patiently waited 15 min for a waiter just to pass by our table so we could flag them down. No one even walked by!!! We ended up going to the bartender who then walked off to find out what our bill was and then he let us pay. And we weren’t even the worst off. Another three tables adjacent to ours all arrived at approx the same time just after us. One table was finished eating before we even got our app, another one didn’t even get their app for 2.5 hours (I felt SO bad for this young couple bc they didn’t speak up or flagged down the wait staff to ask for their food - they patiently and overly politely sat there for soooo long for their food.) The third other table with four people was done and paid before we had our plates cleared by maybe 10 minutes but they didn’t have to chase their wait staff down for the bill.

This place is totally disorganized. What a shame tho, bc it looks nice and the food is good. Unless you have a Tonne of time,and don’t mind waiting three hours for your food without having your drinks topped up,...