EL ABRAZO — Restaurant in Taranaki

Extremely disappointed with our experience at this restaurant. Waited over an hour and a half for our main meals due to repeated order mishaps. We ended up having to ask the kitchen to have our orders takeaway as we did not want to wait any longer. No discount or compensation offered for their incompetence. The entree corn chips were tasteless, resembling bland crackers. Pineapple salsa seemed straight from a can. Frozen cocktails were a letdown, tasting like cheap artificial strawberry syrup. Won't consider returning.

Updated in response to the business reply: Thank you for your response. While I appreciate your apology and commitment to improving, I must emphasize that the issue extends beyond mere ego reinforcement. The lack of compensation for the repeated order mishaps, resulting in an over an hour and a half wait, is unacceptable. My review aims to provide constructive feedback to highlight areas where your business falls short. Moving forward, I hope you prioritize not only customer satisfaction but also swift and appropriate action when such incidents occur.

Updated response: Thank you for your response. While I understand your perspective, I must clarify that my feedback was not solely demand-oriented for compensation. It was intended to highlight the shortcomings in service and product quality. While I acknowledge the challenges of a new business setup, customer satisfaction should extend beyond mere words to tangible actions. I hope you continue to train your staff and prioritize customer experience to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Updated response to the owner.

I appreciate your response and dedication to your restaurant's success. It's important to recognize that feedback from customers isn't always about complaining; often, it's a genuine effort to help improve the experience for everyone. When customers provide feedback, it's crucial to take it seriously and not assume it's simply complaining, driven by ego or a desire for monetary compensation. While I understand your point about addressing issues directly, it's worth noting that as customers, we did attempt to rectify the situation during our visit. However, despite our efforts, we weren't given any form of rectification at the time of settling the bill other than an apology. It's not accurate to say we didn't try to address the issue; we did so when paying at the bar. Open communication and a willingness to address concerns promptly can greatly enhance the customer experience.

The responses from the owner to my review come across as combative. It’s essential for business owners to approach customer feedback with empathy and a willingness to understand and address concerns constructively. By responding defensively or combatively you are inadvertently escalating the situation and will potentially deter future customers. You might want to make note of this for future interactions with me and others as you have in multiple responses assumed that I am complaining just because I can, that I am doing this purely out of ego, and also thinking I am expecting compensation. Which I have stated multiple times is not why I have left...

Not sure about the food but this place has serious customer service issue !!!

On Long weekend we were visiting Matarki Light festival in NYP. I invited my friend over to show the lights and beauty of Taranaki, we decided to hit the bars to enjoy abit of dance and drinks on Saturday night.

On arrival to this place, A front lady said its $5 enterance which was intetesting for a small city to charge people !! To do what ?? Just dance to some DJ music ?? No live bands or anything like that ... still ok its not a problem but i said we first need to go get a cocktail from the beautiful cocktail bar in the vintage hotel ( as i wanna show that place to my friend , i think calls snug !) ... then i think the lady got upset to hear we first go somewhere else and said oh we have drinks too u can order here !! I was like well i certainly know u have its about the experience but we will be back for the great vibe and dance here !

Surely we went back after 20 min and ready to pay the $10 cause who cares its Sat night and i have my girlfriend from overseas ! She first said do u have cash ?? Eftpos not working perfectly while just in front of me their eftpos went through showing accepted $10 invoice from previous customer. Then i said no only card she said ok we try !! She put $24 on the eftpos and i had paywave cards that i usually use so she hoped i wont look and it go through !! I paused for second and said what ?? It will be $10 for entry u said $5 each !! She said no i said $12 each, you didnt hear me well 😲😲!!! ( even the prounanciation of five and twelve are not near to each other !! How i could not hear that ??🤪🤪)

I obviously shook my head, came out and we went to the Irish pub across the road and had amazing time, awesome live band, great vibe, free to get in as it should be 🤣🤣💃!!!

Well El Abrazo manager you need to seriously look into your customer service protocols, you cant just rip people off ! This attitude from the base is morally wrong !🙄

I bet that lady did not think i will write this as review but honestly most of the time i went to restaurants, paid alot and food wasnt great but i didnt write bad review , but when it comes to respect and honesty for costumer its very...

Disappointing. We were really looking forward to having some real Mexican food, as not much available in Taranaki. Our meals weren't bad but definitely lacked in the Mexican flavours and spices. My friend's vege burrito had a lot of potato in it. Another friend had tacos and they looked very sad and thin with hardly any filling - were also meant to be soft tacos but were toasted.

I had a quesadilla which tasted fine but barely had much flavour so asked for some sauce to improve it. I was given some strange looking beige sauce in a little ramekin that had consistency of runny hummus. No flavour but def hot. When checking bill later, they had charged $5 for this tiny amount of condiment. The jalapeño poppers and chips with guacamole were good though.

I ordered sangria to drink which was ok but again lacking in right flavour. Saw some other tables order margaritas, which looked good though. Friends had beers at $11 each.

We wouldn't go again, which is sad since we were very excited to have a Mexican restaurant here.

In response to owner: We appreciate that you have set a certain standard but sadly that was not our experience. Our server did not check back after serving the meals. No one came to the table again during meal apart from when I asked for something to flavour my quesadilla with. We weren't even asked if we wanted more drinks. We were asked about the meals at the end and the server seemed quite flustered when told that it wasn't what we expected. They did offer to make my friend who had the odd tacos something else but she declined as meal had already been eaten and she was full. As said, nothing was wrong with the meals - they were edible but just not Mexican in flavour.

Wish you all the best with your business, but our group will pass...