Coco's Cantina — Restaurant in Waitematā

I was really looking forward to having a girls night out and our first stop was dinner at Coco Cantina. I have heard such great reviews about this restaurant so I had to check it out for myself. The food did not disappoint and was good portion size. However I cannot say the same for the service, unfortunately. The waiter that was assigned to our table was quite rude and disrespectful to be honest which took away from a true Coco Cantina experience, that members of the public consistently rave about. I entered the restaurant and sat down with my girls and ordered a red wine to begin with. The waiter came and clumsily split the red wine all over the table ( lucky I wasn't wearing a light colored outfit) following this mishap she did not even flinch, not even the courtesy to apologize or show any sign of remorse. She quickly cleared the table and left me with a half split glass of red wine that was dripping from the sides of the cup. I waited to see if she would come back to replace it and she never did, not even to take our order following this episode. We eventually got a hold of her and had to ask her to replace the wine and even then continued to display disgusting attitude and came back to slam the glass of wine on the table. By then I was ready to escalate this behavior and leave the restaurant because it truly put me off but I did not want it to affect our evening and the fact that the restaurant was really busy on a Saturday. It made me think about how this scenario would of played out if I was dealing with the manager or owner and I highly doubt they would of communicated in the same manner of this waiter. Later on we ended up dealing with this lovely lady half british and argentinian I think, because the other one was MIA, I wish I had caught her name to complain but all I could recall was that she had long dark hair that was in a braid, red lipstick with a bandana around her head worn like a head band and a black outfit, I'm pretty sure she had piercings too. All in all, the food was great and met my expectations but the service was appalling. Service is just as important as the food you eat in a restaurant. If you want to become a waiter do the job properly, or better yet attend etiquette lessons trust me this will take you a long way! and just to be clear this feedback is not targeting all your staff members as I only had an issue with the one. I am not sure if I will be back at this stage....

Started off great with drinks offered the moment we arrived at the table, water etc. unbeknownst to us, it was all downhill from there…

We were part of a group of about 11 people, our waitress was friendly to start with, but I noticed the service slipping as the night went on - less frequent visits to the tables, water top ups, drink orders etc. Once our food arrived, it became clear that mine was forgotten. A charade of “don’t know how that happened” ensues between the (what I assumed) Maître-d and our waitress.

After assurances that my food will be out very soon, another round of drinks was offered, I ordered the tap beer. Another party member pointed out to the waitress that he ordered a cocktail a while ago, he was met with “oh… it’s probably still being made”. I can see a pattern forming here. Drinks came out, with my friends cocktail being delivered first, however, no beer. I enquired and was met with “yours is still on the way, we’re currently rushing your food through for you”, as if I was being ungrateful and shouldn’t have asked. That’s where all hopes of a good evening and return visits went out the window.

The food came out, the Duck Ragu pasta was ok, not worth the hype (or the wait). We finished our food and after brief conversation decided to leave. There was no apology for the food being forgotten when we went to pay, in-fact the cashier seemed to have no idea.

All in all, the night started strong, but unfortunately went down hill very quickly. Whilst our waitress was nice, she was not attentive enough and I don’t think skilled enough. I’ve worked hospo for years myself and this was amateur level mistakes. I don’t think I’ll be back, there wasn’t enough good to make it...

I have never come across such a bad service in a restaurant to a point that I wondered we received such appalling service from this front person of Coco's Cantina was it because we are asian. She was looking away while she was telling us what is the specials on the menu for the night, never given us any water like she did for every other tables when they first set down. We had to ask for the water before she brought some over to our table. She took the wrong drink order from one of us, then never delivered the drink, when we tried to her for the drink, she was so dismissive that she didn't even stop to talk to us, she just told us it is coming while waking away, we were waiting for all three drinks to arrive and have a toast. We had chase up another waitress for the out standing drink to be delivered, by the time it came, the cocktail we ordered was no longer chilled. As we finished our meal, we went to the front counter to pay for our bill, while we were waiting to pay, she decided to keep us waiting by giving her friend who just walked in, a hug and had a chat, This is our first time to Coco's cantina, we were looking forward to a good evening and some good food. Sadly it was all ruined by this particular person working there. With such a poor service towards your customers, we will not be going back...