Princesa — Restaurant in Almada

well well well....... Mr, I'm more important than the customers clearly has internal issues that Princesa needs to get rid off before he ruins what has the foundations of a great venue. From the beach this place seemed like the spot to be, after a long beach day, the perfect place to have a few drinks, enjoy dinner and watch the sunset..... little did we know the absolute chaos we were walking into.... Firstly, walking off the beach and asking for a table or a place to get drinks was confusing, slightly unwelcoming and not well understood by the staff, none the less we waited for a few minutes for them to identify one of the many empty beds with a table available, We had some cocktails and sangria service was good once we had sat down and the cocktails a tad pricey but good and well executed as you'd expect from a beach bar looking up market. redeemed for now.... Many times they walked past without offering another drink or asked if we needed anything, which we thought was odd, it then took another strange turn when they asked to close our drinks bill as they were no longer doing table service at the beach, with no explanation as to why. We wanted to eat but there was no mention or ask if we wanted a table for dinner, a lesson not learnt by us but we gave it a shot and asked for a table at the restaurant as we were hungry and couldn't be bothered to go and find a table in another place. This is where things got really bad and has prompted me to do this review.. Firstly the staff could not work out who was meant to take our drinks order, we tried to order twice but finally the 3rd waitress who served us for the rest of the night, who was great for the rest of the night, took our order and successfully managed to have the bar deliver what we ordered. Secondly when we went to order food, quite a while after we had sat down and checked the menu and chosen our dishes, we were told a few things were not available after we tried to order them.. probably should have been relayed to us before we checked the menu.. The food, redeeming part of the dinner, it was good but not amazing, fish was fresh and for the location right on the beach was probably close to fairly priced for the standard of food. The atmosphere.... There were plenty of strange characters floating about acting as if they were on a Hollywood movie set.. going from table to table and essentially just acting like they were in a local bar, being loud, rude and bumping into people, even knocking the staff which we found strange that they were not asked to sit down at a restaurant. Although we did come to a conclusion with this... This group of wana be A listers were blabbing off about how many drugs they had taken and how messed up they got the night before and that they were here for it all again today.. not the best restaurant atmosphere Upon going to the toilet the Leader of the class A drug club barged past me and jumped in front of me to use the toilet.. with the way this poor mans Robert Dinero was acting we assumed he was the owner... either way terribly rude and didn't care for anyone in his path. Eventually they left and after this the atmosphere was pretty nice with the DJ and sunset and we were able to see the positives and the evening was partially redeemed until we asked for the bill... They "accidentally" added a few pricey items to our bill, when we questioned it, they seemed to instantly know this was the case and were talking about it and pointing at another table who had left.. this was an obvious attempt to cover a missed bill from another table and charge us for it. To make it even worse they didn't even explain to us or apologise about the situation until about 10 minutes later when the waistress returned with the corrected bill and apologised. All in all, absolutely not worth the price tag for the location due to the many many mistakes and the clear attempt to rip us off, the fact that it is clearly attracting the wrong crowd or even worse being run by them means I will not be returning or recommending. a shame as It has...

We used to love this place for the food, service, everything. This time we came with our 7 months old twins, and asked for sunbeds. The hostess, always lovely, took us there and showed us to the beds. She said “i will call my colleague”. We sat down on the beds, our children were playing in the sand nearby. The guy (short dark hair) comes, smiling “hi, can I help you?”. We answer that hi, how are you, can we see the menu. Polite interaction, you would think. And he goes “who told you you can take these beds?”. I answer that ehm, hostess did. He says “did she tell you to put your stuff here or she told you to wait for me?”. I stutter, shocked. We are a family, customers with tiny children. An employee of the business is talking to us this way. I ask “so we can’t stay here?” and he said, now you can, but this is not the way it’s done. You needed to wait for me and ask me if you can sit here. Not the hostess. Later I overhear his conversation with another guy (curly blonde hair) and in Portuguese he goes on endless rant that he needs to “show them” and “it’s a question of respect”. So apparently there is some rivalry between restaurant and sunbeds worker and he needs to show us, customers, in order to be treated with respect. The blonde waiter repeatedly tells him to calm down. I keep hearing him yelling and complaining how we just came and sat with a permission of a hostess and how disrespected he feels (I speak Portuguese, I guess he thought we don’t). The blonde guy saved the day. He was so attentive and nice. Otherwise our experience would have been ruined completely.

So dear management. As your recurrent customers we are asking: could you please tell this person not to talk customers like this? We most certainly don’t know whom we should listen to, and if host tells us we can seat, we will. We don’t want to be treated this way. Especially not when we are taking out our little children for a day at the beach.

A reply to your reply:

Apology could have been enough. We are not responsible for the other situations that happened and for the mood of employees regarding them. Most certainly employees shouldn’t be taking out their bad day on...

We came today with a reservation for lunch. First hostess was indifferent and was giving us a hard time. The second host ( a 20 yr old with no business experience whatsoever) gave us a table at the beach as a favor. We proceeded to order Everything on the menu, including the specials, 2 sangrias of 2 lts plus deserts. While we were having one of the sangrias, the host came and told us that we need to take the sangria and move somewhere else. We asked if we could sit by one of the sun beds. He told us No. They were reserved. We have been there since 12 and now, 4pm we saw at least 5 of the Sunbeds empty but reserved. I told them that if they wanted us to leave we will not pay the last sangria because we just started drinking it. Back and forth with the host and hostess which had no business sense, until a manager came and apologized. They moved us into the sunbeds. Overall, food is good, waiters are excellent. The host and hostess, the place can do without them. They have no business sense and don’t know how to treat a paying customer. Attitude like they run the hottest place in St Tropez and even there, they treat you right. They understand that WE pay for their business and having waiting customers seeing empty sun beds, even if reserved is bad for business. Telling people to leave the table after having a sizable meal is also bad for business. Specially as the table next to us, had a couple (table was for 6) for 2 hours, the girl was asleep and the guy ordered a coke only. My suggestion, take reservations for specific hours. Wait 15 min. If people don’t show, give the place for someone else. Even if the client paid for it. Very bad business having all of the sun beds reserved and from 12 pm to 6pm half the place is empty…. I asked to take my picture. Its the only way they will see me or my party ever again. I will take my business...