Anicha-Bar — Restaurant in Setúbal

Tourist Trap – Shocking Experience

My friends and I (aged between 19 and 23, both male and female) stopped by this beachside bar looking for a quick and affordable lunch before our scheduled kayaking activity at 14:00. The menu was handwritten on a sheet of paper with a blue marker — it looked extremely unprofessional, but we were in a hurry and decided to give it a try.

As we began to politely ask about some of the menu items, the waitress responded rudely and told us they were all sold out, while trying to pressure us into ordering the full main menu instead. We declined and instead asked for something simple, like croquettes and a Lipton Iced Tea (which I could clearly see in the fridge).

She brought me a Fuze Tea instead. When I kindly asked if I could have the Lipton Iced Tea from the fridge — and even apologized for the inconvenience — she rolled her eyes at me, gave me a nasty look, and then aggressively pulled the fridge door open like a sulking child. I still thanked her and apologized again before going back to the table.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there.

While we were eating, we started playing a quiet game of UNO at the table — just to pass the time while waiting for our kayaking session. We made sure to keep it low-key and respectful, so as not to disturb anyone.

The waitress, who had been watching us play, went to the owner and told him that we were gambling — yes, gambling — with cards. (Let me remind you: we were playing UNO, a children’s card game.)

The owner then started shouting at us. He claimed that we were breaking the rules of his establishment and that the GNR (Portuguese police) could fine both us and the bar for illegal gambling. He banged his fists on the cash register and accused us of putting his business at risk — all over a game of UNO.

We were stunned but chose not to escalate. We calmly stopped playing and remained polite throughout the interaction.

The food itself was mediocre at best, there were flies everywhere, and the staff — with one exception — were rude and unprofessional. Only one older gentleman made an effort to engage with us in a respectful way, which frankly is just the bare minimum.

For the record, we are native Portuguese speakers, so there were no language barriers. We were kind and respectful throughout. I decided to check the bar’s reviews after this awful experience, and, seeing other similar stories, I felt compelled to share mine.

Avoid this place...

⚠️ Warning! ⚠️Today we decided to have a (nice) lunch at this place. When we sit down, on cheap Lipton chairs, they told us to change to the table next to it because they didn’t serve food on that specific table. Next we got the menu with maybe 5 dishes on, but 3/5 dishes were not available. We ordered a tomato salad for €6 where we got a cutted tomato with some raw onions on it. My friend ordered a chorizo bread and she got it on a plastic plate. We orderded ‘cheese’ because someone told us it was Mozarella and we got some shitty cheap cheese for €5. When we were eating our lunch we heard the staff starting screaming at each other very loud in the kitchen. So loud that the whole terrace could hear the discussion. There was 1 very sweet waitress but for the rest you could just feel the stress from inside to the customers. I would not recommend this...

This restaurant is wonderful and the food and service was extremely generous. With this outstanding location one would expect slightly elevated pricing, so I don’t understand what so many reviewers were complaining about. I paid 8 euro for a half bottle of delicious wine and about 20 euro for a whole grilled fish with fries. Granted I’m from NYC but this seemed perfectly reasonable. Don’t hesitate to come here for a truly beautiful location and delicious meal. People that travel through someone else’s country should really think before they negatively review a small business and potentially harm someone’s income. Also they just sound like babies whining that they weren’t made to...