Restaurante São Jorge — Restaurant in Velas

Had dinner here on my first night in Velas and boy, what a rip off.

There’s an ancient rule about hospitality that says you can make up for bad food with good service, but you cannot make up for bad service with good food. Unfortunately for this restaurant, humans have yet to open an establishment where shitty service is somehow justified by horrible food. Perhaps these people can get away with it bring the only restaurant open on a Tuesday night on a small island town, but it doesn’t change how bad of an experience it is and how damaging it is to the entire restaurant industry in such a small ecosystem as Velas.

The tuna and chicken were most likely frozen, the sauce from a package, the shrimp were not too fresh either and the bread disintegrates in your hands. Both the potato chips and French fries were saturated in oil, either fried out of existence or soggy and undercooked.

The first bottle of wine brought over was the wrong one and our food must’ve sat on the kitchen exit under heat lamps, whilst the three front of house staff were in another room next door, huddled over a cell phone watching videos. It took someone getting up from our table, going up to the kitchen confirming that was indeed our order, and then going to the room next door asking the waitresses to bring the food and the extra wine and water we had also ordered some time ago.

The worst part of it? When at the end of the meal we approached the manager sharing how we basically had to go fetch our plates that had been sitting under the heat lamps for minutes, and the second bottles of water and wine from the fridge, because the waitresses were all huddled around a cell phone in the room next door having a group phone call over someone on speaker phone, she acknowledged this was the case, but did absolutely nothing about it! Didn’t knock anything off the menu, didn’t offer a drink or dessert at the end, just said “yes, sorry the whole floor staff was on the phone at the time, while your (really unremarkable food) was sitting under heat lamps for minutes.”

If you can, go anywhere else...

In the morning we booked a table for dinner at 20:00. Four pax. When we arrived it was clear that our reservation hadn't been passed to the evening crew. However a table was found. We ordered (drinks, 2 starters to share and 4 dishes) and got drinks and starters in reasonable (but a bit too long already) time. Then we waited more than one hour to get the rest. Finally the four main dishes arrived after nearly 2 hours since we arrived, but we had the clear impression that they were somehow forgotten in the kitchen line (and setup in a hurry after we complained): the cod was cold, the meat and the tuna overcooked. We ate and paid (the full bill) and we explained to the team that this isn't the way of taking good care of customers.

1. "you should have complained". We did. But we did it as customers; it is not the customer to check the status of the service.
2. "we had lot of customers all together". Sorry, but you're one of the few restaurant on the Island in summer season. If you feel having issues in serving all the people, please propose different booking slots.
3. Since you admitted the difficulties, in such cases it is common practice to offer part of the food as compensation. The starters, for example, or the drinks. And this BEFORE to prepare the bill, not after receiving the complaint (and the money). We refused your offer of an extra drink or dessert because it came too late ;)

... At the end we're just one off customers, we know, but we felt a bit teased and in Internet era this is noticed and tracked. It's a pity, since Sao Jorge is gorgeous and the people is nice.

My two stars are generous. A probably three stars food ruined by a one...

My wife and I live in America and she is from São Jorge. We were planning our honeymoon to the Açores and she was wanting to show me food that is served here to show me that not everything served is fish, as I am not really into it other than sushi, but I will try almost anything. We found this restaurant on Instagram and from the start I wanted to come here and eat. Fast forward about 5 months, and I am finally here. The restaurant looks welcoming however the wait staff were not. Also for a place that requires reservations I find the staff to be underdressed, and not very welcoming. The service was absolutely terrible, as it felt like an eternity on getting service. We got the bread and butter appetizer as well as the cheese with the honey and jam, and that was honestly the best part.. that and the coffee I had. The entrees unfortunately did not live up to our expectations, my wife got the steak with garlic, and the French fry chips and I got the pasta with meat. (I don’t know what the Portuguese name is, sorry) the presentation of the pasta looked amazing but everything other than the meat lacked flavor. We ended up switching entrees and I managed to eat half of the steak as it was almost well-done after asking for Medium, I ate most of the fries with ketchup and the garlic seemed like mostly for show. Again, unfortunately it did not live up to expectations. You’re better off going to the snack bar for a bifanas, and a super bock.

É melhor ir ao snack bar comer uma bifana e beber...