Las Iguanas - Bristol - Harbourside — Restaurant in Bristol

It's a shame having to write a review like this because the food actually tasted good...

Me and my best friend decided to go here for her birthday meal on Monday 8th and when we first walked in, we were not greeted but approached by a waitress who gave no eye contact. We said we had a booking which they seemed hesitant in reacting to that they said "okayyy" in a moody manner. The place was practically empty, there was only us, maybe three or four couples and three staff members insight. We were walked over to a kind of booth that was indirect sun so it was difficult for me to see properly that I had to cover my eyes with my bag, in order to see and talk to my friend. We wanted to be moved to in a more shady spot but apparently no one was serving in the area which made no sense to me at all since the staff are walking back and forth everywhere when serving people. When ordering my food the waitress cut me off mid-sentence when I tried to tell her what bits I needed removed due to not being able to eat them and she interrupted to say "everything comes separately with the meal" which seemed pointless and irrelevant given it will be a waste of food if I'm not eating it. It was lucky that we only asked for free water to drink, given the prices were a lot for what was on the menu. When the food arrived we had somebody else, a more kinder waitress, the only impressive thing was it came out to me sizzling, the same waitress came back to check if the food was okay, which it was despite the salsa not being proper salsa it was basically partially diced tomato and a weird hint of mint I would have been better off having Dorito salsa in a jar. The calamari was a disappointing portion considering you pay an extra £1.50 on the bill to choose it. (It was really oily too) To add to this point the menu is not very clear when there are no '£' on the menu so it makes it difficult to defer between what is just a number and what is a price, if you've not been here before or made aware on entry, which we weren't. For example at the top of the menu it says "2 for 16" but what they don't explain to customers is "+4 supplements" does not mean extra bits within the course it means +£4 to your total?? Very missleading, if you didn't planning on spending much. The main meal of fajitas there was too much filling to even fit in all four mini wraps which meant a lot was left over to be wasted, you have to serve yourself as well and strangely the dishes which the pots and wraps were stacked in looked like decorated dog food bowls. (No doubt they were). We were not seen to for the rest of the evening, nobody checked if we wanted another drink which was surprising since they passed our table multiple times. It was only when the kind waitress collected our plates and sorted out the bill for us to pay. (Bear in mind at this point I was unaware of the extra charges..) We were ready to leave and as we were walking out we were about to say thank you then the moody waitress from the start had a bit of a tone saying thank you first, again no eye contact, and making us feel obligated to say thank you back. Finally we left then to go for drinks elsewhere and realize the total didn't seem right. So we called the restaurant and only then did it take for them to explain the whole supplement charge, so not happy my meal cost more than intended.

All in all not coming back here...

I think the service staff probably did their best but management NEED to hire more people, ensure their technology works and generally make big changes.

We had a pretty terrible time here sadly. The place didn’t look particularly busy with heaps of tables available. We walked in and waited ages to be seated. A very harassed looking waitress eventually found us a table, but she was clearly very stressed and was a little snippy with us. We’d started looking at the menu but she told us this was wrong and gave us a different one instead. She told us there is a QR code for ordering from the table but when we tried it this wasn’t working for anyone. We went to the bar to order but were met with more exhausted and stressed staff hurriedly making cocktails who told us they couldn’t take orders. We flagged down the waitress from earlier who told us to try the QR code again on the restaurant WiFi. We did this and it still didn’t work. The table beside us were also unable to order and getting frustrated as they’d been there longer than we had. We then asked another waitress to take our orders. She complained that we should use the QR code and took time to actually believe us that we had tried multiple times on the WiFi and it definitely wasn’t working. She eventually came to our table but was in a very bad mood and rolled her eyes/sighed at us constantly. Her tablet then stopped working too. We tried to order the 2for£13 deal which was advertised everywhere but the waitress told us it didn’t apply to the drinks we wanted, which wasn’t clear at all. She also said the menu we’d been given was wrong and missing pages. We finally ordered drinks about 25mins after entering and after 4 different abrupt interactions with staff. We were then waiting for another 25mins or so, and then got up again to ask a waitress whether the drinks had been forgotten about. They told us it was a minimum 30min wait for drinks which was frustrating as no one had warned us of this when we sat down and had we known, we would have gone elsewhere. Eventually, our drinks arrived, which upset the table beside us who had been waiting 45mins at this point. The waitress who delivered our drinks made snide comments about the other table being impatient/lacking in understanding, even though we felt their frustration was entirely reasonable. Shortly after, the other tables drinks finally arrived but the waitress loudly said they’d be free to apologise for the wait. This then annoyed all the other surrounding tables who’d also been waiting an inordinately long time but had to pay for theirs.

The whole thing was an utter farce and I cannot understand why it was so chaotic given they weren’t even that busy?

All the staff were fairly rude and unpleasant but I don’t want management to use this review as a stick to beat them with, because they were all rushing round manically getting flagged down constantly and I can totally see why they were so miserable and exhausted. If there was a manager present they were clearly hiding because no one ever saw them despite every table being frustrated and unhappy.

Management clearly need to make changes urgently, this place is currently...

We went here yesterday for my sister's hen do at 5pm. We had pre booked a table for 9 and were given a table for 8 with one chair plonked on the end without enough space on the end table for 3. Annoying but not the end of the world.

We arrived STARVING after a busy afternoon of activities. I ordered nachos which arrived cold, soggy and with really mushy tasteless guacamole and tomatoes. I don't think its hard to get nachos right? I also ordered burger and chips, which were better although chargrilled burger was an understatement, with a side of their "pineapple citrus slaw". This contained white shredded cabbage, coriander... and that's basically it.

I looked around and around for a member of staff to come and ask how our meal was, but alas, nobody came. I ended up eating my food whilst still looking, because of said hunger. Eventually my friend called over to 2 waitresses having a chat together, politely calling "excuse me" and waving, to which she stopped talking and called across the restaurant "What?". We said we're not going to shout, so after a minute our original, elusive waitress came back. When I said about the slaw she said it didn't contain any actual pineapple, it was in the dressing apparently, even though there was definitely no dressing on my slaw - it was literally dry shredded cabbage, as the dry dish confirmed. So I asked "invisible pineapple then?" It seemed so as she shrugged and walked off. By the time we'd finished and she came back and inquired "how was your meal?" I replied "I've definitely had better" she replied "can I get you any more drinks?" and quickly legged it when we declined.

As my sister and friends finished their meal, I quietly slipped away to see if I could speak with the manager about my experience and two more members of staff asked me why what was the problem, so I told them, they apologised and said they would have a word with the manager. I waited for 10 mins, at which point we saw a man who looked like he could be in charge nearby and asked him over. He was the manager, he had no idea we had asked to speak to him or knew anything about my complaint and asked me again (in front of my sister and party what the problem was when I had been trying to be discreet in order to keep any awkwardness out of her afternoon) when I explained again, he just said right and walked off.

Las Iguanas gave us a big discount off our final bill (when it finally arrived as they continued to ignore us) and rightly removed the service charge otherwise they'd be getting 1 star. Not everyone's food in our group was terrible, but mine was, as was a couple of other people's. More than anything it has been a long time since I've been anywhere with such abysmal customer service. I really felt nobody in there gave a hoot. They were a bit busy when we arrived but it didn't last long. I was very disappointed with our experience and would...