Habana Restaurant — Restaurant in Austin

I went to this restaurant 3 times in total. The first was around four to five years ago, and I really enjoyed the experience. I was there with my girlfriend, and we enjoyed the food and ambiance. That's why I insisted to bring my brother and his family when they came to visit me from Canada. However, we had a very unpleasant experience this time. We arrived around 8:30pm with a party of 4 adults and a 2-year old kid, and we were the only customers in the restaurant. We ordered 4 empanadas as appetizers and split them with the kid. We then placed two orders of the day's special, "El Mejor", which cost $36 a piece. After eating, the server brought the card reader and indicated the total without providing the details of the bill, which was $125. We were a little surprised as we expected something around $100, but we proceeded to pay. After paying, we were provided with the paper bill where we found out that they included a 18% gratuity without mentioning it prior. They apparently have a required gratuity for a party of 5 or more. We were quite annoyed because they counted the kid as a member of the party even though we did not order anything for him but rather shared our own orders with him. When I went to talk to the manager about that, he just shrugged his shoulders saying that he cannot do anything about it under the pretext that the restaurant's owners' policy is to charge a 18% gratuity for any group of 5 sitting at a table regardless of the fact that the 5th member is a toddler or does not order anything. We even added an additional tip when we paid without being aware of the added gratuity. I am okay with paying gratuities, but I was really upset about the dishonesty of the restaurant personnel who never mentioned anything about that. I consider honesty as a very important trait for a business, and I was really disappointed by their conduct. Thus, I would not recommend this restaurant to anybody. They are very unprofessional and only care about the money. The service is less than stellar, and their behavior was a little harassing as the time of closure was approaching. They kept interrupting our meal and discussion to ask whether we had...

This place is HORRIBLE 😞… definitely very disappointed sad to say we spend $300+ and got the worst customer service ever. For starters the host was extremely rude and unfriendly.. she completely ignored us then after we finally sat waiting for 15 for water 🤔 eventually when the waitress decided she was going to come to our table she looked very annoyed that we were there we asked for water , and an appetizer that took 20 mins I’m not sure if they had to go and plant an avocado tree 😐 after we got to putting our entrees order our food took 45 to 1 hr finally we start to eat btw never came to the table to ask if we were ok needed more drinks or water anything I had to literally go to the host stand because yes there were 2 and yes they are both hosting and “serving “of them to ask if we can order more drinks and have some more water 🙄after literally under 10 mins of having brought our food this person has the NERVE TO ASK IF WE NEEDED TO GO BOXES HOW DARE YOU . You never came to our table to ask if we even needed more drinks or if everything was ok but you have the nerve to rush our family this place is a disgrace and a disrespect to customers in general but primarily to the Cuban culture never in my life have I experienced such customer service negligence . And FYI THE COOK IS NOT CUBAN AND I HIGHLY DOUBT THAT THIS PLACE IS EVEN OWNED BY A CUBAN . Their Cuban sandwich is disgusting as well we ordered this to go for a family member that wasn’t able to come with and so far from being a Cuban sandwich. And trust me when I tell you I know CUBAN FOOD IM FROM MIAMI AND IM CUBAN . Never going back. ( mind you this place was a ghost restaurant) meaning there was only 1 other person at the bar and my...

Had a great experience here with some friends. The food was delicious, like every single dish, they were short staffed on the day I went but still was satisfied with the service.

I came here with 3 people and we all will be coming back at some point. I’ve been here once before on my own and had a few cocktails and those were delicious as well. Really no issues with the place besides the fact that every main dish/cocktail will put ya back between 15-20$.

That’s not really an issue because the food is good, the flan was good but the cinnamon whipped cream stole the show and turned a good dish into an incredible one. The Yuca Borracho balls were incredible and the sauce they used complimented the balls perfectly. I had the Pollo Salteado which was good, not amazing but good/above average, while it wasn’t bland it could use more flavor/spices in my opinion but I don’t regret getting it. I was satisfied but not blown away by it.

My friends had the Spicy chicken sandwich which looked delicious and he was very happy (and will probably be what I order next time) with and a beef empanada which looked like a normal empanada. His partner had a Sandwich Cubano which looked excellent and tasted great.

Overall it has a great atmosphere and can make a perfect date night/pregame with friends, great food and good drinks just don’t expect to spend less than 30$. Again this place is worth the price I’m just letting the price conscious people know, overall o recommend coming here and trying the food and drinks...