Aaktun Restaurant, Coffee & Tiki Bar — Restaurant in Clayton

Horrible service and deceitful practices by restaurant. My parents have dined here 2-3 times before and said they enjoyed it. So we brought our family here for Mother's Day. We really wish we hadn't. My water glass had pink lipstick on it. I brought this up to the server and requested a new glass. After ordering, he had to be reminded twice to please switch out my glass. No sense of urgency to switch out my soiled glass. We each ordered a latte. 4 horchata lattes and a Mexican latte. All were weak and my father even told the barista that dropped the drinks that they tasted weaker than before. None of them had the cinnamon stick garnish. Barista said they were out. Yet I saw other tables after us receiving the cinnamon sticks in their lattes. My sister's Mexican latte was not flavorful at all. After taking our order, which included lattes for the whole table, two appetizers and 5 entrees, Hiram then asked " would you like bread and butter for the table while you wait?" We said yes plz. The server failed to mention, The bread is 7.00 for four small Hawaiian rolls. 5 guest and 4 Hawaiian rolls.... Fine if they were complimentary. They are not. And the way Hiram asked if we would like them for the table is a quick, shady way of sneaking a food item onto the bill.

After 30 plus minutes waiting for our 2 simple appetizers, I brought it up to our server, Hiram G. (Who we never saw...) I asked how much longer for the apps. He gave that look of "oh oops I forgot to put those in" ten plus more minutes go by, he said the apps will be out shortly. The apps came out at the same time as our food. So we then had a table full of plates and food. No room to enjoy our food and no time to enjoy the apps first. No apology that he forgot to put the apps in or an apology for whatever caused this delay. We never saw our server after food was dropped until the meal was more than half gone. I asked for butter and syrup for my French toast. It took so long for Hiram to bring that, I had to get up and once again hunt him down. After waiting again 10 minutes for something l asked for, he brought me butter.Unbeknownst to me, the butter had either garlic in it or food particles from a utensil in it. I covered two of the pieces of French toast in the butter, causing the food to taste like garlic/savory spices. I was so over the lack of attentive service and just pushed the plate to the side. We then waited and waited and waited yet again for Hiram to come over so we could just get the check and get out.

We brought the garlic-butter mishap up to Hiram and he just kind of said "oh". No apology no anything. As he saw nearly half of the French toast not consumed because of the butter he brought me. We asked if we could have that entree taken off the bill. He said "ahh yes I will have him do that."

He then took forever to drop the bill. When he did. We noticed that he charged me 1.50 for the garlic butter that ruined my French toast. And he hadn't removed the French toast from the bill. And had the restaurant had tacked on a "large party" 20% gratuity for our party of 5. 1 had to again go find Hiram and inquire about the charging of butter and not removing the French toast and now this auto gratuity. Hiram did not deserve a 20% tip. Period. He was slow, inattentive and was never around when you needed him. Yes it was Mother's Day, but at the time of our reso, 1:15pm, the restaurant was not that busy. So there was no excuse for the lack of service. We asked for a manager so we could either have French toast or the auto gratuity removed from the bill.

Once the manager slowly strolled over to our table he tried to gaslight us like what happened to the French toast was not a big deal. I explained I was given garlic butter or butter with food/spices in it and it ruined my entree. He says "oh no problem I can make you a new one. Do you want it to go?" Our family had long been done eating ano my parents left the restaurant long ago as this fiasco dragged on so long. The manager never...

We were really excited to try Aaktun, hoping there might finally be a great restaurant in the area. As someone who travels a lot, I am always disappointed by restaurants here in Johnston County, as well as most restaurants in Raleigh. Unfortunately, Aaktun didn't live up to our expectations. It was packed, which we thought was a good sign, but it seemed everyone was there for their first time. The music was overly loud in an already loud restaurant which made it hard to hear what the waiter (or your own seat mate) was saying. The service was extremely slow. I would say we waited at least 15 minutes after sitting down before we were greeted by our waiter. After placing our order for our salad and drinks it took another 10 minutes to get the drinks. The salad came 10 minutes after that. Our waiter took our entree order when he brought the salad. We didn't see him again until after we were done eating... 30 or 40 minutes later. The person that brought our food from the kitchen was not our server. By the time we were done eating, we had been without anything to drink for a long time.

As far as the food is concerned, it was mediocre at best. The prices are high for this area, and more on par with what I would pay at higher end restaurants in large cities like LA, San Francisco, Miami, etc. The grilled romaine salad was okay, but the "vegetarian caesar dressing" tastes nothing like caesar dressing. It was very one dimensional and tasted more like a mayonnaise than a homemade caesar. I think the lack of anchovy in the dressing is noticeable.

For entrees, we ordered the Enconcado del Mar (Salmon with shrimp, calamari, rice, collard greens, and a tomato coconut sauce) and the short rib (short rib, yucca, salsa criollo, etc). The salmon was ordered medium, but it was cooked well done. The calamari seemed to be frozen and it was completely tasteless and rubbery. The shrimp were so salty they were hard to eat, and the coconut tomato sauce tasted like little more than tomato sauce and coconut milk. I did not see any collard greens on my plate unless they were flash fried and crumbled on top of the fish for decoration. They need to reformulate this dish with a better sauce and probably just delete the squid and shrimp. The rice was overcooked and mushy.

The short rib entree ($39) was even more disappointing. The meat was about as large as half a playing card and maybe 1.5" thick. The sauce was a bland broth. The yucca was nothing more than 4-5 pieces of diced yucca that seemed to have just been boiled with the meat. The pot roast at Golden Corral is more flavorful, if that tells you anything. Drink prices are too high. A cocktail or glass of sangria is $16-20. I ordered the "Double Barrel" ($17) which came served in a seahorse "glass" that looked like it was actually a ceramic vase... I didn't see any writing on the bottom denoting if it was even food/drink safe. The drink was mostly ice and the liquid was at least an inch below the rim. It may have contained 3oz of liquid at most. It tasted fine, but 4 sips and it was gone. I saw a barrel glass on other tables which looked to be larger than what my drink was served in. The sangria tastes fine, but $16 for a glass 3/4 full of ice is a bit much.

We decided not to order more drinks or dessert when the waiter finally came back to collect our entree plates. I just returned from a week in San Francisco and Los Angeles and frequently travel to San Juan, Nashville, DC, etc. In those cities for the same money I can get great food for the same price (or less) and experience service that is top notch. We didn't have either at Aaktun.

They were out of about 90% of their wine list. Wine after wine was scratched through on the menu except a single sparkling, one white, and 2 reds. The inside of the restaurant is nicely done, but the rest of the experience needs work. They need to focus more on the taste than presentation and also hire more people if they're so understaffed. Maybe it was an off night, but I won't...

(Second review)

I’ve given this place a chance four times now, and I can honestly say that I love it. This time, Tannia was my server, and she was just as professional and attentive as Sebastian was during my first visit. However, once again, I had a negative experience with the manager. Her attitude was not professional, and unfortunately, it affected the overall experience.

( This is my first review )I visited Aaktun in Clayton with my family. I ordered the fried calamari, and my family tried the chicken skewers and pork belly. Unfortunately, my dish came out cold. I let our server, Sebastian, know, and I told him I didn’t want anything else since I was already full and just curious to try the calamari.

Sebastian was incredibly professional and kind. He apologized and asked me to give the restaurant another chance. I really appreciated his attitude and willingness to make things right.

Shortly after, a woman, who I believe was the manager, came over with a noticeably bad attitude, asking if I wanted anything else. Her tone felt unprofessional and honestly made the situation a bit uncomfortable.

I don’t usually leave reviews, but I felt like I needed to this time. The restaurant is amazing, and people like Sebastian are the reason I’d come back. He went above and beyond to not let me leave disappointed.

Recommendation: The food and ambiance are great. Just a suggestion to management, please make sure all staff, especially those in leadership, approach guests with the same professionalism that...