Rincon Criollo — Restaurant in Cleveland

Okay so here it goes, About 3 months ago I wrote a review saying that the food was so good and the staff was friendly… so I thought. Here’s the update, I have been going to this restaurant for quite some time now, the food usually (for the most part) has been good and up to about three months ago it has stayed that way but since then I have gone to this restaurant several times and have had nothing but problems. As with any establishment you have a signature dish and with the Rincon there’s no exception, this place is pretty well known for their “Jibarito” sandwiches and if you have a signature dish such as this one you would think that you’d make sure it’s served up hot and fresh every time which was not the case for my friends and I which on several occasions we have gone there and had to complain that the sandwiches were old & cold. Now they were quick to bring us out fresh sandwiches and at that point we found them to be as expected but come on people, why should I or anyone else for that matter have to complain about our food just to make it right the first time. Most recently I paid another visit to the Rincon Criollo Restaurant located at 6504 Detroit Ave Cleveland, OH 44102 and I had to wait almost ten minutes to be seated when I could clearly see for the street that there were tables available, then after being seated I noticed another family being at a table across from me. What I noticed next is that a server was at their table side within moments and brought them their drinks while I still waited to see anyone, then their waitress came and took their order… me, still no waitress. The waitress went back to that other table and brought appetizers and all the while staff has come up and down that isle and not one even bothered to make eye contact with me much less ask if I have been taken care of… more than 15 minutes later that other family was enjoying their meal and I haven’t received a Hello. Now I had a friend with me and in our conversation I was complaining that I was about to get up and complain to the owner and that service I was receiving or a lack of but instead my friend got up and said something, while doing so the owner just so happen to come out and had made eye contact with me and I signaled her over, I explained what happened and she assured me that she was going to “take care of it as well as me”. Now I don’t know about you but I expect that if you tell me that you’re going to take care of it and me means that 1) I’m going to be attended, 2) my food will be up hot and fresh and 3) that I will be compensated in some fashion either a discount or remove a meal off of my total bill… none of which happened. My Jibarito came up almost at room temperature and my friends food tasted very bland… damn near no flavoring, when this was brought to the owners attention instead of correcting it she started to give excuses… WHAT??? Seriously! Needless to say I was very surprised and made a conscience decision at that moment that after all of those bad experiences I will no longer be going to this establishment. It’s a damn shame because I love Spanish food, it’s part of my heritage but for crying out loud I can either make it myself (which I think mine is better anyway) or simply go elsewhere which unfortunately is what this place “the Rincon Criollo” is forcing me to do. But don’t take it from me… go and see for yourself and hopefully your experience will be better than my past...

I will not be returning. I have been to this restaurant several times, the service is not all that but the food is OK so that kept me coming back until 02/16/2018, I walk in at 6: 40 pm or so with 3 other people. The place was packed. I was waiting in line for 20 minutes until I went to the employees and asked if there is some sort of list or something since no one told me anything, I have been here before and I was aware that they do not have waiting lists but I asked anyway and surely enough, they had a list that I had not put my name on because no employee told me or even asked me what I was there for. When we were called to our table, I asked the waitress if they had what we wanted available since I overheard one waitresses explain to a customer that they were out of a lot of things. I just wanted to make sure they had what my kids wanted to eat before sitting and waiting. Surely the waitress told me they had what I wanted and that I was fine so I sat down, ordered our food and just waited. 37 minutes after ordering, I get only my plate out of 4 people that were sitting on the table with me. I do not think its OK to just serve to one person especially when there are kids in the table, waiting to eat as well. So, I just let it slide and waited for the other plates to arrive, after 6 minutes of waiting I decided I should eat before it gets cold. 25 minutes after serving my plate the waitress comes to our table and tells me they do not have what I ordered, that they had just ran out of it. Mind you the restaurant was packed of people just waiting for their food to be served just like us. Where did the food go? I have no idea. I told he waitress, why wait almost an hour later to tell me that, I specifically asked her before being seated if our orders were going to be able to be taken. The waitress was rude and very unapologetic as to why it took so long to realize they had run out of food and why take so long to tell me. She just said. We ran out just now. No “sorry” no “let’s make it up to you” nothing. Needless to say I left the establishment and refused to pay for my half eaten meal since I had lost my appetite due to their lack of...

First off, let me start this off by saying this review is based off of our last visit , which was last week. My wife and I have been frequenting this restaurant for around 3-4 years now. I don’t know what’s going on recently, but for the past 3 visits we’ve been here, the service has been declining rapidly. Our last visit here, we were seated promptly. However, when it was time to take our drink orders, it took our sever at least 20-30 minutes to ask us what we wanted to drink. We placed our food order the same time we ordered our drinks. Also. I did notice there were only 2 servers working the dining room on a Saturday afternoon around 4ish. It looked as if one of the kitchen workers was helping as a server. We have noticed lately that they have been consistently running out of our favorite food items on a regular basis. We try to get there early so they don’t run out, but it doesn’t seem to matter. In my opinion, alcapurias should never be out at dinner time. Ever. But yet, our favorite thing to order on the menu, seems like they’re always out. Having said this, my wife and I are going to take a long break from rincon criollo to let them work out whatever is happening at this restaurant. I hope they fix whatever it is. Hopefully just a staffing issue or whatever. But we won’t be coming back for a long while. Also, when we got our food, it was good. But the portions were smaller and rice to bean...