Sofrito Latin Cafe — Restaurant in Dr. Phillips

First of all; Many entree dishes are advertised and weren’t available. This gave us a bad first time impressions, false consumers’ advertisement. I suggest , if you don’t have the entree listed on the menu available, you should remove it from the electronic board menu. If it’s only available on specific days, you should make a note on the nenu as well. I spent extra time selecting an entree due to the fact that many entrees weren’t available. It was very disappointing!

You order from the kiosk or counter, you are asked to pay there line a fast food Restaurant or a convenience store and on top of that the want you to pay for the tip, which is absurd when you are not even being served at all. It was ridiculous that you have to pay for the tip up front. It’s a very bad practice, we are great tippers when service is given above and beyond! This practice is a mediocre and poor customer service at the kiosk asking to first pay your bill and provide a tip! Unbelievable!

Additionally, they don’t take you to a table, instead they give you a table top stand with a number, and tell you to pick a table and place the number on top. Ridiculous practice! We don’t feel the atmosphere of being at a restaurant, instead, we felt like we were at a fast food restaurant chain like McDonald’s, Burger King or other fast food places.

Moreover, we ordered side orders and were wrongly delivered, for example: ordered white rice and received brown rice, without any explanations The server or waitress delivers our food and never came back to ask if we needed drink refills or if we needed anything else. As I mentioned. The atmosphere is compared to a fast food chain, not like a traditional restaurant where you expect quality service overall.

Furthermore, and nevertheless, you have a photographer asking to take you pictures with the restaurant logo and for “free”! Again, false advertisement! She took a picture of our neighbor guests and a few minutes later, she said that for the pictures there was different price packages starting at $15.00. We understand, that being a professional photographer is a business, but is the wrong business at a fast food restaurant called “Sofrito Latin Cafe”! We experienced too many mishaps, poor customer service, food was extremely salty, all the false advertisement, unavailable food, or entrees, asking to pay first and on top of that, demanding the tip and more! Ridiculous! We’ll never come back, nor recommend anyone to this fast food chain. We are wondering if you have been reported to the BBB for all the false...

You know a place is good when the people inside are smiling and having a great time. Was in Orlando for a couple days and couldn't have made a better decision than going here for dinner.

The place was fairly occupied when we were there but the hosts were amazing to guide us through the self ordering kiosks and the ordering counter. The ambience was warm and relaxing, a homey vibe. the windows are big and let in plenty of natural light. They have a courtyard seating adjacent to the main hall.

The menu is fairly expansive and covers a range of appetizers and main courses. They have dishes from all over Latin America. We ordered their Pollo Al Horno, which is half bone is roasted chicken, seasoned with thyme, rosemary, garlic and other seasonings. It's a Peruvian dish. There was a choice of three sides. We chose white rice, beans and black beans. We also ordered Sopa De Pollo, chicken soup made with potatoes, carrots and celery, the Dominican way. We paid at the counter and were assigned a number. It wasn't long before our soup arrived. It was served hot in a cast iron pot and wow it was amazing. Having driven for more than five hours, it felt so good to have that warm soup. I really loved the chicken and the potatoes in it. Most chicken soups use chicken breasts and I don't really like them that much but this was different. It had leg quarters and pieces of thighs, with bones,too. The soup really felt wholesome. Next was our Pollo Al Horno. I could tell it was great just by looking at it. The presentation was amazing with the roasted chicken, white rice, boiled yukkas and the salad placed neatly on the plate. It tasted even better than the way it looked. The chicken was just well done with a crispy skin and a succulent meat inside. The thyme and rosemary seasoning were popping inside my mouth. I just felt the amount of rosemary could have been toned down a little and the skin could also have been buttered a bit more, in my opinion. But it was great. The boiled yukkas with the chilli and mint paste was simply amazing. I felt like I had never tasted yukkas that good.

This is a great restaurant and if you love Latin American foods or want to add richness to your food experiences, this is the place to go in Orlando. The prices are great too and the servers and hosts are super helpful...

First, this not a Cuban restaurant as much as it is a Latin spot. The meals are from many different Latin countries. The concept is pretty nice, the execution is terrible. Expensive for what you get as well. Second, You have to order before you sit down, which doesn’t allow you to look over the menu and talk it over with your friends or family, because your holding up the line behind you and you feel rushed as the cashier waits. Then your asked to leave a tip, without even seeing the service your going to receive. You basically have two choices to drink besides the bar, soda and water. They over charge you for water, yet have free water around the restaurant in glass jars. But again, you have to order before you can sit down. The food presentation was nice as the pictures show, and the food was tasty but I ordered boiled yuca which came out cold and hard, the red beans I ordered were cold, literally cold, apparently the warmers were broken or on low. I also ordered yellow rice which was scraped from the bottom of the pot because it was crunchy hard. The pork that came with my meal was delicious but again not hot at all. I don’t know who was supposed to be checking food before it goes out but they were not on tonight. My wife had steak with white rice and sweet plantains. The steak was ok, but the three small sweet plantains were disappointing. You can’t mess up white rice so it was fine but that is a low bar. Both meals came with a tiny side salad that came with dressing on it, which I would have preferred did not. We paid over $50 for this meal that we were very disappointed in. And regretted it. The staff doesn’t interact with the customers to check to see how your meal is, and do a terrible job on cleaning tables, and the floors were not kept up with as there was food everywhere. I saw on several occasions, the staff wiping a table and wiping chunks of meat on the floor that people would walk on. At one point, the cleaner knocked a chunk of onion on to a chair which I had to warn the next customer not to sit on. It was New Year’s Eve, but not busy at all and definitely not to where you could say oh they just missed it. In conclusion, won’t be going back, poor food execution and too expensive for...