Rebecca's — Restaurant in Edgewater

I’m extremely disappointed in my experience at Rebecca’s for my daughter's first birthday party as I had high hopes in everything turning out great. There were so many aspects of things that were discussed that weren’t produced in my event and the customer service from Sonya was terrible!!!! When first viewing the place to rent for my daughter's birthday Sonya was extremely unprofessional discussing how unhappy she was working at Rebecca’s as she received new job duties and that she wasn’t getting paid for the extra work. She talked about her plans to leave and continue about how unhappy she was to work there. Her attitude about her unhappiness of working at Rebecca’s reflected poorly on her customer service the day of my event.

When arriving at a restaurant to decorate, things that were discussed before the event wasn’t set up correctly which delay the time of decorating for the event and made it that we were still decorating during the beginning of my event.

She had breached the contract that we had. There were 2 packages for drinks of the event the 3$ per person or the 6$ per person. I had picked 3$ per person as I felt it fit better with my event. Sonya never gave my guest any drinks apart from my package. She didn’t offer any drinks to my guest but was charging people for things that weren’t part of my package. She was offering people drinks from 6$ package and charging me per drink that was ordered randomly. This had brought my bill higher than it should’ve been. This is extremely upsetting because not only did the majority of my guests didn’t drink I got to be charged more for drinks when I shouldn’t have. I got less for what I paid for and was SCAMMED!

Another issue that I feel was extremely heartbreaking is she didn’t allow my cake to be cut and told me that she won’t be able to cut it because there are only 30 mins left to the event. I was never told a cutoff time to cut the cake or anything. If I was told a time I would’ve worked accordingly to that time which I was never provided. This had ruined my event because who doesn’t cut a cake for a birthday and it’s my daughter's very first birthday.

I was so pleased with how the place was decorated and the style of restaurant which had led me to do my daughter's birthday here. I could’ve chosen any place to celebrate her birthday but I chose this place because I had such high hopes as it would be perfect. I did enjoy the food as it was delicious. My major disappointment for my event would have to be the customer service I experienced at this place. Sonya and the other female who worked with her were very rude and unfriendly. Sonya was very unprofessional and unorganized. She is in a role that she can’t handle and it is reflecting so poorly on this restaurant. I will no longer ever come to this restaurant because of this big disappointment of the experience I had. Nor would I recommend this place to anyone as many people who asked me about this place I will no longer recommend because of the service I received. What makes a place is good customer service and this place DOES...

The bottom line is that we cancelled our entree orders and left after being there almost an hour and a half for a birthday dinner. The detail below is constructive feedback for the restaurant management on the failure in service and hospitality we experienced.

I understand you had a private party in another room, but it wasn't a surprise to you, and it's not our problem. Don't take the reservation if you can't provide the service we're paying for on a night out.

My wife made reservations for my birthday on a Friday night a few days before Christmas. We got there on time at 7:15 PM. My wife noted in the reservation it was a birthday. They looked at our reservation information on a tablet when we checked in, but there was no acknowledgment of my birthday at anytime while we were there.

We got menus fairly quickly and ordered shortly after. We ordered a simple house salad ($10) to share as an appetizer and two entrees ($25 ea).

After we ordered, we heard a waitress at the table next to us describing several specials. No specials were offered at our table.

We waited 20 minutes for the salad before I got up and went to the servers standing around to ask about it. One said he would check, and it came out a few minutes later. While we waited the 20 minutes, no one stopped by the table to let us know they didn't forget about us. The salad wasn't impressive.

There were pepper mills on a service table, but they never asked if we wanted fresh pepper on the salad. For $25 an entree, offer fresh ground pepper.

When we finished, we had our silverware diagonal on the empty salad plates, and it took a while for them to clear them. The server asked if we wanted clean silverware. I know a lot of cheesy places have the expectation for you to keep the same dirty silverware through all courses, but why would you ask, as if we'd say we'd like to keep our salad silverware on the table for dinner. Just change the silverware without asking.

Then we waited again. You would think after we waited way too long for the salad and had to ask them about it, they would make sure our entrees came out quickly or at least check on us while we waited. Nope. We waited over 25 minutes and were visibly impatient. While we were there, most of the staff stood around about eight feet away with us in direct view and were definitely not too busy to check in on us and let us know they didn't forget about our order. No one acknowledged the delay or that we were waiting. We had been there an hour and a half and hadn't been served the entrees, so my wife got fed up and went to the group of staff to cancel the order and get the check. They said the food was on the way, but she said it was too late. One of them said they knew there was a problem with our table because of the salad, yet they did nothing. They didn't even comp...

When I write a review I do it for two reasons. The first one is to inform other users and the second is hoping that business owners use the feedback to improve. With that being said, here’s my review of Rebecca’s:

The restaurant is in Old River Road. In a small stretch of street occupied by good restaurants like Pa De and Cafe Archetypus. Beautifully decorated with dim lights, low hanging chandeliers, a great mural of Celia Cruz by Bash and soft Salsa music playing in the background, it is the perfect date night setting. Their back patio is beautifully decorated with Instagram worthy lights and looks like it can accommodate 10-15 people for private events.

Now to the food:

When you go to a Cuban restaurant in Union City, West New York, Jersey City and North Bergen, you expect good food or at least the classics done right. This was not the case.

We started with the tasteless chorizo, followed by the self-proclaimed “best bean soup” outside of Miami. It tasted straight out of the can, microwaved and seasoned with salt and pepper. The guacamole was good, the plantain chips were thin and crispy. The empanadas looked double-fried and was made with the same chewy meat (read below).

The Churrasco was ordered medium and arrived well done, almost burnt and very tough to bite. Accompanied by a very small side of Moro “dirty rice” that had no flavor.

Today’s special was a pepper salmon which was missing its namesake ingredient. The salmon tasted like it was thawed improperly. Soaked. It arrived with an odd side of pico de gallo and mash sweet potatoes that had been left in water for too long and had lost their flavor.

The Ropa Vieja was the worst offender. It lacked depth, flavor and was so chewy that my friend needed water to bring it down. Asked for hot sauce to add some flavor and were presented with Cholula (good for eggs) and Yucateco (excellent but overpowering).

The paradise sangria mix was just water, sugar and a few tiny chunks of pineapple.

We skipped dessert of course.

The wait staff noticed how displeased we were with the food and out of an abundance of caution added a 20% tip to a group of three. $250 for burnt Churrasco, frozen salmon and straight-out-of-the-can beans felt like robbery.

I hope the restaurant improves the food so that small stretch of Old River Road continues to be a source of good restaurants.

PS: Please get a stronger hood vent. Smoke leaked out onto the dining room from the kitchen and the smoke alarm went off a...