Tropicana Diner and Bakery — Restaurant in Elizabeth

Less than 1 star. Went to Tropicana 7/28/18 with my husband to grab a quick lunch while running around. Absolutely horrible service.

The waitress has absolutely no knowledge of the menu & completely ruined our meals. Well, on top of the chefs. She came over & we ordered our drinks. Not seeing the option for rootbeer on the menu, I opted to ask. She first said she didn't know. Then she said, "oh yeah, we do." As if suddenly remembering. So, I asked which brand because not all brands taste the same. She said "Coke."

At this point I just blink at her then repeat what she said back to her. Then I repeated my question again. "What brand of rootbeer do you sell."

"Oh, I don't know. Let me go check." She walks off and goes up to the register, which we were seated next to, so I was able to hear the person tell her "Barq's". My favorite.

So, she comes back over as I'm thinking maybe this experience can be saved & I tell her that I heard and I'd like the rootbeer. My husband orders his drink. We both have questions about the meals we want, this being our first trip there.

I got a top sirloin that was supposed to have mushroom sauce, a side of beans, yellow rice & corn. Their sides selection is atrocious. It was either corn, mixed veggies or broccoli. I'd originally asked for the broccoli, but they were out. Ok, so corn then.

My husband orders a steak of some sorts as well, and it had a weird name, so he asked her for clarification which she explained. & he responded "Ok, as ling as it's not pork, because we don't eat pork."

She just said, "Nope. Just steak."

So, we finish our order & we wait ... & wait & finally get our food. My sirloin is bone dry. They gave some kind of watery, Brown, flavorless sauce to pour over it. The rice was white rice, not yellow. So, I inquired with the waitress. Her response, "Oh, when you get the beans they only come with white rice."

Again, I just blinked at her, said "Ok." & attempted to eat my food. While already being seriously dissatisfied with the service, I still didnt want to make a big fuss. So, I'm looking at the beans and they look thicker than they should be. I use my fork to move it around & at first it looks like there might be chopped veggies mixed with the brand. I sigh, but figure I can deal with vegetables in my beans & mix a bit with my rice and take a bite.

Disgusting. I try the meat. Dry, even after pouring that sauce all over it. I cut a piece off and held it up for my husband to inspect while asking him to note how dry it was. He could only shake his head and stop trying to eat his disgusting food. My husband is a vacuum & will eat just about anything which is why he ate more of the beans than me because he'd ordered them too.

Me, still trying not to make a scene, keep picking at them hoping to force them down when I notice what looks like MEAT in the beans. I got so pissed as I told my husband not to touch his food & pointed it out. "I said that's probably pork." & called the waitress back over.

I asked her, "Is there meat in the beans?"

Her simple response. "Yes, pork."

Deep breath*long blink. "Did my husband not say while we were placing our order that we don't eat pork?"

"The brown beans come with pork, the black beans dont. Do you want me to tell the manager?"

"Don’t you think you should have pointed out the difference as I was placing my order? Especially after my husband explicitly stated that we didn’t eat one of the ingredients in one of the dishes? You can BRING the manager here & understand that we're not paying for this meal. & I'll tell her too."

The manager comes over. Very nice, very understanding & apologetic. She understood why we were paying & saw that we had barely touched the food. She said the girl should have told us about the difference. He didn't try to sell me with another meal because I expressedly told her we didnt want a thing else from this place. We just want her to be aware that her servers need more training & why we werent paying.

I will never visit this...

The host just walked us half way to the table the pointed at the table and walked off. After waiting 15min to be seen, my wife ordered our drinks. Another 15min goes by and all the waiter brought was water. We ordered our food and waited what felt like an hour for 2 burgers w fries. I ordered my burger med-well and my wife had hers well. When the food finally came out. Both burgers were well. The fries that were supposed to be curly came out looking like commas and C's not to mention they were dark and cold. The burgers didn't look very appetizing nor were they but after waiting soo long I really didnt want to have to re order. So I dug right in. My wife was about to eat her fries when she pulled out a hair. So we look for the waiter but as usual he's nowhere to be found. I had to get up and find him. Turns out he was at the fountain drink machine chilling with his boys (ironic because we STILL didn't get our drinks). I ask him to come over because of the hair. My wife explained the situation and asked for another order of fries. He picked up the order we had and examined it and told us that he didn't see any hairs. Shocked that he Thought we were lying I explain that we upon finding it removed it immediately. 20min later a new order comes out actually looking fresh and whole. But at this point we just wanted to pay our bill and leave. Unfortunately we once again had to play Where's Waldo to find our waiter in a 25%-30% full restaurant. After tracking him down I asked for the bill. He unceremoniously handed me the prayer and went back to his conversation. We go to the front to pay and the front lady asks us how everything was. Now usually I'd just say fine and just never return but my wife and I felt so disgusted by everything we felt obligated to let her know. After telling her exactly just what kind of experience we had she simply said, " oh ok... Well it comes to $27..." Now I'm aware that she couldn't really do anything to fix the problems seeing as how the dinner was over but she could have at least empathized with us and/or apologized. But no we received no such courtesies. In all fairness I have been there prior with 0 problems which would typically warrant 2 stars but that night was so horrendous that I felt I had to give the...

So I’ve always had an amazing experience at this lovey diner. The problem isn’t the diner itself. More so the staff. It has always felt like home. Everyone is super respectful and friendly. However, recently it has come to my attention that there is a new waitress that I’ve never seen before. She is slim, tall, and speaks both English and Spanish. One particular day she was taking my boyfriends order as well as my own. She continuously kept on giving her attention towards him and not me as a customer. As she came back around a few more times she only asked him if he needed anything else and completely ignored me. The whole entire time she only payed attention to my boyfriend instead of myself which I thought was rude since I wanted something to else to drink.

My mother had a similar experience with this lady as well yesterday. She went to celebrate with a family friend’s son for his graduation. This waitress came to take everyone’s order and said that him graduating from High School didn’t mean anything. She said that when he decides to graduate from somewhere important to come back again and let her know so that then she could congratulate him. This is very unprofessional and should not have been said at all. He also ordered 2 plates of food and she told him why 2. That it is too much food for him since he is pretty slim. She was noticeably angry with him ordering 2 large plates. She was not the one paying for the food…

From what I’ve seen here is that a waitress and waiter should always be respectful and polite whenever there is a customer. We’ve noticed that she was mostly polite with anyone that is NOT Hispanic. She’s been kind with anyone that is black, white, and etc. But when it came to us it was as if she did not care and treated us unfairly. We did not leave a tip in both occasions because it was not deserved. She should be taught the right way of treating people especially in customer service no matter who it is.

Everyone else in this diner is truly amazing and deserve every bit of recognition but ever since she’s been working here it has made all of my friends and family not...