Capital Tacos & Chicken — Restaurant in Florida

Hi! Me and my fiance have lived in the area for 3 years and always have driven past this location. We heard about it but weren’t ready to give it a try initially! Today, we saw a Facebook post inviting the first 15 people in to try a new chicken sandwich for free, so we figured hey why not go now? We like chicken lol. We were greeted by the staff and everything was fine and dandy until… it came time to order our chicken sandwiches. We figured we’d also order a side of friends with the queso because we didn’t feel good with simply buying nothing, we wanted to support the restaurant somehow! I’m not sure if it was the owner (it sounded like it) but my fiance is a picky eater. He likes bread, chicken, and that’s that lol. I’m more open to trying new things! When my fiance was asked what he’d like on his sandwich, the man (again who may be the owner?), questioned multiple times if that’s all he really wanted. We then learned the chicken sandwich is spicy, which my fiance doesn’t do so he had asked if he could get it without the sauce.

The man seemed pretty irritated that my fiance didn’t want to try it with the sauce and all the other toppings and was very vocal about it. Some people don’t like spicy things, they don’t like spicy sauces, they don’t like poblano ranch, and they don’t like lettuce 🤷 If you’re experimenting with a sandwich and advertising it as ‘free’, you can’t get upset and release your frustration on your customers if they want to modify it to their liking. I could completely understand if the gentleman stepped aside and said ‘hey, we’re experimenting with this sandwich and I’m trying to get feedback on the sauce alone. So if you don’t want that, I’m sorry but I can’t offer it for free’. And we would’ve been fine with it. Just communicate that instead of getting upset with your customers over something they didn’t know.

I suggest in the future, on your Facebook post, you mention that there are no modifications allowed to be made to the sandwich so you can get feedback on the way it’s made originally. (Personally, you can still get feedback on the sandwich. The chicken isn’t the only important quality). The man went as far as saying, with an attitude, “We’d encourage you to not leave a review of just a chicken sandwich with ketchup. Since that’s not the point of this sandwich. It won’t mean anything” which is baffling to me. It’s funny because I wanted my sandwich with the sauce, and he still seemed upset that I didn’t want the lettuce or the poblano ranch. I don’t do lettuce or ranch! And over and over again, he kept clarifying if that’s how we wanted them made which kind of started to make me feel uncomfortable lol.

When you are promoting something you want to try and get feedback for, it also introduces people (like us) to your restaurant… when you treat them with kindness it encourages them even more to return to try something else new. Which I was going to do because the Breakfast Tacos sounded so goood. But after how we were treated, we definitely won’t be going back…

Last feedback you wanted, my sandwich with the sauce was decent. I feel like the sauce could use a little bit more honey, and the bread isn’t anything special. It’s just bread. Fries were hot! But sour, I assume it’s probably lime so if you’re into that, then enjoy! (Also a little sad the place doesn’t have a soda fountain and a simple can of soda is nearly 3 dollars.)

Wish the best of luck to you guys and hopefully you’ll treat...

Capital Tacos does everything right... except customer service. We moved to Land O' Lakes about 10 weeks ago and have probably dropped close to $700 there so far (I have 4 kids and it was our go-to place to eat great food, bring our guests, food for people helping out around the house, etc.) The food quality, marketing, and dining areas are all phenomenal. They even have this cutesy Communist propaganda thing going on in their advertising; I'm a fan of it. However, here's why they get 2 stars:

In this day and age, service is king. The staff members at Capital Tacos are hit-or-miss, but I never once (out of 9-10 visits) felt appreciated as a customer. Not once. I get that they're busy, but you are completely too close to the customers to not interact with or assist them. I feel like asking for a straw was a complete burden to them. When I walk in with an average of 5-7 people at a time, and drop $100+ to go there, do you really think I'm an complete jerk for asking for a straw? I like to think that I'm good with people... my company sends me all over the country every week to teach about creating customer experiences, managing human behavior, etc. I think I am emotionally intelligent and go out of my way not to piss people off... I just wanted a dang straw because they ran out; to Hell with me, right?

I guess the real kicker is the "rewards" system they have. That's right... I used quotes... I had to because I'm not sure what the rewards are. You see, it doesn't matter if you spend $8 there, or $100+... you still only get one punch on the card... that really IS Communist! They're not ALL Commie, though - their prices are reflective of the Capitalist PigDogs that we are... very high prices... which I was surprisingly okay with since the food was so tasty... and before I knew that they could care less about me or my patronage. I don't make a ton of money, but the food was actually that good that I would pay their prices! Either way, I digress... the "Rewards" system should be fair. They should try giving a punch on the card for every $10 you spend, or something normal like that. Oh, and they ran out of their Reward punch cards for a long time, so there was like $200 worth of no punches (actually, it was only two or three visits, so it really doesn't matter since the $ amount means nothing, right?) I recently brought the suggestion to the new cashier and she asked a guy in the back (manager?) to explain the punch card process (she was obviously and rightfully confused since I was only getting one punch after a $100+ bill.) You guessed it... this guy could care less. "One punch per visit," and off he went. Awesome. I'll just shut up, sit down, and eat my meal like a good little Proletarian.

So, 2 stars it is. Food is fantastic, just don't expect them to care about you or your patronage. They have half of a great thing going... I really do hope they get better... it comes down to a simple talent and culture fix that would make them absolutely huge. I may or may not try them again one day, but until then we'll be hitting up Tijuana Flats...

If I could give it a zero star I would. Completely shocked when my chicken bowl, fountain soda, kids taco came to $17! The place was a mess, the soda machine was overflowing onto the floor. The ice was serve yourself out of a large beach cooler, completely unsanitary. With everyone touching the ice scooper and then placing it back into the same ice-gross!! When the meal was ready, it was lettuce shreds one chicken finger chopped up about three cherry tomatoes chopped and some kinda of sauce. My daughters taco was less then impressive. They could have least folded the taco over, this was a soft shell flat on the plate with chicken and unmelted cheese on top. Tables were dirty, we had to clean our own. It was not a busy night, there was 3 other sets of people there when we came in arms they were already seated. Speaking of seats we had to change our table three times just to find one that didn't have the sun shooting straight in our eyes. Why? Because they had those long blinds missing at every other window. I remember when this place was cafe Fresca, this place now looks like a run down truck stop on the way to shady town. Please do yourself a favor save your money and go somewhere else. We came here only because it popped with "rave" reviews. I never write reviews but felt it necessary as part of my town to give an honest opinion. Maybe the other reviewers were to go orders?! Never again and will def be spreading the word, as well as calling the health department regarding the ice situation. 100%...