Habaneros Mexican Grill Orlando UCF — Restaurant in Florida

It's safe to say that I will never be visiting Habaneros again. My boyfriend and I went to the Habaneros by UCF tonight for a dinner and not only was the food disappointing-especially for the price- but the service was appalling. We ordered the chicken fajitas, a vegetarian dish, and a coronarita, which was awful- and I'm genuinely saying it was the worst margarita I've ever had. I initially was a bit taken aback by the taste of it because it was a bit strong. So I stirred it and let it sit a bit while I ate some of my food. After waiting about 5 minutes, I decided to take another sip- it was awful. So I patiently waited for my waitress to come around again so I could let her know that I wanted to return the margarita because I didn't like it. After she gave me the impression that I would still have to pay for it even when I hadn't consumed it, we tried to speak to the manager. He was not only incredibly unprofessional but offensive as well. We told him that we didn't want to pay for something that we didn't drink and he basically told us that we had to pay for it either way. And after we told him that we wouldn't return due to the service, he in few words told us that we could pay for it and not come back. This left my boyfriend and I livid because the manager not only did not at all have any concern for a customer but was entirely unprofessional. We decided to leave our plates altogether- I had eaten most of mine and my boyfriend left his completely- and they still tried to make us pay for everything when we were leaving. We had no problem paying for my dish because I actually had consumed it. But the manager also attempted to go toe-to-toe with my boyfriend and spoke ill of us- saying we just didn't have the means to pay- to his employees when we refused to pay for things we didn't consume. All of this in front of other customers. I have never been to any place- whether it be food service or retail- that has offered such poor service. So if you want to have yourself a good night, I would skip this place altogether. And if you do happen to come, God forbid you have a problem with anything because they will not only speak ill of you, make fun of you, but also be of absolutely no help. I have no idea how any place can be run by such an unprofessional individual. The manager didn't care...

I am a longtime repeat customer of habaneros and have been visiting as a loyal customer for 3 years multiple times a month. After the first visit I realized the drinks were very expensive and began to bring in my own drinks in order to counteract this. This may have been against policy but the servers knew I tipped well and that I was a polite customer so they never gave me any trouble over it. I would even do this is large groups of 5-6 of my friends all of whom were white. I recently visited with a friend of mine who is Arab and upon walking into the restaurant was refused service upon the basis of “no outside drinks” but this is clearly in contradiction to my previous experiences when it did not matter. I can only conclude based on how often I visited and never got issues that the real issue was my Arab friend. Nothing else had changed as compared to my previous visit the week before. To think that in 2021 this sort of stuff still happens is wild to me. I’ve never had this sort of discrimination happen to me and almost doubted its existence in the modern day but seeing it happen in front of my eyes hurt to watch. I won’t be returning to habaneros and if you have any friends or family that aren’t white I don’t recommend...

Fernando was a great server We went to Habaneros last week and the restaurant is looking tired and old. I believe they should make an effort to improve the restaurant, nobody wants to go and feel bad about sitting in a sad looking place. The first server that came to our table was a girl that look mad, like she didn’t want to be there. She took our drinks order and disappeared for over 20 minutes. It was very hot and we were so thirsty. I noticed the other tables getting served quickly and efficiently by another sever so I called him and asked him if he could help us instead of her. I had never done this before but we were upset the other lady just left us there without any consideration. Fernando was so quick and nice and happy and he served us so well that he is the reason I am writing this review. I love supporting local businesses and I also hope the owner of the restaurant reads this and understands that having happy and hard working servers makes all the difference in a restaurant. The food was decent and I wish them luck but I won’t be back cause I don’t want to risk getting bad...