La Fuente Restaurant, Bakery & Cafe — Restaurant in Florida

Terrible service. If you are looking for a Latin food place where they can give you good service, the food is good and they respect you as a customer, this is not the right place to do it. Unfortunately, a very bad experience that we live today in this place that they were not even aware of to collect their 15% gratitude that really in our opinion does not correspond to them and I have already briefly explained what happened.

When we arrived at the place we were aware that we would probably take a good time to eat due to the lack of staff for the number of people inside the place, but even so we decided to stay and give them the opportunity, unfortunately we did not expect the service to be so bad.

We initially requested 3 empanadas, at first this waitress brought us only one she told us that we had to wait for the others that were still in production and at that moment we requested that she bring us some sauce for this, after 10 minutes we were still waiting and we requested You are there on two additional occasions and they never came. I decided to stop and look for them myself, and it was too late because our food was hard and cold. When you arrive at any restaurant, the first thing they always put on your table apart from the menu are napkins, cutlery, and dressings. Why wait so long for something that should already be part of the service and courtesy of the restaurant? In addition to this when the remaining food arrived it was burned. We requested two soups and they only left one without spoons, the second soup was left after 20 minutes had passed and this because we had to remind them again and apparently this waitress did not like that he was reminding her what we were missing in the table since with her face every time we asked for something that she had forgotten, she showed it something that looks very impolite, the accompanying arepas of these soups were not well cooked, that is, they were raw. The other requested dishes were also cold and did not taste good, did not meet our expectations. On three occasions we requested our invoice and it never arrived at our table, so we had to stop again and go to the counter because of all the bad experience we were experiencing at that time, anyone would want to get up from the table and leave, because the situation does not It was not comfortable at all, when we requested the breakdown of the bill to verify what they were charging, this same waitress was charging us 15% or 20% of this service which for them is mandatory to pay it just for eating there since it is an additional percentage That you pay for the service, and as soon as we told her that we did not want to pay it because at no time did we feel that this had happened in the time we were there, she just laughed at us and sarcastically told us a bad service ?. It is worth mentioning that going we told her why and that the manager was witnessing this whole situation and she never took the place of the employee to mediate the situation. The employee just took the bill away from us and she left us standing there for long minutes without giving us any solution. Something that seems disrespectful to us, as an employee can laugh and make fun of the client when he is complaining telling you and explaining the reasons why he considers that they did not have a bad experience and that for that reason we were refusing to pay that percentage of gratitude because in our opinion it does not correspond to them. Being aware I would like to know if after reading this described here in detail without any alterations, you would pay a percentage of gratitude for...

I am extremely upset and disappointed at this establishment. We have been recurring customers for a few years of La Fuente restaurant. Prices have gradually increased since we first started visiting (which is expected in FL). We just finished our meal about an hour ago. Customer service has for the most part been good as well as the food; however, our experience today set a different tone. After being done with our meal, server asked if we want it the check. We agreed to check out, she brought her own payment device to the table and proceeded to tell us that our check was $97. I gave her my card and shorty after I asked about the tip. Waiter stated that the tip was included in the check and she proceeded to grab the card and left with the machine to process our check. I asked why was the tip included since we were only a party of 3 (2 adults and a 6 year old ) she said that 18% gratuity is automatically included in ALL bills. I communicated to her that It is CLEARLY stated in their menu cover page that 18% gratuity is ONLY included in parties of 6 of more. She then responded that ‘this is how things are done here’ and that many people have shared the same concern but she had no authority to resolve the situation.

Just an FYI, I consider myself a good tipper since I know servers are highly dependable on their tip;However, You MUST Communicate that 18% gratuity automatically included in ALL bills and not just large parties. You CANNOT Force automatic tipping on customers without telling them. Also, I did NOT received an itemized check prior or AFTER paying my bill. It seems that this action is purposely done, so customers cannot see what they are paying for. This establishment FAILED to communicate their tipping Policy to me and other customers which is indeed ILLEGAL and a violation of FL Statue Title XXXIII Chapter 509 Section 214. Since my visit constituted a violation of FL law, I will be reporting this establishment to the Better Business Bureau. I will not be returning again.

To owners response: with all due respect, but I did kindly ask my server to show me where was that policy stated (she did not provide anything where the tip policy was written) nor did she provide a menu or a bill displaying automatic tipping policy. I then proceeded to show her our menus where it stated that automatic tipping was only for parties larger than 6. Be advised that even if you had such policy displayed by the register, but you do not take dine in customers to the register for payment (our case since we were charged at our table), no itemized bill is provided before or after payment(our case), policy is not displayed on menus or dine in tables (our case) then it can be determined that I was not made aware of such policy in accordance with FL statues. I am all about supporting local businesses but please know that there are procedures to be followed when...

How this business has 4 stars? People, don't go to this restaurant until they eliminate the 18% service charge they put on top of the tip. I think that charge shoud be illegal, they are taking advantage of people not realizing about it. Why are we, the customers, obligated to pay for it? Why do we have to put up with another tax? They said if we don't agree to pay the 18%, we can't buy food from them. No, thank you! I think this is an abusive business behavior we shouldn't be putting up with. They pretend we pay them regular taxes, tip and also service charge? They rip you off. The customer service is horrible, they ignore you. Also, the owner is arrogant and rude. They are an embarrasment for the Venezuelan people. The meat of the arepas and the pernil were super salty, I told the waitress we couldn't eat them and she said in a mean manner "that's the way we do it"; she didn't say I am sorry or nothing nice, and she charged us for them. Food is super expensive, read their menu prices and compare, $18.99 for a piece of plantain and a little portion of meat, $18.99 for nachos or for one burrito, and $20 for a pabellon, rip off! Go to another Venezuelan restaurant. Read the condescending, sarcastic and mean answers the owners gives when a customer negatively reviews them. Their hidden charge is being exposed too in the reviews of another restaurant they own in Goldenroad, Orlando. There are thousands of Latin food places in the Orlando area to go to where they respect you so we will...