Caribana Island Grill - Gurnee — Restaurant in Gurnee

My friend and I were at six flags so we thought we'd give this restaurant a try. I was super excited but very disappointed in the end.

I ordered a steak rice bowl. The food was cold and had this weird refrigerated taste. The rice was undercooked, and the steak was pieces of ground beef-like meat instead of an actual chopped up steak. The rice had some tomatoes, salsa, corn, and tasted like canned items thrown together. Seriously, I have not had worse food in a long time. I started thinking to myself why would I pay $14 for a food item I can do much better at home?

My friend got a jerk chicken with corn on the cob. The jerk chicken tasted like boiled chicken with jerk sauce poured on top (it wasn't seasoned on the inside at all), and the corn was literally plain water boiled. No butter, no salt and pepper--nothing.

The drinks were mid and was probably the only part I enjoyed.

The service felt unorganized. We didn't get water or utensils until we asked for them after the food came.

But the worse is yet to come. I woke up that night with horrible food poisoning. The last time I experienced something like that to that degree was in elementary school as I generally have a strong stomach and try a lot of different food, so I have no idea what was in that steak rice bowl.

I like to support new restaurants, but I really can't for this one. Everything about it besides the rainbow lava lamp and drink were not up to any restaurant standard in my opinion. Maybe it was an off day for them, but I'll never be...

Went in to dine with the girlfriend on a very slow Thursday afternoon. Owner was in, there were only two other tables in the entire restaurant. Drinks came out fast, we put order order in and roughly 20 minutes in to waiting the waitress said they ran out of oxtails, no problem. Could have told us sooner, but oh well. Another 15 minutes goes by and now the owner tells us they’re out of chicken thigh so it’d have to be boneless instead unless we wanted to wait. Again annoying, but not a huge deal, we opted not to wait as we already have been waiting about 40 minutes at this point. We then waited another 20 minutes and at this point we kindly said we’d pay for our drinks and leave. It was a beautiful 70 degree day and I didn’t feel like wasting it all day inside a restaurant. We then went to pay and they tried charging us $26 for a Diet Coke and a lemonade. After I pointed out that didn’t make sense she then realized it was the wrong table and then corrected it.

To the owner: This cannot happen on your watch. This is embarrassing. And to not apologize for it is completely unacceptable. Perhaps you should take a hospitality class before opening up a restaurant. No one should have to wait over an hour for a plate of chicken which should already be prepped the morning of. I don’t foresee this restaurant lasting long, but if you plan on being in business long, take accountability and don’t let this happen...

Where do I start? I'm very confused on how this place has 1 star let alone 4. We made a reservation for a party of 15 as soon as they open...giving them 3 hrs to prepare. The food is so nasty not cooked well at all.. Most things seem like they came from freezer bags dumped in a water bath. Some food we ordered never even came out, even though the waitress kept coming back asking us what we had even ordered AFTER she wrote everything down when we initially ordered. Some of our childrens food came out last...something I've never heard of.. The so called "waitress" was rude when we had complaints or issues, she could not keep up with 3 tabs on a party of 15 & she charged my family members card some random amount that didn't even come off her tab. I understand not being used to large parties but on top of this, NOT ONCE did the owner or waitress apologize for our poor experience or even attempt to offer compensation for the fact that not 1 of 15 PEOPLE liked their food. Jerk chicken not spicy at all, has a strange sour small, beef ribs are more like cambells beef stew since its just mystery meat chunks in broth, curry shrimp was so watery no flavor and shrimp texture was like chewing on a gristle. I wouldn't recommend this place to my worst enemy. A terrible experience on my...