ETARU restaurant — Restaurant in Hallandale Beach

Huge service flaws - would not recommend. Had a reservation for 7:30pm. Arrived at 7:30pm and was told there was no table currently open to fit our reservation request. Hostess offered a temp ill-positioned table while we awaited a table that fit the criteria of our request, and said she’d tell us “as soon as a table became available”. 30 minutes later without a single host/hostess or waiter dropping by our table to give us an update on table status or offer us water, I walked back to the host stand to ask if our table had opened up. 2-3 other parties who were behind us in the line had since been sat in the exact area we were awaiting.... and judging by the hostess’s reaction when she noticed me, she had forgotten about us. Although the other parties behind us had since been sat on the oceanfront terrace ahead of us as we waited, she mentioned there “still weren’t any tables available fitting our criteria”, and offered to just have a waiter drop by our table “as soon as possible to serve us there”. At that point, begrudgingly we accepted. She brought us menus, and we begun to wait. 20 minutes later without any water (still), a waiter finally dropped by the table and asked “if we were being helped” (ie - he had no idea we were awaiting a waiter.... and just asked out of curiosity apparently). We responded that we hadn’t been helped yet and had been waiting at that point almost an hour without service. No “I’m sorry to hear that” response from the waiter.... just an awkward pause at which point he asked if we’d like something to drink. It was at that point that we realized the hostess hadn’t given us beverage menus.... solely food menus. We waited some extra minutes, ordered our drinks (which took approximately 5-10 minutes to arrive for 2 beers), had to request water as we waited (as it was still not provided to us by default), and then we waited for our food. The majority of our food came out at normal / expected wait times, with the exception of one item, the sweet potato with cheese (one of only 6 food menu items we ordered), which didn’t come out with the rest of the food. This time we didn’t mention the dilemma just out of pure curiosity to see if the waiter would realize, or if perhaps there was just a delay in the kitchen for that one item. After 30+ minutes of eating and finishing the rest of our food, the waiter checked in on us to ask how everything was. We mentioned at that point (as it was obvious it had been forgotten about, without the waiter dropping by at any point to apologize for the delay and/or mention he was still waiting on it). His response was “oh! My apologies about that...... I’ll be right back”. He didn’t come right back.... more than 20 additional minutes to receive this one side dish (obviously it had been entered into the system after we told him that we hadn’t received it yet). At last we were finished with our meal, looked for our waiter who was nowhere to be found (has he hadn’t checked in on us for more than 20-25 mins again at that point), so I flagged someone else to notify them we were awaiting our check. A random staff member was sent to our table about 10 mins later and said just “Hello, I’m here to take your payment?”. We paid, and against our better judgment we left a 15% tip on our $82 bill, out of sheer sympathy due to COVID. The reality is that Etaru sits at a scenic location facing the ocean and that the cooks do very well at their craft, yet the front-of-house service staff at this location falls far short of what you’d even expect from a location half as expensive as theirs. For a fine dining location, the service standard was entirely unacceptable for frankly any patron. I wouldn’t even expect this many missed service points out of a Chili’s or Olive Garden location. It took us 2.5 hours from online-reservation arrival until departure, which could have easily been shaved in half, had the FOH staff been properly trained. We will neither be returning nor recommending this to...

I had the most horrific experience in this place. The only reason I am giving this place 3 stars is for their servers and okay food. We stayed at Sian next door and after enjoying morning at the beach I walk in to Etaru with two kids on a Sunday, around noon. I am greeted by what appears to be a hostess. She asked if I had a reservation which I didn’t then she moved on to the people that came after me who had reservations so I waited until she was done with them. She comes back with another lady(employee) with her who then shows me the menu and says that it’s a $70 brunch and we don’t offer a la carte menu. It’s better if you go to our beach bar. I agreed, I needed to eat and feed my children so I can catch a flight home later. We go downstairs sit at the table, get the menu and for the next 10-15 minutes no service. Understandably, it’s Sunday and lunch time, bar area was packed. I go back up to the hostess stand and let them know that I can’t wait for the service at the beach bar and I would like to get a table at Etaru. She kept on insisting that I need to go back to the beach bar. After I firmly told her that I was not going back to the beach bar they agreed to sit me down. I asked for the table by the water so we can have a little breeze from the water plus a nice view, but all of a sudden that area got closed off according to her. There were plenty of tables to the left, completely in the shade, but they chose to give me a table directly in the sun. As I walked to our table I asked them why do I feel like I have to beg to get a table here, totally ignored me and one of them walked away as the other lady seated us down and clearly saw how the sun was right in our faces. 5 minutes later when it became unbearable to seat there under the sun, it felt like we were sitting in the oven I came up to them again and asked to change our spot for indoors since they can’t find us a decent table outside where we can enjoy our food and not feel like we are roasting. Do you think I heard even one apology from them during this whole ordeal, NO, I didn’t. One of them walked us to our indoor table and as she walked away she blurted” You are welcome!” Excuse me, did I have to thank you for belittling my family and I, putting me through hell just to get seated???? I think her job description need to be reinforced to her by her management. I believe she got it all wrong! You don’t make you customers feel miserable!!! You welcome them and try to accommodate their wishes. If it wasn’t for my hungry kids and our time constraints I’d never give them my business. On the other note, servers were very nice and accommodating, buffet food was okay, good variety of food. I ordered octopus as my entree and enjoyed it a lot. This place left very bitter taste in my mouth, especially, one of the ladies. I’ve never experienced anything like this at any other establishments. What could of been an enjoyable experience with my kids turned into a nightmare because of one person who doesn’t know how to do her job and has zero...

We recently booked for a party of eight for a family dinner at this restaurant. When we walked in, we were very impressed with the atmosphere. They originally set us outside, but the music was loud so we asked to be moved inside so we could have conversation with each other. Inside was quite lovely and we were super excited to be eating there. However, the food and the service were, surprisingly, deplorable . By the time we were done, the average price per person (food and cocktails )was over $100. For this, I would expect good food and service. Nothing could be further from the truth! The restaurant was not busy, so there was no reason to have such terrible service. Our waitress was actually nice (which is why I gave it a three star instead of one), but all of our orders were slow, and served haphazardly. I’m not sure what the problem was? The bar was not that busy and yet our drinks came 20 minutes after we ordered them, and some did not come at all. Our food was all served in a very disjointed manner, some people got their food other people had to wait another several minutes .The food was, for lack of a better term, pitiful.For instance, I ordered what was labeled as Korean fried chicken. What I got were little overcooked chicken nuggets. The euchre fries looked like they came from a box. The sushi was super surprising—bland flavor, mushy and weird. One of the diners actually had a whole carrot in the middle of his roll. In all the years I have been eating sushi, I have never seen a carrot rolled into a sushi roll. Two people at the table ordered the octopus and I can assure you that our octopus looked nothing like the picture shown on the website. Nobody at the table loved their food. I can understand if one person was underwhelmed, most of us were grumpy by the time we left. And as normal restaurant custom, a 20% gratuity was added to our large bill. And let us not forget that you pay $16 to park your car there so we also added another $32 for parking plus the tip that we gave the valet. We all walked away more than aggravated and disappointed. The one bright spot of the evening was we ordered a plain hamburger for a young teenager there, and the hamburger actually looked very good. He seemed to very...