Mamacitas Latin Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Hollywood

Synopsis: Expensive Mexican food of poor quality. Cheap tequila in expensive margaritas. Great view. Great live salsa music. Whole snapper looked good but smelled from a distance and was expensive. Latino clientele probably there for the music, certainly not the food. Staff did not knock them themselves out, it's a job. Waitress kind to my little one.

Long review:

Keep walking if you expect tasty Mexican food! This is not a good Mexican restaurant (although the whole red snapper looked good, the smell from the next table was quite fishy, and it's $45!)

The chips had no salt or flavor, actually they were a little rancid, and mostly flour, not corn. Tough and bad tasting, as cheap as they come.

The guacamole was 7.95 and made from Florida avocados with no seasoning added, from what I could tell, so correct texture but no flavor.

The salsa with the chips was Old El Paso, the taste is unmistakable. NOT acceptable in a restaurant.

I can't hear my seven year old across the table as I write this. The other reviewers are correct, you can't hear. And our table was next to the boardwalk (brick walk?)

I got an "original" margarita on the rocks. Very much topical sour mix with cheap tequila. Comes in a neon souvenir printed cup that says "Home of the Snapper." I should have expected that.

I have to admit the live salsa music that started around 6pm on this weekday night is really good. One star for that, and for our waitress being super nice to my son. But it did take a very long time to get her attention when we first arrived, around 5:30pm.

One star awarded for the view. A stunner! We stared at a rainbow over the aqua teal ocean most of the time we were there.

I got the fish tacos, two soft (flour) and one crunchy (ALSO flour, which I wasn't expecting.) Fishy, no seasoning, had to douse it with Old El Paso and guacamole. They charge 1.00 extra if you want rice (hard to the teeth) and refried beans.

Son got chicken tacos, all crunchy. Lettuce cheese tomatoes. He was hungry so he ate two of three. He is 7, and usually picky, so kids will eat here. He even ate a bit of rice and beans but elected not to bring those back to the room. He ate a lot of chips and guacamole.

For an adult and child, with one alcoholic beverage but otherwise just water, and one appetizer, no dessert, our bill was $45! Unacceptable when nothing about it was enjoyable except the music and the view.

Overall, this is your typical tourist trap Mexican food, complete with tourist trap prices. How did we end up there? Our room is not far away, and it was threatening rain so we didn't want to go far.

They are in no danger of going out of business for that last reason alone! I can't say why, but this stretch of beach is a ghost of its former self. Beautiful beach, beautiful (if odd since it's paved) boardwalk, low rent clientele and low rent-looking businesses....

Edited to add after reading other negative reviews, there’s clearly an active scam running to get additional tips on top of the 18% service charge despite abysmal service.

The waitress added an 18% service charge for a party of four, did not hand me an itemized receipt and immediately handed me the credit card device with an additional tip of 18% already selected.

We had been extremely unhappy with the service we received, and being scammed into overtipping was the cherry on top. She was tipped 22% and was actively disrespectful to us throughout the meal. We had been ignored by her our entire meal and had been flagging her down for the check for 20 minutes.

We asked her for water 3 times before she came with bottles of water instead of cups. She came with one beer for the table and then came with the other one ordered ten minutes later.

It wasn’t only our table, we could see other tables nearby looking upset and waiting a long time for cutlery and the bill as well. She came with our food and dropped it off without a word, and without cutlery, and all four meals were cold enough we would have sent them back if she had ever physically been in our section. Not only was she inattentive, she was rude.

We chose this restaurant because our host had been five previous times and had excellent service, food, and drinks. We were let down when we’d been looking forward to a fun experience. The music was excellent and every section besides ours looked like they were having a good time, dancing and laughing, while our section all looked pissed as we waited for food, utensils, bills, and most of all, a respectful waitress.

Besides this, the restroom had no toilet paper and when I asked for toilet paper, I was redirected to three different people before one waitress handed me the roll of toilet paper for me to walk through the entire restaurant with back to the bathroom, as if I worked there. While waiting for the bathroom, I saw a waitress take limes with her bare hands, put them on the drip tray on the counter before putting them into the beers. I also saw tortilla chips inside of a large trash can be hoisted up by two waitresses to be put into the chip warmer. The trash can was dirty on the outside, the entire thing...

My mom use to love this place so she recommended that we go to have lunch there today with our family from out of town . The weather wasn’t too great , but we took a bike from where we were at to there . We got rained on and I got off with my two 3 year old nieces while the rest of our family walked there . I stood In front of the cashier area for a good 12-15 minutes before anyone even acknowledged us. Mind you there were about three waitresses counting money in front of us along with a cashier on the side . My 3 year old nieces at this point start crying because we are just standing there being completely ignored . Finally one server notices and I said I was waiting for the hostess . She then responds “ there is no hostess” then finally the other servers who never acknowledged us said “ yes ,there is.” She then apologized and looked like she was going to get her . We wait around another 10-12 minutes for her just to say “ we don’t have a table “ I said I understand that I’m just trying to get our name on the list . She then said “but you can’t stand here .” I said we have been standing here ignored by everyone just trying to put our name on the waitlist , she answered back with an attitude and I said this isn’t good customer service and I believe in good customer service . I will make sure to write a review and share my experience about this . She was extremely rude so much so that when my family got there they asked “why was that lady looking at you with so much attitude.” Finally the real hostess appeared and she was nice . I gave her my name and number and she said she’d call. After I explained to my family how I was treated we decided to walk to a more welcoming restaurant like 4 spots down . We were greeted right away and accommodated . I think it was sad that my mom couldn’t have her favorite fried fish and that my family from out of town had to have such a bad first impression. We also never...