Restaurante El Norte — Restaurant in Isla de Vieques

Upon arrival we were greeted very nicely and sat at a table. I tried to order the wontons nachos and I asked our server Nish if any of the three options had any mayo. She asked me if it was an allergy and I told her it was a preference. She assured me that there was no mayo in any of the entrees and I saw one walk right past me and noticed that it was lobster with mayo so I specifically told her, "Can you please make sure it has no mayo and that all the sauces are put on the side just in case." She assured me that it had no mayo and that she would let the kitchen know. She came back with the sauces on the side and delivered spicy crab. It was full of mayo. I told her I think I got the wrong order because I ordered spicy tuna without mayo. She took it away and she told me that she must have misunderstood me. When my spicy tuna arrived, it came full of mayo and I tried to eat it to not be rude. Seeing as though I am also a server. It was covered in mayo and I couldn't eat it, so I called her over and we told her hey "we cannot eat this. This is covered in Mayo and we asked you if it had mayo and you told me it didn't." She told me well then it's going to be raw tuna. And I said well it's still raw tuna even with mayo on it and that's what I was expecting. Then she was like well it already comes on it and I said well why did you tell me it didn't have it?? To make a long story short, she got super upset and I told her that I didn't want anything that it was fine. And I just ate food from my kids. It wasn't that big of a deal. I know people make mistakes especially since I'm a server. She never came back to the table or apologized! We had to call over another server to ask for the check and she went to get the girl. The girl came with the check full of attitude and charged us for the nachos that were untouched. She proceeded to go to the back and talk badly about me to the rest of the servers in Spanish when we spoke Spanish. We are from Puerto Rico! Then when she came back with the bill fixed she skipped over the tip and we told her no, We still want to tip you. We just want to let you know that you seem like a nice girl. However, you never came back to check on us after the whole incident. She never apologized she didn't say anything. She just gave us our bill and left. It was an awful experience. We treated her with dignity and respect even though the mistake was from her and she never admitted fault. My husband and I are both in the service industry and work for big companies as servers and couldn't believe How disrespectful she was even when we were trying to be nice and gave her more than 20%. . Very disappointed. A simple apology saying I didn't know it had mayo can I please get you something else would have sufficed. The rest of the servers gave us dirty looks and we said have a good day and silence. So rude. I wish I would have spoken with...

My husband and our two daughters visited at the end of our week long visit to Vieques. We had no other issues at any other restaurant or vendor on the island. Most of our food was fantastic, but our teenage daughter didn’t care for what she was served. She ordered the ahi tuna nachos and thought the texture of the tuna that is mixed with mayo etc, was not good. She politely asked the waitress if she could have a different meal. This doesn’t happen often, but we have NEVER been told our opinion is wrong and that they wouldn’t accommodate us. The waitress was sweet and apologized but said that because they’ve “had issues” with other customers complaining, that they could not make her something else without charging for both meals. We said fine, and asked for a side of Mac and cheese, but would like to speak to the manager.

The manager blatantly told us that we were wrong. That Caribbean seafood is different and that because the owner is a fisherman, they were correct in everything they make. She also repeated that due to “other customers” being a problem, they would no longer be able to make us happy. The manager told us that “locals understand the difference” in the food they serve. This was infuriating! Our family travels all over the world regularly and is aware that things vary, but we have also never been spoken down to in such a way and told that they would make no concessions for their customers. We had NO other issues on the island. We loved the rest of our meal (that we were spending well over $100 on, even without charging for the meal we were unhappy with) but that was all negated by the terrible service and a manager that made our teenager feel lesser than because we aren’t locals.

After all of this, it took 20 minutes for the Mac and cheese to arrive just as we were packing up our leftovers to take home, because our daughter hadn’t eaten at this point. We were also charged for the Mac and cheese that wasn’t served until the meal was over.

Food was great, the fact that the staff is trained to be completely rude and not accommodating to well paying customers, was not. Super bummed that our amazing meal was ruined by an awful staff (not the waitress though, she was clearly just being forced to behave this way-she even preemptively skipped the tip option on her card reader, even though we absolutely would have left a tip for her, she must be used to this. The issue is with the management and whoever is...

If I could give negative stars for the service, I would. The food was actually pretty good, but we were there for almost three hours because of the service. Jessica walked up to our table and sighed audibly. When I asked her if she was alright, she mumbled something and then asked us sharply for our drinks. Someone else delivered our drinks about a half an hour later and we didn’t see her again for nearly an hour to take our order. We were in Vieques for a week and this was our last dinner. She single-handedly made it pretty miserable and then when we got the check, she was angry that I pointed out she charged us .50 for water and ice (which we never got) at a tax rate of over 20% plus her tip of 20%. I asked her that since she charged us for it, it would be great to get it. Instead she gave me a dirty look and took it off the check. I tend to be an over tipper because I really believe in supporting local communities but I really have not experienced this kind of ugliness in a long time and wish I didn’t have to note this but it is what happened. She still got a 20% tip because they add it to parties of five or more (we were 5, including a toddler) but disturbed by the terrible way we were treated by Jessica. Everyone else at the restaurant seems lovely. It was also not busy when we were there Memorial Day, but even though she was not in any rush to serve us, she did keep clear plates that we were still eating from when any other server would have asked us if we’d like it packaged. As frequent visitors of Vieques, really hope the restaurant understands that this behavior is...