Manna Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Maryland

I just had the worst experience here. I've never been treated so poorely before at a restaurant. To make it worse, this was my first time at this spot. So, I am with three others, one being Dominican and she wanted to eat dominican food. My friend recommended Manna and so we drove 30 min to eat. When we get there everything looked nice so we were immediately pleased. We thought it was only a restaurant but a few people were dancing. We sat down at a table and waited for a few minutes but noone approached us with menus or anything. My friend gets up to go ask for menus to order food, and while we waited, we danced. Again, others were dancing. We waiting another 10 minutes and still no service at all. My friend gets up once again and asked for menus. Still no service. It was not packed but we still assumed they might just be a bit busy. So she asked a waitress that was passing by for menus, and she said yes I'll get you some. Two more songs played before someone brought us the menus and asked us what we would like to order. As soon as she did that, a bouncer with security written on the vest, came over and said I am going to have to ask you to leave. I was shocked and thought maybe he just made a mistake. He said he was told to ask us to leave. So confused and all, I said to the others that we were told to leave. They gave the same confused look and I knew this was about to be an issue. I said that I don't understand what is going on but we can go outside first to sort it out. We all walked out with no problems. When we got outside, he told us that the place is not a club and we were to order food. I was so baffled because we literally waited about 30 min to order food and we were getting kicked out for not ordering food and dancing while others were dancing. Then after we had to explain ourselves, they said we could stay outside and order. Are you kidding? After getting bad service, we get kicked out and for no real reason, they still expected us to order! It was so embarrassing because I've never had that happen to me before. And for them to have security escort us out in front of everyone without us knowing why. They definitely could have handled that better. I was in tears I was so angry. My friend was embarrassed that they represented Dominicans so poorly. I don't know if it was a misunderstanding but regardless, it is not how you treat people. Would not go back or recommend to my friends. And I told the friend who recommended this place and he was surprised. He no longer wants to go back. I hope noone gets to experience...

Just had one of the worse dining experiences in the USA. We asked for "just water" and were brought bottled water which we were charged $2 each. I thought of complaining at that point as "just water" usually means free tap water in the US but as the only Anglos in the Dominican restaurant I brushed it off as a cultural misunderstanding but it was a bad sign and the experience just careened downhill from there.

The restaurant was maybe ¼ full so we didn't expect much of a wait. We waited 40 minutes for the food. Although others were served salad before the meal we received it with the food with one side dish coming around 10 minutes later.

When we paid the waitress she took the WAMU 2-for-1 card with the credit card but then came back and said they don't take the WAMU discount. I pointed out that it wasn't expired and showed her that the description in the WAMU booklet for Manna had no time limitations. I asked to speak to the owner but he wasn't there. She said they hadn't taken the WAMU card for a long time.

Manna is sort of a hole in the wall bar/lounge/take-away/eatery without a lot of curb or interior décor appeal. The only reason we even went to Manna was because of the WAMU discount card. The Manna is still listed as currently offering the 2-for-1 lunch and dinner at the WAMU website. To cap it off it is apparently the norm for other patrons to block the cars parked in front of the restaurant so we had to locate the owners and have them move it so we could leave. We saw 4 successive cars block those spots - most only for 10 minute pickups but one blocked us for an hour.

The food was okay with generous portions but being charged for water, late service, not honoring the discount card, and blocked parking make for a rotten experience. I guess polite service could have softened the experience but it was terse at best. Not at all...

the fact that this is the closest place that serves Dominican food, I think is what makes this restaurant have the audacity that it did. I spent $28.00 on 2 meals, which me and my fiancé drop money on great food with the quickness so we weren't stressing it! It's the quality of food and quantity of food we received. I got the carne guisado (so I thought I did) it was literally just chunks of super dry beef that you can tell was microwaved in the flavorless but over acidic broth. It had no love ! No herbs or aromatics!!! No potato, no carrots! I was so disappointed but the portion size made it even worse! The rice came cold although we ate it right in the parking lot, the "beef stew" came in a small cup! My fiancé had more beans than I had beef stew and that was a main part of my entree, just off that I will never come here again....like ever! Im Puerto Rican so I know how to make all this food at home, i just miss how in New York i didn't have to cook sometimes I can just go out and get some good Dominican/Puerto Rican food that reminds me of back home. My partner had the chicharrón de pollo (fried chicken chucks) so first off the portion was not great again, the rice and beans were both cold and we had literally ate it straight in the parking lot of the establishment so we can say that we think it's been microwaved! The positive is the chicken was very flavorful and seasoned! My partner hates the lil tiny bones all over though he would've preferred them boneless & again way more protein for the price. Safe to say we appreciate the experience but we were left...