Luminarias Restaurant & Special Events — Restaurant in Monterey Park

The first time I came here my experience was great, my group and I enjoyed our food and the service was consistent. The second time though, was at the very least disappointing. My partner and I were sitting at our table, for 20 minutes, waiting for a server to approach us and never did. Not even to take our drinks, appetizers, introduce themselves at the very least. We literally had to flag someone down at the 20 minute mark, because we realized no one was gonna come up to us. If we hadn’t we probably would’ve been waiting for an hour before someone noticed we hadn’t even been served a glass of water yet. I’d be more understanding if the place seemed understaffed, but there were SO many bussers, servers, and managers walking around. Cleaning tables, attending to other guests, even just chit chatting in the background. Which is why my partner and I were so baffled that no one had come up to us. No one even bothered to look in our direction, even though when we were very obviously irritated and looking around trying to catch somebody’s attention. But once we finally managed to approach someone and let them know how long we had been waiting, a host came right over and took our order of appetizers/drinks and apologized, and we eventually got our server who apologized as well and even gave us some onion rings on the house. He did explain to us the situation was due to some confusion at the host stand which I can’t blame him for that, but I still can’t wrap my head around how not one single person even bothered to check on us, regardless of whether they were our assigned server or not. I haven’t even had this kind of experience at a chain restaurant before, which is why my partner and I were so irritated to experience this at such high scale place. Especially given the fact that it was our 5 year anniversary together, and I chose for us to come here to celebrate because I enjoyed my experience the first time and assumed the second time would be just as enjoyable for the both of us. And while we did enjoy our food, our mood was still soured for the rest of the day, and needless to say we won’t be dining there for a third time. I don’t blame the individual host/server for our experience as they at least tried to rectify the situation, but the entirety of staff who just walked past us and didn’t even bother to glance in our direction for 20 minutes. Another thing that irks me is that even after that, we didn’t get any type of apology from a manager or supervisor. Even though there were very clearly a few of them on the floor, attending to other guests. Why they couldn’t spare a minute to come up to us and apologize for the major inconvenience is beyond me. And I don’t like to assume, but the only thing I’ve been able to piece together as of why we might’ve been treated so poorly is because we were a much younger couple compared to everyone else dining there. The only reason I say this is because another young couple sitting directly behind us was having similar issues as well, which we only assume couldn’t have been a coincidence. Maybe the staff didn’t vindictively refuse to serve us, but they very clearly didn’t think we were worth as much effort as other guests, leaving us feeling completely humiliated. So I’m rating 2 out of 5 stars, because while the food was good, it was not nearly good enough to ignore the fact that we had to basically chase down someone in order to get served in the...

My son’s 1st birthday last 01/25/25.

I’d like to start by complimenting the great accommodation we received from you knowing that this was a last minute event. You were very helpful and easy to work with. Also, we loved the Buena Vista Ballroom as it was perfect size for the number of our guests and the overall venue was beautiful! Though, there were many events that night, the sound of each room didn’t interfere with one another, so that’s a plus!

Now, the overall service was OK to AVERAGE. The servers were approachable. Though, we rate them OK is because they don’t refill guests’ glass of water unless they asked. Shouldn’t that be part of the service? They were very quick to pick up the plates from table to table even if the guests’ aren’t done yet. Also, we kept asking them for missing entrees even if we had tags to indicate the orders and don’t they have a checklist at the back to ensure completeness?

Lastly, the food — other than the salmon, unfortunately, we weren’t very happy with the food. I understand that our requests to you had some last minute changes (more on a week to couple of days before the event) but why would they serve uncooked chicken? It had blood in it. Sure, they may have given us a new one but that was something below par. The Filet Mignons were very tough as well as the Flat Iron Steak. They were super dry though we asked for med to med well. Even with a steak knife, they were still hard to cut/slice. That was the saddest filet mignon I have ever seen. It wasnt even seared! I know the orders were med rare - med - med well, but it looked like a lump of meat fresh from the butcher and plated. Its the saddest filet mignon I have ever seen! There were only 3 orders of chicken breast and one of them was raw! Chicken breast, RAW!

I have decide to celebrate my sons birthday there because I had a couple of dinners there and the food was excellent. I didnt know having to use a ballroom will he a worse experience than it was in the restaurant itself.

I had to ask multiple times for water refills, even the soda, we ran out! I had to request for appetizers for guests because the server were not putting appetizers on the plates of guests if they were not sitting on the table! People go to the restroom and talking to other guests in different tables. Some came straight to the airport!

The beverages were supposed to be included and unlimited. And the dessert, cafe con leche the description says it comes with ice cream, and a coffee cigar. It only came with the saddest looking bread with filling inside and three coffee beans. They even want to charge us if we brought a cake to be sliced 5$ per person.

Another issue we encountered which was very embarrassing — 2 of our guests had their Filet Mignon way TOO LATE. All guests were done with their entrees but they haven’t had theirs. We kept asking the servers to the point where they looked stressed. Unsure what happened there but I was told that it had something to do with the miscommunication with the chef.

The charge per person is not cheap and the administrative fees were above average (avg: 3%-20%). We wanted to be completely honest with our experience at Luminaria’s. I hope you understand and be open take this feedback to ensure customers’...

This wasn’t my first time at Luminarias. I was genuinely excited to return because of the amazing brunch buffet I experienced back in 2019. Unfortunately, the excitement quickly faded, and disappointment followed throughout my entire visit.

First off, I’ll start with a positive: parking is very easy and accessible, which I appreciated.

When we checked in, the host asked whether we wanted indoor or outdoor seating. I told her inside, but she started walking us outside anyway. I confronted her on this, and finally just said either would be fine — so we sat outside. Weather was not bad, however the view is of the freeway and smoggy skies. Lovely!

Once seated, it took about 15–20 minutes before anyone came to acknowledge us. Our server eventually arrived and apologized, saying he hadn’t realized we were his table. That wasn’t a great start, so we decided to order everything at once, assuming service would be slow.

We ordered:

(2) bottomless mimosas

(1) iced tea

(1) guacamole with chicharrons

(1) asada starter

(1) empanadas starter

(3) Belgian waffles

(1) hangover hash

The first round of drinks came quickly, but lacked presentation, and oddly — none of our drinks had ice. Even the iced tea came without ice. Strange. After that, the service dragged badly. It took almost an hour to even attempt a refill, and the second iced tea never arrived at all.

By the time we finally saw our server again, all of our food was gone, our glasses were empty, and despite ordering bottomless mimosas, we had only managed to get one each. I expressed my frustration, and he did bring two more, but when we placed another order, the drinks came back wrong — almost as if he hadn’t listened at all.

He could tell we were upset, apologized, offered more mimosas, and explained that they unfortunately were short staffed. The restaurant was not packed at all - which is SHOCKING for a brunch place on a Sunday in California when brunch is such a popular outing. That was an immediate red flag. Maybe if they didn't prioritize a live DJ for a half-assed brunch experience- they would have more funds to enhance the experience and market for more business.

Overall, what used to be a fun and memorable brunch experience in 2019 has completely lost its spark. The buffet brunch being gone is disappointing, but the real issue was the lack of attentive service, sloppy drink presentation, and overall disorganization. Sadly, I don’t see myself returning for...