Copacabana Cuban Café — Restaurant in Mount Dora

Today was my niece birthday. We are a family of 9 people including a child and a older lady with Parkinson's disease. We went to Mount Dora's town and we decided to choose your restaurant as our choice for lunch, you are 2 hours away from our home. We were very hungry and exhausted from all the driving around to find a parking spot. Ok, we arrived, I was even filming around your entrance as I really enjoyed the painting and welcoming look the place has. Your host sat my family on a table and I went to the restroom. Went I finished using the restroom and walked in the direction towards the table I see that the table was empty and I soon found that nobody was helping my family, they waited 20 minutes, also the waitress after my wife asked if someone was going to help us gave her a bad face followed by a very unwelcome attitude she ended up bringing the bread and butter and literally threw it in the table without saying hello or saying welcome or anything else and walked away. It was made clear for us to understand and feel totally unwelcomed and as if we were bothering the waitress, that's when my family decided to just walk out. After I heard what happened I went back to ask for the Manager and he listened to me. No handle was suggested, no solution was given. All he said is that he was outside when it happened, that he did not see it and most times he tries to be all over the place to make sure all is well. I told him we felt like adding a bad review on google about it. Still, no solution, no handle. We ended up not eating there and went to eat at another restaurant where we were treat it with respect and appreciation. Worst experience ever at a Cuban restaurant She was lucky I was in the restroom. Things would have been different with me. I would have made her pick up the bread and apologize to all of us and first introduce herself, say hello, be polite, be decent and then if we asked her for the bread it would be welcome depending on her approach to us with it.. Whoever this lady was, she was lucky. It happened around 1:20pm on Sat 27th of Jan 2024, and it is now 8:56pm on the same day while I am writing this review now...I really hope it would never happen again.

We checked our review next morning and found the owner or manager replied to my comment and that is unfortunate because my family was there for much longer than the time he stated. That makes me a liar, right? I have pictures my family took while I was in the restroom and my video of when we arrived with time stamps to proof also. I am not a crazy person just complaining for the sake of it. I see you guys have fantastic reviews here and regardless of what I say or what he says, my family will not forgive the treatment your "bread runner" offer to them. No welcoming was given by her at all, no eye contact, her eyes were looking down to the side and with an upset look..Despite any and all justification for her disservice we had never walked out of a restaurant in the past and we go to restaurants all the time.. That was horrible, as well as the NO solution to it. Just a few blocks away there is a restaurant called Las Palmas, they also serve Cuban Food and is pretty, the service was impeccable and the food was delicious. They got our money and a...

The food was meh, the service was atrocious. Waitress was extremely rude & inattentive. The restaurant was not busy at all, there was no reason to leave our table a mess the whole time. We had to ask for empty dishes cluttering up the table to be removed twice.

When she asked our opinion on the food, she became defensive & combative. Saying that we were wrong & began insulting us. Then proceeded to double charge the credit cards of two people in my party. She clearly did it on purpose considering the events that took place leading up to it, hoping we wouldn't notice I guess. Zero apologies from her for anything.

My party was quite pleasant & reasonable & this entire display could have been avoided with just a modicum of professional behavior.

Now for the food;

My 12 year old son liked the novelty of the red snapper. The paella was overcooked & very mushy, unseasoned, not at all flavorfull. The lobster tail I had was so overcooked & rubbery & curled up it could have been mistaken for a jumbo shrimp. The "house sauce" that my seafood was drown in was a tomato based sauce with no flavor. Chef Boyardee has more flavor than that red sauce & it would have been less gritty. Everything just fell very flat.

Several mussels in both the paella & my seafood plate were unopened. Which was the singular criticism we shared with the waitress that sent her over the deep end into a full blown hissy fit. The food was "meh", but the service was nasty.

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In regards to the response the restaurant "manager" gave...

Hilariously inaccurate at this point. There was no one around, so this talk of witnesses is laughable, the restaurant was dead. Whoever thinks they were a witness to anything, only received a one sided account as I'm sure Karen continued running her mouth behind our backs acting like a victim. The facts are, our table & Karen were the only ones that know what happened. When the credit card ordeal was getting sorted her dad swooped in to mediate.

We were not rude or disrespectful to anyone, even as Karen was insulting us & lying about us throwing a mussel. We maintained our composure as she was flailing about like a child whining to her daddy that we were being mean. We won't be going back to this restaurant as not even the supposed manager can give a professional response to a review.

We have always been respectful to waitstaff & will continue to be. This was a case of a bad waitress asking a table what we thought of the food, we gave our respectful honest thoughts that were supposed to be taken with grace back to chef to improve upon in the future. Instead she took personal offense & began spewing venom to us & lies about us to whoever would...

Once again, horrible experience. I live a few blocks away so I keep giving this place another chance but time and time again they have failed. They’ve even gotten a simple takeout order wrong in the past. I rarely ever write reviews anywhere. Regardless of bad or good service but it gets frustrating when it happens over and over in the same place. Tonight from the start we were seated at a table that still had congri rice in several areas of the table and on my chair from the previous party. I asked for a napkin to wipe it down myself. Waitress came and knocked the rice to the floor. I ordered two draft beer and they were really watered down. It took over 5 minutes to get the waitress to notice me flagging her down so I can asked to switch them for bottled. They did. I did not keep time on how long the food took but it definitely took a very long time. I personally ordered the vaca frita with platano maduros and tostones. When my food came out the waitress handed me my food and said they were out of tostones. No biggie, it happens. It would have been nice to know sooner at some point during the whole time we were waiting so we can decide on a substitution. By the time we got the food I just wanted to eat so I went with the first thing she offered as a substitute which was yuca frita. She brought it out for two of us at the table right away. Unfortunately, EVERYTHING was cold. The vaca frita, platano maduros and yuca frita. My wife’s meal was also cold. The only thing that didn’t arrive cold was a churrasco that came on a hot skillet. Unfortunately, my father in law said it wasn’t very tasteful. We are all Cuban and originally for Miami so we are very familiar with Cuban food. I guess that’s why I keep giving them another chance. I was asked how my experience was as I was leaving by a young lady. I voiced my opinion to her and she asked me to please wait a minute so she can get the manager. She came back and said he couldn’t come because he was busy. I said it’s okay and said I was going to write a review about my experience. She was polite and showed concern. I didn’t ask for a discount or food to be comped. I paid my bill and still left a tip out of common courtesy. Copacabana has good live music. Not sure which days they play but I can even hear it from home down the street. I wish the rest of it was up to par. If you’re looking for a better Cuban food option, I’d say go down a few doors to Las Palmas. It’s a smaller restaurant so the wait may be longer but way better food and service. We actually told a party of 9 that were outside waiting for their table to be ready at Copacabana about our experience and we recommend them to go to Las Palmas. I believe they did go...