Mi Cabaña — Restaurant in New Bern

I’ve been eating here for two years and the food and service seems to be declining rapidly. I have also noticed a bad odor when going inside like a backed up or dirty drainage system, not pleasant at all. It also needs a good cleaning, the tables are clean but the walls and chairs could use some extra attention.

I usually order the steak fajitas but lately the meat it’s chewy and you only get two very small tortillas and they’ve been coming out cold. I asked for more tortillas and was told I had to pay for them so I opted to just eat the steak and vegetables with a fork. My daughter ordered a combo plate with a cheese and a chicken enchilada. The cheese enchilada looked very flat and the cheese was not melted! Prior to getting our food our waitress came over to the table and asked us if we had cash because there system was down. I told her I didn’t and she was nice about it and said hopefully the system would come back up by the time we got our lunch. Shortly after that happened a very RUDE employee, I think her name was Anna came to the general area where we were sitting which was by the bar and yelled “YOU NEED CASH MONEY TO EAT YOUR FOOD, OUR SYSTEM IS DOWN” She then instructed us to go next door to the Chinese store to get cash from their ATM! No polite excuse me or I’m sorry just a loud bellowed announcement! I’ve seen her in the restaurant on almost all my visits and she never seems to be enjoying her job and I don’t recall ever seeing her smile. I felt she handled the situation very rudely without any class whatsoever! I did end up having to go next door to use the ATM to pay for my meal but as we all know there is a fee, in this case it was $2.50 When the waitress brought my bill I handed her the cash and the ATM receipt and asked that they deduct the fee from my bill, she was a bit surprised so I asked her if she really thought I should pay $2.50 to eat there? She took it to the manager and they did remove the ATM fee from the check. This was sadly the final time I will patronize this restaurant, mostly because of Anna’s rudeness and the continuing decline in...

We dined here a few days ago and the service was not great. Food was ok. We paid with our debit card as we have almost always done when we dine out. Well to our surprise last night, we discovered that our account had been charged an entire separate transaction in addition to our expected transaction which did include the tip. I called the restaurant to try to get ahold of a manager and was told there is no manager available. I also have sent a private message to them, but there’s not been any response. We have dined at Mi Cabana at other area locations and have never had a bad experience until New Bern. If you decide to dine here, please use cash, having to cancel bank cards and file fraud charges is a pain. The separate transaction occurred after our expected one had posted…so that would lead us to believe one of their employees took a picture of our debit card in order to manually enter a separate charge. Save yourself the stress and just pay with cash. Lesson learned.

**Replying to Mi Cabana: I don’t live in New Bern, so I tried calling and was told you have no manager available. So why would it be any different in person? Also, I have the original receipt from us dining in, and why would I show you my card when you just had someone in your establishment charge a separate transaction to it? My bank’s fraud department will be contacting you as well. I also left a private message on your Facebook with my contact information so this could be resolved. I have yet to hear anything from a manager or someone...

The wait staff was stretched thin due to the full capacity crowd after church on Sunday. I can understand that, but I could hardly wave somebody down to get their attention. We sat thirsty without drinks for quite some time. The steak on the steak fajitas is garbage. Tiny little burnt chunks of dog meat. Get the Carnitas if you want fajitas. Awesome! Salsa is pretty darn good. I asked for a side of grilled shrimp because I was really hungry and… Wow! Delicious! Cheap! Another reason they’re not getting five stars is the soda pop. My understanding is this town is the root of all evil… The headquarters for Pepsi-Cola. That may or may not be true, but I asked for a diet Coke. People are very particular about their cola brands. I love Diet Coke; I hate Diet Pepsi! When I called attention of this ruse to the brain-dead waitress, I could not make her understand! She insisted they were the same thing. I told her that, when I ordered a Diet Coke, she should have let me know that they don’t have it! I asked her to take it off the bill ($3 !!!) and she acted like I was asking for complementary fajitas for Two! I gave her one dollar tip on a $50 tab to make sure she didn’t think I forgot to leave a tip. She could not understand me. Just to see, I went up to another waitress and asked her “Do you serve Pepsi, or Coke?“ And she said “Coke… no, wait, Pepsi. They’re the same aren’t they?“ Note to self: Nettie, BRING MY...