Bistro Casa Azul — Restaurant in New York

Went to this location yesterday for my company’s holiday party. When I tell you this place was a disaster from start to finish. I stayed for an hour hoping this would get better but man it never did and I decided it be best to leave then lose my mind towards the owners who provided us a terrible experience. Firstly, we had a party of 15 people and were offered two packages one being $40 which included buffet style meals the options of food were -GuacaMonica and fresh Tortilla Chips, meatballs in Salsa Chipotles, Flautas Doradas de Pollo, Fajitas de Pollo con tortillas y Arroz Azafran. Sounds good right? At least that’s what I thought. Then the second package being $80 which allowed you to part take in the buffet style meal and also open bar for 2 hours. Still sounds good right? Well it turned out this was a disaster. Firstly this buffet style meal was a total rip off!!! These items were offered in miniature size … they weren’t even things you could make a meal out of they were appetizers. Which was never told to us. For 15 people the amount of “appetizers” was not enough. They put 2-3 bowls of meat balls now the size of the bowls were small. These bowls they put out combined wouldn’t have even filled a small metal tray that you would use when you make food for events. So that’s to tell you how much food they actually gave for 15 ADULT People. The chicken fajitas were not served with any tortillas or rice as they advertised to us. We just got fajita meat and again similar to spicy meat balls small bowls. Not even a full small tray which was crazy! The flautas were miniature size and similar to everything else. I think what they gave wouldn’t have even been half of a small tray. And guaca and chips again small portions. 4 small bowls not even cereal size bowls of guacamole with chips. For the amount of money we spent. For what it cost them to make the food they served us and what we paid. We were definitely robbed. And on top of that we weren’t supposed to even sit down. They expected us to stand because the owner Maria when I asked her where I can sit she said that this is a mingle party you don’t sit. You grab some appetizers and walk and mingle. Why in god name would I go somewhere to stand for two hours. And eat standing. That is sooo ghetto, when my coworker who planned the event with the owners asked Maria about the rice and tortillas, because they never served us this. Maria gave the response if that was included you would have saw it on the table. When in email and text changes this was what was said and promised to us. So they don’t even follow what they promise and then they have the audacity to give you attitude when you ask about why are things not there. Totally unprofessional, also another thing a week prior to our event they tried to raise our prices. How professional is that. That’s not how any establishment should do business. My company has been in the area almost 15 years so we are very big on eating at local establishments to support businesses in our area. But this was a terrible evening. I left paying $40 and did not have even an actual plate of food. I left hungry disappointed and upset. I will never come back to eat at this place. I would never ever recommend this place. This place should be ashamed of themselves at how they treat customers and how they behave with their nasty and snotty comments towards us. Please save yourself the headache and...

Terrible service. Would not recommend at all. Incompetent staff that drank on the job instead of waiting on customers

Group of 5 sat outside. We ordered a round of margaritas and they were good. It was about 6:20pm on a Saturday, and we asked if we could order food. They said the kitchen was not open but would open around 6pm - we said it was 6:20pm and they said it would "actually" open at 6:45pm. We decided to wait because the drinks were good so we figured the food would be as well.

We asked after 1 round of drinks if the kitchen was open, he said just for chips, salsa, and guac. We ordered some of that and ate it happily. After sitting there for over an hour with no word from the waiter that the kitchen was open for dinner (the waiter was sitting on the table outside next to ours drinking a cocktail, not bothering to come and refill our chips), we decided to grab tacos from a nearby restaurant and bring it to our outside table.

Only after we ordered tacos from another takeout spot did the waiter finally come and tell us the dinner menu was open - note that it was past 7:30pm on a Saturday and we had asked twice already if we could order dinner.

He said we aren't allowed to have outside food and made it very awkward, stating that it is hard to run a small business and that is why we weren't allowed to bring outside food in. I responded that we had been ordering multiple rounds of drinks for over an hour supporting their business, only getting other food because the dinner menu was not being served.

The waiter was incredibly rude, saying that we were messy and making him clean up after food that was not their restaurant's food and he even resorted to asking me questions like "what I did for work" i.e insulting my character and implying that I have no idea what it would be like to struggle or run a small business. I wish I had responded "you let us sit here for over an hour with no dinner service, and if you had let us stay here and eat our takeout we would have ordered many more rounds".

Would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. Terrible service, rude staff, and a haughty taughty vibe even though it was completely empty besides us.

P.S. two other weird things: We asked for a chip refill and with our salsa and he said "well, you're going to have to pay for it you know" in a condescending tone (we would have been happy to pay and we assumed we would have to, but the tone was unnecessary) The bathroom had a sliding door and after I went the waiter asked me to please close the bathroom door after going to the restroom because it would disrupt the vibe of the restaurant (there was no one inside, literally 0...

DO NOT!!! GO HERE!!! I have lived and worked in the area for over 20 years and I've visited many if not all the local places and this place stands alone in how horrible an experience I had with my fellow co-workers. $800 got us a FEW, I must repeat, a FEW appetizers and 5 out of the 15 people got open bar. The bartender was rude and ill tempered from the beginning. The female waitress was even ruder than the bartender. $800 didn't include the seating at the place. The food was some of the most unflavored Mexican food I've ever had. There's tons of better food, service, and prices right on the little Mexico strip of 116th from 1st Ave to Lexington. The bad food and lack of food could have been tolerable but not them denying us seating and providing the worst service I've experienced in my adult life in a restaurant. Poor customer service is a huge no-no for me. I've walked past this place many times and at many hours and I've never seen it full or close to it. For what we were given, we were scammed out of $800. I would never go back even if the food was free, WAY too many better places right around the corner. 0 stars needs to be a thing because nothing was done right. Lastly we were made to wait in the rain for 30mins while they got ready when the place was completely empty, worst customer service known...