Maria Bonita Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Orem

A Disastrous Dining Experience -

If I could give this restaurant zero stars, I would. My experience here was hands down one of the worst I’ve ever had at a sit-down restaurant. From the moment we arrived, it was clear that customer service was not a priority—unless you count being rushed out the door as quickly as possible.

Despite making a reservation two weeks in advance for seven people, we were crammed at a table meant for four, shoved near the kitchen like an afterthought. The staff was rude, unapproachable, and made no effort to accommodate us comfortably. The service was beyond abysmal. Drinks were forgotten, refills were non-existent, and our waitress barely checked on us—except to aggressively push To-Go boxes on us multiple times, despite us clearly not being done with our meal. Even basic courtesies, like offering dessert, or offering straws were completely overlooked.

To make matters worse, we were never informed of an hour time limit, yet we had multiple servers hovering around our table, making us feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. They repeatedly tried to take drinks and plates we weren’t finished with, making it blatantly obvious that they wanted us gone—even though we had only been there an hour. When we questioned this, the manager, who was outright hostile, told us we needed to leave to make space for other guests. She only addressed the Spanish-speaking member of our group, completely ignoring the rest of us, and threatened to charge a fee if we stayed longer. Had this policy been communicated when we made the reservation, I would have never wasted my time bringing my out-of-town guests here or even communicated as we sat down to set the expectation as my guests and I had professional matters to discuss and it was a complete embarrassment for me at how uncomfortable they were made to feel.

Adding insult to injury, the food was lukewarm and unimpressive—certainly not worth tolerating the horrendous service. This restaurant is a prime example of how being busy is no excuse for treating guests like an inconvenience. My experience was completely ruined by the lack of professionalism, poor service, and outright hostility of the staff. I will never return, and I strongly advise others to take their...

Our son picked Maria Bonita for his birthday dinner. It was busy at 5 pm and we had a 25 minute wait. We got seated and ordered in good time. Chips and salsa were great. Our meals came in good time except for one which happened to be for the birthday boy. 5 minutes after the other 5 plates had been delivered we asked a passing waitress how the last plate was coming. She checked and said it would be another minute or so. (Obviously missed!) We finally received our last dish and had a nice meal. Our bill was brought to us and we paid, leaving an 18% tip. We were then instructed, not asked, to leave as it was busy and people were waiting for our table. On our drive home we started doing the math and it seemed wrong. We looked at the receipt and noticed that we had been charged for 6 soft drinks. Only three of us had soft drinks and the other three had water. We were charged for two appetizers rather than one and the last dish which was late was double charged as well. I called Maria Bonita when we got home and explained the over charge to them. They calculated the over charges and stated that we could come get a gift card for the over charges. I asked them to just credit our debit card and was told they couldn’t do that. All they could do is give us for a credit on a future visit or we could come back and get a gift card. She stated the total to be credited/gift carded and the math didn’t seem quite right again. She didn’t subtract the 18% tip from the overpayment and stated that she couldn’t decrease the tip as that was the server’s earnings and she couldn’t touch that. I then noticed that I had also tipped 18% on the tax as well. I like to tip on service/food quality, not tax! I drove back to Maria Bonita from Springville and asked to be refunded for the overcharges and they held firm with the inability to refund. This was our first experience at Maria Bonita and I would not return except I have a $50 gift card that I need to use. I would rather spend that $50 at Joe Vera’s, La Casita or...

11 years ago I worked near Maria Bonita's and went there at least three times a week, for several years. Last week I invited a party of six there for dinner, and sadly, I will never go there again, for these three reasons.

Reason one, is they truly don't like customers, especially if there's a problem, even a minor one. I had picked my dessert from their online menu, because we had not seen a wait person for 20+ minutes. When the bill came it was $2 higher than the menu's price. When I asked their very macho night manager about this, he said I should not have relied on the online menu pricing because "..Maria's has absolutely no control over their online prices." Then he added, "...and if you don't like it, don't come back." I said, "..so you're willing to lose an 11-year customer for $2?" To which he said, "that's right, don't come back." So, they don't seem to care about customers like they used to. And maybe they shouldn't -- they're packed every night in spite of charging $4.50 for soft drinks, and $24 for fajitas - for a One person order.

Reason two--they are grossly overpriced. My wife and I split an entree--an order of fajitas--had two soft drinks, and a flan but our bill was over $60--for a single-entree meal. And this is for food that's not one bite better than Cafe Rio; Maria's has a better selection than Rio's, but their quality is no better than most fresh-mex restaurants.

Reason 3; They don't play by the rules. They charged us a fee for not paying with cash. I used a Visa debit card. According to Visa's website, charging a fee for the use of a debit card is forbidden. The attached picture shows that they charged a fee, disregarding Visa's rules.

A word to the management of Maria Bonita's; please do not thank me for my feedback. Your enterprise has lost its way by not caring about customers, not following business rules, and by doing your best to offend long-time customers,...