Zaza's Cuban Café — Restaurant in Orlando

I’ve never had such an unprofessional, uncomfortable experience at any airport restaurant. Zaza’s Cuban Café at MCO, not the one near Gate 34 but the central location, should be embarrassed by how it treats customers.

My husband and I walked in to get a simple Americano. The café was completely dead. When we went to place our order at the counter, we were confusingly sent elsewhere to order and then told to check out at a different location. The whole setup made no sense. While we tried to figure it out, a man with dreadlocks, thin build, wearing black, passive-aggressively told me to go order from the other spot. No courtesy. No patience. Just attitude.

We ignored his rudeness and placed our order. Then we saw a seating area and walked over to a sign that clearly said, “Please wait to be seated.” An Indian woman behind the counter, with dark hair, told us we could sit. So we sat down.

We were there for about 20 minutes, undisturbed. No one said a word. Then the same rude guy with the dreadlocks came back and aggressively told us this was reserved seating and that we needed to move to the back. Not a polite reminder. Not a respectful tone. He was confrontational from the start. We calmly told him that the woman at the counter had seated us there. She jumped in and claimed she told us to sit in the back. That never happened. And if it had, she had 20 full minutes to come over and say something. She didn’t.

Instead of de-escalating, the man chose to raise his voice at my husband and continued arguing. He offered to bring the manager but clearly had no interest in actually resolving anything. As we stood up to leave, he mockingly smiled, yelled “safe travels,” and kept shouting at us while we walked away.

This place should be ashamed to have staff like this. There was no crowd, no stress, no rush. Just poor attitude, miscommunication, and a total lack of...

If I could give this place more than 5 stars I absolutely would. After my flight got delayed I decided to stop by here for a quick bite. Both bartenders working Tuesday night (9/7/2021) went above and beyond to make my experience amazing. I ordered a seasonal IPA and unprompted, one of the bartenders offered to pour me a small sip before hand to make sure I like it. That’s a level of consideration I truly appreciated and it just proved how they genuinely wanted to make sure I enjoyed my experience there. The cubano I ordered was absolutely delicious and took me back to one of my favorite trips to Little Havana a few years ago. Served with fresh cilantro lime sauce and a delicious house made hot sauce, it was the perfect dinner. It was clear the staff loved what they did as I watched them joke, laugh, and dance while working. Both bartenders were extremely friendly and even ended up talking to one of them for quite a while about life, school, work, and whatever else we could think of. It was such a genuine interaction and I cannot thank everyone there enough for turning a stressful evening because of my flight being cancelled into such a memorable experience. I will absolutely make sure to come here every time I’m in Orlando International and I highly encourage anyone reading this to do the same. This kind of genuine quality hospitality is so hard to find, but Zaza’s Cuban Cafe has it in...

When you hungry at the orlando airport you never expect outstanding food but my husband and I happened to come into Zaza cuban Restaurant and surprisingly the food was outstanding. Our waiter/bartender was daniel , he was outstanding. We started with mojitos which were crafted perfectly with the exact balance of sweet to sour for a perfectly enjoyable mojito. Then we tried the beef empanadas. The pastry was warm and the beef filling was flavorful and pleasing to my palate. It came with an aioli sauce which was creamy. I would have liked the option of a spicy sauce but I thoroughly enjoyed the empanada. Next was our main course for lunch. My husband had the cuban sandwich which he felt was equal to his Cubano sandwich at little havana in Miami. I had the chicken bowl. The black beans were flavorful but not overly spicy. I always would like the option of an extra spicy sauce as an add on but the flavors blended beautifully together. The plantains were cooked nice, not greasy and they hold their shape among the black beans and rice. The chicken was well cooked with no signs of grizzle which is a pleasant surprise. All in all a big thumbs up for Zaza cuban Restaurant and it's outstanding staff, Bartender and waiter Daniel who made it a fabulous...