Little Sister — Restaurant in Providence

Ambiance: Its a very cozy and cute space that gets a little tight to navigate in when crowded. The seats are limited.

Update: As stated in the response below, we were offered to return our food to the kitchen. We declined because by then we were really hungry and we just removed what we didn't like and kept eating. It would've been great if our initial request was followed instead of having to return food to the kitchen. As I stated in my original review, the food was good. We enjoyed it and even bought more items to go. I would go again. My review is open and honest and I hope the feedback is taken into consideration for improvement.

Food: It is not traditional Puerto Rican or Spanish food. I would call it PR/ Spanish inspired instead. We ordered two egg, ham and cheese Mallorca sandwiches (the eggs were an additional request), two cappuccinos, one empanada and one guava and cheese quesito pastry for $48 + tip. The prices are steep for what it is, but I love a Gustos coffee and Mallorcas which are not easy to find in the US. I asked if I could get a scrambled egg in my sandwich and I was told that could not be done for a sandwich, which was weird because the sandwich listed on the menu below the one I ordered had scrambled eggs. I requested a well cooked yolk instead and the waitress said it could not be done. The owner, who was sitting at the counter, suggested to add a note to break the yolk and commented that it tastes better runny. I was shocked. Asking for the cooking temperature of preference for eggs is standard at any brunch place. After all, raw or undercooked could make people sick from Salmonella. At this point I was not surprised when we were served sandwiches with runny yolks falling off the sides, which we do not like. I cut it off and ate the rest. The owner (who served our sandwiches) asked us if the eggs were cooked to our liking (was she being sarcastic!?). Besides that, the sandwiches were good. Mallorca bread was not a real mallorca, but was really good and fresh. It was flaky with a resemblance of a croissant. The Mallorca bread we are used to in PR resembles a brioche, but sweeter. The sandwiches are big and took all the space in the small plate they were served in, which made it difficult to handle without making a mess (there's a lot of powdered sugar on top so it's not easy to eat with your hands and the limited space in the plate made it hard to cut and use utensils instead.) I would suggest serving in bigger plates. The quesitos were delicious and tasted more traditional. I bought two more to go. Gustos coffee is one of my favorites and honestly not easy to find anywhere in the US. They only had regular white sugar self-served from an open container resting on their counter top. People were talking over it as they were waiting for their orders and it definitely concerned me. After COVID we should've learned a thing or two about food safety and sickness spreading. It's common sense and I'm sure they could easily fix that. Also, if they can offer oatmilk as a substitute for milk, they could probably have different options...

This review is in response to Milena’s (the owner of Little Sister) comment to Alejandro:

This woman is clearly a pathological liar with the way that she wants to twist the story and make herself the victim so let me clear some things up real quick. My group arrived to our table a few minutes EARLY. One person joined our table a little later because he was looking for parking which we informed her about from the start.

Throughout our very limited time in her restaurant, she had a very disgusting attitude that just ruined our appetite. Furthermore, she rushed us to order and when we asked for more time, she wanted to walk away while rolling her eyes. Didn’t offer any recommendations, barely answered our questions about the meals we were interested in, she gave us the absolute bare minimum. I know she’s the problem as the other waitress who brought some of our dishes was very sweet and kind, shout out to her for being the only one to have great customer service skills. Hopefully she can teach some of that to her boss but I doubt it’d help…

Obviously, we gave her a low tip because we were not pleased with the service we were subjected to and left the restaurant with no issues. Milena decided to RUN OUTSIDE AND CHASE US DOWN to confront us about our tipping decision. I was straightforward in my response when I said that she had an attitude and that we did not enjoy having her as our waitress. Apparently, me telling Milena the truth about herself translates to racism? It’s even funnier because I am a Black woman as well as another person in our group, so if anything, I’m inclined to believe that she was treating us with very clear racial bias and discrimination. We are the ones who should be upset, not some woman who has an ENTIRE reddit thread with 300 comments exposing her disgusting personality and aggressive behavior. So please, if you value your hard earned money, do not eat at this establishment. You only get 1 hour to eat under such horrible conditions, it’s truly not worth it at all.

And I know Milena likes to tussle in these Google reviews so please, I’d love to hear what she has to say when faced with the facts. And if she spent more time taking notes on constructive criticism instead of thinking of petty ways to reply to customers, maybe she’d actually have a successful business and a decent...

Edit: It seems customer service is non-existent at Little Sister, even after the fact. Their response lacks basic customer management and problem resolution. unfortunately this is in-line with our experience. TIP: calling your customer untruthful and stating "take the lesson" is not a proper response. I'd suggest getting someone else to handle your online presence.

I live in Canada and was visiting a friend in Rhode Island. We had a reservation at 12pm and my friend called at 12.00 letting them know we would arrive at 12.10pm-12.15pm. The host mentioned the grace period was only 10min, which we understand, but she sounded very annoyed by the call.

We decided to still drive to the restaurant and try our luck in case the place was not busy. We arrived at 12.15pm and the place was not busy (nobody waiting) with an unoccupied table. Host seemed annoyed once again and mentioned she would not give us the table since we were just past the grace period. We mentioned we would order/eat quickly since were late, unfortunately the host seemed to have made up her mind when my friend called to let the restaurant know we would be late.

Looking back it seems the host was very comfortable with dismissing our reservation. They charged my friend's credit card with a penalty for missing the reservation. Overall, we feel the host was rude and lacked customer service. Considering they charge for penalty, we feel 5 mins past the grace was not unreasonable, but our main issue was with the host's attitude.

We left with a sour experience. We are not usually late to any of our reservations, but when it has happened, our experience has been much more positive than with little sister.

Hope they look to improve this in the future. They seen to be a nice place to try brunch, but they need better handling of these types of situations. Perhaps better customer service would've changed...