El Yunque Rainforest Cafe — Restaurant in Río Grande

This is a tiny little restaurant about halfway up the mountain, but OMG! The serve the quality of food you would expect to find at a big city restaurant. All of it is traditional Puerto Rican cuisine, but it tastes like they have a full kitchen at the back of the restaurant where they make the food fresh to order. Pastelillos, alcapurrias, bacalaito, and lots of other really delicious food.

All of the seating is outdoor (although under a canopy) so that you can enjoy the ambient sounds of the rainforest as you eat. It's incredibly fun to listen to the sounds of hundreds of coquí all around you.

There is a small parking lot in front of the restaurant, so you can leave your car, and go exploring down the semi-hidden walking trail behind the restaurant. Walking down the trail will lead you to some stunning views of waterfalls, canopies of banana and plantain trees, and the aforementioned coquís...

I had a very different perspective of this place than what was listed online. To be clear, you order at the counter and grab your food. There are 3 tables under shade and two tables outside. It's quite a wait for food, we walked down the trail and took some photos, came back and grabbed a table outside, then saw a family leaving from under the cover and pounced. There just isn't a lot of space. The food is ok, it's very pricey. I think of it as good to snack on. I think the big benefit is that this was our first spot in the rainforest. So I set navigation here and noted all the photo spots to stop at on the way down. If I hadn't gone to the restaurant we would have settled for stopping at the visitor center so for that it was worth it. If we were to ever go again, I would...

Rude staff. They forgot my order at a not busy time. Other diners kept getting their similar food items. After 10 minutes, I asked about my status….. They give out pagers and others were buzzed. My order printed / was on their screen, but not prepared. Once I approached, and gave pager # , they finally began cooking mine. Waited 5 more minutes and they told me to vacate the area by the cash register. I then proceeded to just ask for a refund as they were holding up my tour bus. The manager argued / challenged me because I asked for my money back, but he continued to berate me in front of others. I do not support businesses that down right will not admit they made a mistake. Just...