Las Palapas - NW Military — Restaurant in San Antonio

I am a retired veteran with a Service Animal (Banzo), certified by the International Guide Dog Federation and Assistance Dogs International and this is my Las Palapas feedback. Las Palapas is a great restaurant! Love the food, staff, atmosphere you name it! Banzo and I and a work colleague frequent Las Palapas 1-2 times a month on NW Military, 4083 N Loop 1604 W, San Antonio, TX 78257 for lunch. However, today we were greeted by a server and told us we cannot sit at the same booth we have sat at every time we visited this location. We were told we had to sit in the back because the manager had a policy stating they did not want a dog to be by the furniture (booth) and that it was also a health issue. Mind you, this was not a buffet where I can be asked not to bring my service animal where the food is served. I brought up the ADA Federal law and my rights and was told sorry, this is our policy. Then the shift leader approached and said the exact thing as the server. I asked if Las Palapas Policy overruled ADA Federal Law. Of course, he said no, but stood by their policy. I asked for the managers contact info since he wasn’t on sight. I wanted to engage with the management later to discuss.

We agreed to sit in the back of the restaurant so we could eat and get back to work. At the end of our meal another staff member asked what he could do for me. I stated I still wanted the contact info for the manager, he said he was the manager. I discussed what his staff said, and he told me that was their policy. I asked him if Las Palapas Policy overruled Federal Law, of course he too said no. He did know the only two questions by ADA Federal Law he can asked about service animals. But he kept giving me more excuses why I had to sit where I was. He mentioned safety concerns for his staff, customers and my service animal because my service animal would be in the walkway. BTW; we were the only customers at 1100 - LOL. Oddly enough, he was more in the way where we were seated because the table had zero space for him to lay. Banzo will always either lay under the table , chair, etc (he trained for this)… but the half “booth” table with a bench and 2 chairs created more of a “safety” issue.

The backpedaling begins.

The manager and I discussed the ADA Federal Law and the policy of Las Palapas and David (manager) eventually told me there must have been a miscommunication between myself and the other staff. I said, no there wasn’t, they specifically told me Las Palapas’ policy didn’t allow “dogs” to be by their furniture per the manager. He told me several times, that was not case, they wouldn’t say that. I kept repeating, there was no miscommunication on what they told me. David stated since apparently there was a miscommunication, he will brief his staff. It is kind of appalling he did not just apologize instead of telling me I misunderstood his staff. My colleague was there too, she can back everything up.

I do want to commend him for being 100% professional, we both discussed our disagreement as adults and both of us displayed respect toward one another. This is awesome, food was great as always. I...

This situation arose today out of poor customer service training. We decided to visit this location which just happened to be 10 minutes before their happy hour begins. We reviewed the sándwich board at the entrance and took note of any specials. We sat and appeared to be one of maybe three tables at the time. I ordered a dinner plate with tap water and my guest was interested in an adult beverage, not listed on the happy hour menu, with a lite appetizer.

We asked repeatedly for a drink menu to review and finally walked to the bar counter and asked the manager who pretended briefly to look for a drink menu but later explained they did not have one. No prices shown.

We clearly ordered a large beverage at the table and our server stated an acceptable price. She later asked if we would like a flavor and we agreed to watermelon. We placed our complete order all at the same time however the bar beverage did not arrive with our food. After a more than acceptable amount of time waiting my guest began to walk toward the empty bar to inquire further about this missing beverage when I noticed that our server was rounding the corner with said beverage. However, she delivered us a small 6oz size. We said this is not what we order and if she wrote down a large for us. She did not answer and asked if we wanted a large we said if we she wrote down a small we would accept this small size and price.

She later returned with a large beverage and we continued with our meal.

When the ticket arrived I just signed the ticket and offered a 25% tip. But, my guest quickly reviewed my ticket and recognized we were charged the cost of two adult beverages. After a brief discussion at the table of if it would be worth the discussion I decided and approached the cashier to ask for clarification on the beverage and suddenly I was practically accosted by the manager, head server and server. All three chimed in attempt to over talk my concerns. After too much misunderstanding and almost a loud commotion (the head waitress “shushed” the server), I decided to just leave with with my guest and left my paid ticket, as is was, with full ticket pricing of close to $50 (for one dinner plate with water, a guacamole sauce with complementary chips, and a mix up of the beverage pricing).

I am beyond disappointed with this level of service and just lack of basic communication with management and customer. This appeared to be a new location in the chain and hope that they can pull it together and succeed.

Best of luck!

(The avocado sauce was weak and beverage flavor was not...

This morning my daughter and I went in for breakfast around 8:30AM. There was a sign saying “Please wait to be seated”, so we stood and waited while the waitress was checking out a couple that was leaving. She saw us standing there and continued to help them, which was fine. She finished helping them, which took about 3 minutes and once done, told us you can sit anywhere you’d like. I wondered why she didn’t tell us that from the get go, but fine, we sat at a table in the back. We waited for about 4 minutes and nobody came to take our drink order or even greet us. I moved to a table at the front in the hopes that maybe they just didn’t see us and we would be helped there. We sat for another 5 minutes and what looked to be the manager came out and handed us menus and silverware and said the waitress would be right with us. We waited for 8 more minutes (a total now of 20 minutes at this place) and not a single person had even taken our drink order. I finally said that’s enough and got up and went to another restaurant. There were 5 tables with people seated and only 1 of them had food and drinks. There was what looked to be 1 waitress on duty on a Saturday at 8:30AM, prime weekend breakfast time. I wouldn’t complain if this was a one time occurrence as I understand places are short staffed and at times are trying their best but unfortunately, this isn’t the first time this has happened here. This is the 2nd time this has happened at this Las Palapas and since this place has opened, we have never had good service, not once. We’ve tried it a total of 8 times over the span of how long it’s been open and have had similar experiences with long wait times on service. I am not someone who writes bad reviews or reviews in general but felt the need to have it be seen that this is the worst Las Palapas in San Antonio I’ve been to this far. We love eating at Las Palapas and were very excited when we saw this one opening up but have since had a bad taste in our mouths due to the lack of care of attention to customer service at this location. The management here really needs to own up and do something about this or I’m afraid they’ll be...