Coco Maya by Miss B's — Restaurant in San Diego

2 stars is honestly being very generous. We had a party of 9 for a bachelorette & reserved in advanced at Coco Maya. The night before the reservation at approx. 9:30pm I received a call saying that my card was charged for a no-show at the reservation accidentally, and that they could issue a chargeback or we could use the $200 towards the bill. No worries, I thought, we'll just use it towards the bill.

The day of the reservation, after we were seated we were ignored for 30 minutes, despite constantly trying to make eye contact with servers and even trying to wave them down. They weren't overwhelmingly busy, but it was a decent amount of people for a Sunday morning. I figured the servers maybe just couldn't see us, and tried not to think too much of it.

We were FINALLY served waters and I asked for hot water, which I received, however there was a lipstick stain on the mug. It was replaced immediately when I mentioned it, no big issues there.

I had ordered the bacon eggs benedict and while everyone got their food, I was still waiting on mine. I waited another 15 minutes while everyone else was eating until I received my food. I'm not usually picky, but I just wish someone told me it would take 35 minutes to make. I was quite hungry at this point, getting to hangry. One of the girls who had ordered the Chilaquiles found a piece of hair in her food. We mentioned this to the server and they mentioned making a new one, no worries. Cool, we thought it would be no problem. Her new dish took an additional 30 minutes to make. By the time her food came out, all the girls had been finished eating for quite some time.

I may be over thinking this, but the entire time there were no smiles from the servers, and I felt very very small in that restaurant, almost as if we didn't belong there. I mention this to hopefully encourage their establishment to take note of welcoming their guests.

The real issue came when we received the bill. In total, we had 3 girls who had ordered chilaquiles, however, we were charged for 5 chilaquiles. We were confused. They mentioned that 1 of the chilaquiles was free. So we had 3 girls who ordered the chilaquiles but were charged for 4?? The math still was not adding up. Unless they were charging us for sending the one chilaquiles back, however, that definitely was never mentioned to us. We talked to the server and mentioned that we wanted to also use the $200 we were charged yesterday, and they went to grab their manager. The manager gave us the new bill subtracting the $200, however, still charging us for the 4 chilaquiles. We really didn't want to make a scene, and discussed between the girls how to move forward, however we really felt like paying for 4 chilaquiles didn't make sense. We called back the manager to try and explain our situation, but the manager was losing her patience and said Ok, she'll take care of it. Once she came back the only difference on the receipt was a 50% discount on the 4th Chilaquiles that I don't believe we should have to pay for. My friends and I are not very confrontational people so we decided to just pay and move on.

In their policy for reservations with large parties, we were told that an additional 21% tip was charged so we couldn't remove that of course, however I don't believe we received service that was enough to tip 21%. Their menu also mentioned a 5% surcharge would be charged for all the food to accommodate inflation, which we had seen at other restaurants, but 5% was the biggest surcharge we had seen in SD. Most of the other restaurants mentioned 3%-4% on their menus.

Some positives: The Chilaquiles was quite good according to the girls, and the atmosphere had a nice indoor/outdoor Miami vibes. (I do NOT however recommend the Bacon Egg Benedicts, it was not worth the 35 minute wait).

All in all, it was the combination of all the little things that made we feel like I would never recommend this restaurant to a friend, there are better restaurants that we were pleasantly surprised by in San Diego that are MUCH more...

I was excited to finally eat at CocoMaya as the menu looks amazing. All of the seafood and tropical/asian influence is right up my ally. Maybe it was just the wrong day to try this place. We went on a busy Sunday for brunch. This place is a "scene". I usually like busy, energetic even crowded scenes but CocoMaya is not operating on all cylinders.

Overall the staff was friendly but the place was club-level packed. We were seated 20 minutes after our reservation time after asking how much longer - they then apologized as they had forgotten to seat us. What made the 20 minutes difficult is that there is no real place to wait so we had to keep dodging wait staff and other people who were getting seated during that time.

The seating itself was physically annoying. Maybe 1/2 of the tables have a large round base that when you push your chair closer to the table you end up wobbling with one corner leg higher than the others. If you push the chair back you are too close to other guests (this place is packed pretty tightly) and have to sit at an angle. I'm sitting there, (wobbling away) and thinking to myself, was this the owners first time opening a restaurant? Have they actually ever sat here?

My partner ordered Chicken and Waffles and I ordered the $35 + 5% surcharge "Lobster Caviar Benedict" which while flavorful, was a ripoff with two TINY pieces of lobster and two small dabs of caviar. Waffle was undercooked but flavorful. Benedict was rich but mostly just an oversized loaf of soft bread and a plate full of potatoes.

I never recieved my ordered drink - a glass of Prosecco. The bar was again crazy packed and only seemed to have one bartender that we could see anyway. After nicely reminding the (very busy) staff four times it still never arrived. Trust me, CocoMaya is not a place you want to spend too much time in completely sober.

After eating about 1/2 of our food , we decided to leave to go and get a drink and some more food elsewhere and we asked for the bill. It arrived along with an additional charge for a $170.00 bottle of brut that was never ordered. It was at that point I got angry - as we hadn't gotten the single glass of Prosecco that was actually ordered.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but "Lobster" is prominently featured on many of the dishes. I did speak to chef about the portion after the wait staff felt they needed to bring him out. Chef didn't agree at all with my assessment and said it was "normal". He did offered to make me something else to which I declined. I have to assume the chef never saw the photo on the Coco Maya website featuring this exact dish which looks absolutely nothing like the one I paid for.

Additionally having a bathroom attendant in a co-ed space is just super weird and awkward in 2024, especially in such a small space. Worse was that the attendant was holding this plastic bottle of soap and you couldn't' really avoid him if you wanted to wash your hands.

Unfortunately, despite a great menu and what appears to be a fun bar scene, CocoMaya seems to be yet another overpriced instagram restaurant. Not...

𝐓𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐅𝐎𝐇 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝

Review: Coco Maya, San Diego — I debated how I wanted to review this restaurant, but given my experience with Peter Cich, the “Serial” restaurant and bar owner, I decided to go with a more direct approach.

I can sum this up in one way: when you are known to be a “serial owner,” that means the owner could care less about the service and what’s happening at his restaurant; he just likes the cash flow. Read the whole review at the bottom. I talk about my brief encounter with him.

Michael Glinter has traveled to 68 countries and 36 states to get the flavor of some amazing foods. His view on reviews is simple – Taste, Presentation, and Service. He believes telling the reader a positive and negative unbiased look at the restaurant is essential.

Service: Horrific. In fact, it was so bad that I gave below 15%, which I have never done, even at the worst restaurants. We had a reservation. When we first walked in, there were 2 other tables with patrons. So, one would expect it to be a pretty smooth visit. We waited 10 minutes to be seated. Once we got seated, we immediately ordered a hot tottie and a coffee. It took 18 minutes to get a coffee. Of course, when the coffee came, the outside and plate were dirty. We placed our order and waited. It took 47 minutes to get the Maya Breakfast and chilaquiles.

I always find it interesting as you are waiting to watch the dynamics in the restaurant. Two groups of 2 came into the restaurant and waited at the hostess stand for 12 minutes just for the bartender to come by and say someone would be out shortly. Ten minutes later, someone finally came and sat at the two tables. The table next to us was served their breakfast, and the lady asked for a side of green sauce. The waitress came out with the green sauce once they were done eating.

Food: We finally received our food, and I will give them credit; the food looked good and tasted good, but I already had a bad taste in my mouth. The food was good. The Jerk Shrimp, which should be served hot, was like warm. Half of the Totopos were stale. I would have told the waitress; however, she never even asked. I would say this: the food was curated well and was picturesque.

It was a Miami Latin vibe. It had some character.

Now, where does the owner come in? I was sitting in the restaurant and texted him, letting him know how bad the service was. He called me and said, “Who is this, and how did you get my number?” Here is a little tip, Peter Cich: if a patron tells you they are having a bad experience, you should change your approach.

My recommendation would be don’t give this guy a dime. Please stay away from Coco Maya and his other restaurants, Miss B’s Coconut Club, Park 101, Louisiana Purchase, Q and A Restaurant,...