Cayo Caribe - Condado — Restaurant in San Juan

On Wednesday, June 15th 2022, at around 2:10 I took my family to Cayo Caribe to celebrate my mother’s graduation. She had been mentioning for the longest time how much she wanted to go there because she had heard so many good things about it. Since this was such a special day and such a joyous moment, I took her there. However, our experience went horribly bad right from the get go when reaching the host stand. When we asked for a table of four, the hostess immediately said that there were no available tables because a party of 20 had JUST entered and they hadn’t even ordered their drinks yet. She informed us that because of this, the wait was going to be long. We asked her approximately how long we had to wait because we didn’t really mind waiting. She said she didn’t know, only that it was going to be a very long time. We asked her again,”Will it be around one hour? An hour and a half? Because if so that’s okay, we’re willing to wait.” The hostess pursed her lips while shaking her head no and repeated,”Its going to be a very very long wait.” Since you can see inside the restaurant we noticed that there was in fact tables available for us to sit, but since the hostess insisted it was simply not possible, we mentioned that we will wait the amount we needed to since we really wanted to eat here. She then asks for our names and phone number to call and said,”If you don’t pick up after two tries, we will give your table away to the next person on the wait list.” We mentioned that that wouldn’t be a problem, since we will be sitting outside only a few feet away from her. Half an hour passed while we waited and a waiter came outside and greeted us. He set some utensils on the table and said that he would be right with us, before quickly remembering that we had requested to be seated inside. We then proceeded to ask him if there was any progress to being able to sit inside. He says he will check on that and leaves. He comes back a minute later and tells us that there are tables available and to follow him. While we are walking to the door, the hostess stops him and she starts quietly arguing with him, to which he quietly argues back with her before continuing inside along with us. Funny enough, despite her claim that there were absolutely NO tables for us, there was and two more families were seated a couple of minutes after us. That young man (I don’t recall his name but he had short brown hair and I think green or brown eyes) and the waitress that attended us (I don’t recall her name but I remember she had glasses and curly brown hair) were the ONLY good thing in that restaurant. Their service was very good. The food however? We managed to get appetizers quickly, but our food took an hour and a half to get to our table and it was cold. I give this restaurant one star because of the two individuals that helped make the experience better, but the hostess from that day needs some retraining in customer service as well as the food experience needs...

AVOID THIS PLACE! Seriously. The WORST. FRAUD: We were told our food had real crab meat, but it was clearly imitation crab. The other servers told us it was imitation crab but our server (female with black glasses and shoulder length black hair) kept saying it was real crab. She said “the chefs shred them like that”. Please, real crab cannot be stringy like the imitation crab. The customers next to us ordered food with the grouper, but it was clearly tilapia. They were very upset and returned the food. We discussed how this place was unethical. I’m sure many people don’t notice the differences so they can get away with this. Btw the seafood didn’t taste good. Completely DISHONEST practice. My seafood rice dish was so salty I couldn’t eat it and I asked for some lettuce or something to make it less salty so I could eat, and the server said “absolutely“ and came back with some white rice. When the server brought that, I said I didn’t want it if I was going to be charged for it while she was holding the dish. She said she had to charge me because it already left the kitchen. She then put it on the table. I told her again that I didn’t want it, she then said it touched the table so I was gonna be charged for it even though I said I didn’t want it while she was holding the dish. She just kept changing her story. I then asked for a manager and she said she was in charge and that she was a manager. We asked other servers who the manager was and it wasn’t her. She was extremely aggressive with me and yelled at me to lecture that I “need to stay home if I have to ask how much something cost at a restaurant.” WTH? She was basically saying I should pay whatever price for the food regardless of whether I ordered it or not. She did not inform us at all that we’d be charged for the extra white rice she brought to make the salty rice dish edible. I have no idea what kind of training she’s done, but she needs to be fired. It was the constant lying and dishonesty that made us really hate the place. It’s absolutely unacceptable. She also lied about us having to give a minimum tip of 18%. She said she had to be the one to type the tip, which is another lie because we saw other servers giving the machine to the customers when they were tipping. She lied about everything. It was the worst service I have ever gotten in my life. Poor management: We saw a ROACH while we were eating. Simply disgusting, nobody seemed to have cared. The manager never showed up either. Just don’t go here, there are way better seafood places that are reasonable and actually serve what they claim they sell. It was my husband’s big birthday, which made this experience even worse. We paid over $70 for this...

Really want to give this place a five star but from the get-go it was not very accommodating. It was four of us and there was a bit of a wait on a rainy Monday and we were willing to be patient. The hostess came to us about 20 minutes later and try to create a table for us next to the bathroom which is really meant for two. She put a chair that would obstructed the pathway to the restrooms and then another chair which would obstructed the table next is from anybody getting out as a solution. I declined and stated there were multiple people seated that were groups of five yet we were being pushed to the corner. I told her I would be willing to pay for an extra entree so we can sit more normal people sit. She said she could not do that. Fine company policy. After sitting down, mind you it was probably in the 70s at that point after the rain had come through and the fans were blowing full speed. I asked if there's any way the fans could be turned down and nobody had a response. The table next to us ask the same thing and they got up on their chairs and accommodated. Anyways I asked to get moved over one table over which got rid of the unnecessary draft. When our food came out everything was great except the grouper was super salty I mean like someone spiced it over twice salty. I tried to find my waiter who disappeared in the wine bar just to let him know or to even refill our Waters one time which never happened. We paid our bill and still tipped Felix 15% for a subpar experience. On the way out I tipped the hostess a handful of cash and let her know I understood it's not her fault. I own multiple businesses and even a restaurant/ nightclub and will tell you I understand the complexities of operations but these snafus even when they're pointed out but casually dismissed is not how I would do things. I suggested the ownership invest in some fans that were remote control so you can adjust the speed depending on the current weather conditions and the response I got was they make a lot of money but they're really...