El Asador The Grill House Old San Juan — Restaurant in San Juan

To the Owner of El Asador,

I am writing to express my profound disappointment and frustration regarding the appalling experience my wife and I endured at your establishment on Sunday evening. As visitors from Miami, we were looking forward to a pleasant dining experience, only to be met with an astonishing lack of professionalism and courtesy by your staff, specifically two individuals named Veronica and Pedro.

Upon our arrival, we patiently waited at the front door, expecting to be greeted and seated in a timely manner. Pedro approached the front entrance, leading us to believe that he was coming to assist us. However, to our astonishment, he slipped out through a side door and proceeded to smoke outside, completely ignoring our presence.

We continued to wait, hoping that someone would eventually acknowledge us. Veronica then emerged from the back, but not before making a leisurely stop at the bar. When she finally addressed us, it was with a dismissive attitude, informing us that the restaurant was too busy to accommodate us. Her tone was indifferent and lacked any semblance of customer service. To add insult to injury, instead of attempting to resolve the situation or offer an alternative, Veronica joined Pedro at the same corner outside, where they engaged in a casual conversation and laughter.

This experience was nothing short of disgraceful. The blatant disregard for customers and the unprofessional behavior displayed by your employees are entirely unacceptable. It is clear that Veronica and Pedro have little to no understanding of basic customer service principles, and their actions reflect poorly on your establishment.

As the owner, I urge you to take immediate and decisive action to address this issue. Staff training on customer service and proper conduct is evidently lacking and needs urgent attention. I hope that you will take the necessary steps to ensure that future patrons do not have to endure the same level of disrespect and negligence that we experienced.

Our visit to El Asador was marred by this unfortunate incident, and it is unlikely that we will consider returning or recommending your restaurant to others unless significant improvements are made. I trust that you will take my complaint seriously and work towards rectifying these glaring...

Visiting from NYC to old San Juan, terribleeeeeeee entrance (“you don’t have reservation ? Ahhhhhh idk” ) meanwhile the restaurant is half empty! He shows us reservations for Thursday on his phone what does that have to do with today?? Adding on, I asked this older blonde waitress where the bathroom was , her response was “right there “ DRAMATIC SIGH as if I just bothered her from finding the cure for cancer. I said thank you and she just waved her hand at me signaling to just go. Second, we were seated and we both decided to use the bathroom for 5 minutes maybe less, our menus and table gone? We sat for 7 minutes then we had to pull over a server for our menus, he apologized , took our appetizer order n drink order, ok great! Right? Then we wait 30 minutes to get our food and guess what comes out? Our main course! Not our appetizer. It gets better, we placed a wine order we asked how much is a pitcher of sangria ? Our waiter didn’t know so he did the right thing and asked a older waitress she looked at him and said “ I don’t know??????? attitude included Umm $34!? I don’t know *sighs dramatically” we didn’t say anything then she storms off. I pull the “manager” over and then he basically tells us that he hasn’t been able to hire a lot of people and business is bad right now. He continues to say how hard it has been to run the business w no workers for 5-6 minutes. Not one apology for the service we got. He was also smiling and smirking as I’m expressing our issue. The food was cheap and very delicious but for a valentines dinner here? NEVER AGAIN. Miserable workers and attitude from everywhere in this establishment. My fiancé was embarrassed that he picked this restaurant for me as a surprise , very sad. They treat tourists like garbage and speak to you like garbage.I’m a waitress myself in nyc and would never give my customers...

I had such high hopes for our evening at El Asador after reading the previous reviews, however, my experience was horrible. We reserved for a group of 14, 3 days in advance. When we arrived there was no greeting, I had to go to the bar and announce our party. There was one waiter who was supposed to be attending to my large party- plus 7 other tables at the same time, one person cooking and one manager I believe. Needless to say they were super short staffed and they weren’t attentive at all… there was no water given, no greeting, we had to wave him down just to get a refill on our drinks. It took 45 minutes to order appetizers then another hour before he came back so we could order our main dishes. We were seated for 2 hrs and still hadn’t eaten. When we had enough and decided we would pay for appetizers and drinks and cancel the rest of the night the waiter then got extremely rude with my brother in law and insisted on arguing with us. The waiter then started bringing out the food after we said we were done and didn’t want anything, when I told him to stop because we were leaving he starting slamming the plates of food and utensils very loudly and still argued with us. The manager, bless her, tried to smooth it over but at this point we just wanted leave- especially with the waiter’s behavior becoming worse. The whole experience was atrocious and ruined my partners 50th birthday celebration. The place is beautiful, too beautiful to have that...