La Casita de Rones — Restaurant in San Juan

If you’re from out of town, DO NOT GO TO THIS RESTAURANT. First, I understand that we are considered a large party (total of 8). We were greeted at the door with an attitude because we didn’t have a reservation. Once seated, they ran out of cups to serve water and we ended up with tiny mugs of water. We had to constantly keep asking for refills and straws. Our server was hot and sweaty which I can understand due to the constant movement. But it’s unacceptable to be wiping the sweat off your forehead and continuing to serve. He definitely did not wash his hands or sanitize his hands at any point of the night.

When the food finally came out, the food items did not match the pictures on the menu. We were clearly dissatisfied and tried informing the manager. We even had our server take back food that was not edible (shrimp tacos). The manager quickly and rudely came by, took the plate back, and said kitchen is closed. No offering anything else to make sure his patrons were satisfied. Personally, I had got the grilled shrimp and steak with rice. The food had absolutely no flavor and was a small portion for the price and quality. I asked for salt & pepper and a sauce to help liven it up. Little did we know, any sauce that we asked for was an additional charge that was not explained to us. I’m not sure if they were short staffed but our server had a hard time serving us. He was not attentive. We were beyond ready for the check after being rained on, which is common, but we moved everything over ourselves with no assistance.

When the check came, we were flabbergasted. We simply wanted to speak with the manager to since our experience there was terrible. As tourist, English is our first language. They were bad mouthing us in Spanish in our face not realizing one person in the group knew Spanish. They thought we couldn’t afford the bill when that was not the issue at all. The manager wanted to call the police! It was because they ready to clean up and go home. They turned the lights out on us to try to make that point. The manager at the point was no where to be found. He left the server to figure it out on his own. They did end up taking the sauces off and then splitting the check as requested originally.

I paid $60 and left the restaurant hungry. I attached pictures of the server (1). He did not clearly provide his first name. I also attached pictures of the rude manager, Raphael I believe (2). It was such a terrible experience and they didn’t even know we there for a birthday dinner which was sadly ruined.

0/10! Total waste of time. Many other authentic places to eat. Please take the time to read other recent reviews...

If busy just avoid.

We arrived and all was good and the place was not that busy. But after they took our order it was bad. They took a while to get all the drinks, and we had to wait almost 30 mins for a cocktail while the rest of us had the drinksnin the table. With the food, the waiter did not check our order with the kitchen (I want to believe he did not forget) and never came through. We waited for more than 1 hour for our food to arrive, and I had to check with the waiter otherwsie who knows how long it would have taken. And when the food finally got to the table everything was cold and we did not have cutlery. We had to ask for it and when we got some it was all dirty, with fingerprints and dried food. It was awful. We asked to speak with the manager, who took her time coming to the table.

Once we explained her the situation, her answer was "give me the opportunity to check with the kitchen," and she left. She did not offer to change the plates, to heat the food up, to do anything! From our point of view, her expectation was for us to eat cold food.

And after 1 hr, we were starving, so we did as our only options were to eat the cold food or to leave and order elsewhere and wait for another hour to eat. In retrospective we should have left. When she came back she was just apologetic but never offer to heat up the dishes, change the plates, or do anything to solve the matter.

Yes, the manager offered a discount. Yes, they apologised, but the fact that they did not addressed our comments was extremely disappointing and infuriating. She did not even bring a clean cutlery in replacement of the dirty one I gave to her.

The role.of a manager should always to de-escalate any complaint or save the service, but making your customers eat cold food for the sake of it is sad.

If I wanted cold food, I would have gone to the supermarket and gotten a sandwich. Faster and cheaper.

We just wanted good food and good service. Extremely disappointing.

DO...

Thanks for ruining my wedding!

I was in contact with the GM Joel for over a year about having a wedding dinner there, looking to spend a few grand in mostly food with a limited bar, he expressed he was so excited to expand into hosting smaller events. By October, we were supposed to have a written contract and meet in person. Joel didn't have anything ready and but seemed excited to host our event and was trying to woo us with a bunch of extra promises, which just wanted to sign a contract and give a deposit. He kept saying he'd send the contract next weekend, never did but told us it's fine because we're in the books and can pay day of. The event was getting closer, and I kept reaching out to finalize and make a deposit regardless. It took several people in the wedding party reaching out to even get a reply other than "you're all set we'll see you then". He finally emailed me back, everything came off as if we were bothering him. Asking what day and time I'd like to make a reservation and it's a $10k minimum, completely disregarding the plans and agreements we had in place for almost a year. He genuinely thought he could ghost me, and then pick up last minute with whatever requirements he wants because he screwed me into wasting time and having no other options. I genuinely hope the worst for you and your "management career" Joel, I have no idea how anyone thought you are qualified to manage any business. Don't bother with this place even for a second, when we went in person. Their service was sub par with long bouts of not seeing a server/ employee, we genuinely gave them the benefit of the doubt assuming they were busy and took Joel's excuses for the poorly run establishment as truth. I will celebrate the day this place gets run out of business, to make way for someone who actually knows what they're doing and respects...