La Cocina Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Temecula

The food at this restaurant is just fine. I had a good meal here, consisting of a salad of field greens with (rather thin) Bleu Cheese dressing ($2.50), a combination plate of a shredded beef, hard shell taco, a cheese enchilada (with chopped onions inside), a chili relleno, rice, and beans ($18.50), and an Arnold Palmer to drink ($3.95). My problem is with the level of service and the pricing policies. My waiter was friendly, although somewhat inattentive. He delivered the salad with one regular fork (not a salad fork). There was no salt and pepper on the table, and I waited several minutes for him to return to the table, which he didn't. I had to get up from the table and track him down inside the restaurant (I was seated on the patio, at my request) in order to ask him for the seasonings, plus a knife -- all of which were required before I could even start eating the salad. When the main course was served (by someone other than my waiter), it did not come with a clean dinner fork, so I had to re-use the fork that I had used to eat the salad. I did not see my waiter again until I finished the meal, when he asked if I wanted the check. He had not been back to check on me, nor had he asked if I wanted a refill of my drink -- which I did, and which he then delivered. When the bill came, I was surprised to see that I was charged an additional $1.50 for the onions in the enchilada. I always order chopped onions in my enchiladas and I have NEVER been charged extra for them. As if that was not enough, I was astonished to see that I was levied an additional $5.29 for a Service Charge! Not only is this almost unprecedented, there was no signage or verbiage anywhere that I could see to warn me of this egregious gouging. In short, the food was okay but the service was poor and the pricing was outrageous. Unfortunately, I must say that La Cocina Bar and Grill is NOT...

The food wasn’t bad; it was not what I expected and the refried beans were not to my liking. Those are personal preferences and I am likely spoiled being used to refried beans being more refried, a little more flavorful, thicker consistency and less pale in color…. I personally didn’t like the table topper that announced that the 20% service fee (to offset the business owner’s labor cost of doing business) was a “mandatory fee” that I “owed the restaurant” as a consumer, no matter how kindly worded. In my opinion, that is a discussion & issue to be handled amongst the employer and employees, not announced in a way to justify or guilt a customer into the overlooking the fee. If there is a tip division, then make that an employee policy and leave me as the customer out of the drama; it could also be reflected in the price point of the food items but that brings me to the next criticism- the price points are too high for the quality of products delivered. Although the service was satisfactory, having that added fee reduced my natural tendency to give a healthier tip especially when I saw the server doing the job of serving as well as busing. Additionally, the place was not full and when the hostess asked us if we wanted the bar or a booth and we asked for a booth- she said she’d have to go ask if she could seat the two of us- when she did- we were seated in the far back area. I felt like I was expected to choose the bar as a party of two and that it was frowned upon to seat just two people at a table(?). Everyone was kind and the food wasn’t bad- just not what I expected. You could tell many people enjoy this place a lot and maybe I didn’t choose the best menu items…. Perhaps the fee doesn’t bother you at all- it bothered me. There is also the possibility it was just an off...

I have never felt more unwanted at a restaurant than I did, yesterday. I'm embarrassed that I chose to take family to this place.

I'm really disappointed that this restaurant did not live up to the reviews. Our server was non-existent. He even asked if we were ready to order which we promptly were and then told us he would come back. Turns out the server was getting an automatic 20% tip. We had 8 people, so I see why you put it on there. However, one was an infant and one was an extremely small child. I guess when you know a tip is coming there is no reason to put in any effort. The sad part is that the whole adult part of the table were all prior servers and he would have given more than 20% because we know what goes into larger tables and tables with small children. The only one who seemed to care about our table was the busser and thankfully he was there to pick up the rest of the teams lack of effort. If not, we would have never gotten to go boxes to leave. On top of the lack of service, our food came out over a 10 minute span. That meant the first people who got their dishes (one by one) had cold food by the time everyone else's came out. The queso wasn't even melted. Most people barely even ate their food and no one really had anything good to say about it. Getting drink refills wasn't a thing. You'd think with such a warm and stuffy environment, they'd be on the drinks. We couldn't wait to leave, yet, we couldn't get what we needed done to leave. Overall, we don't really have anything good to say about this place. I guess, if you're going to the bar to watch sports, it might...