Vida Mariscos — Restaurant in Tomball

On Friday August 15, 2025 we went to celebrate a birthday party in a party of 4 adults to the 22400 Hwy 249 location & enjoyed good food, with appetizers and one michelada for 3 of the 4 of us. When it came time for clearing the check, I had the waitress Giselle (Yosi M on the receipt) hold a machine to pay the tab in front of me and said sign. I asked how do I know how much or the tip and she said it will print after you sign and since the bill was over $150, tip was automatically added. I said really, how much and she said 15%. I signed and she printed a receipt right there at the table, off the machine & I guess she expected I couldn’t do math & she walked away, paid.

Immediately I saw our bill was not in fact over $150 it was $149.60 with tax. So I then factored 15% of that and saw the tip was not that but 25% of that; $37.40.

So, Not $150 bill,not 15% tip!

So I asked for a manager and Nancy came over at the hostess stand and we she asked we step outside to the entrance and I told her and showed her what happened. She mentioned upon seeing the bill & the added tip the waitress chose, that they don’t add tips even to big parties or any size check.

She also mentioned there had already been complaints about her adding tips to checks with thar waitress & just that day, they had reprimanded her about 3 similar complaints!! Not fired!

The manager Nancy agreed it was a problem, went back to get a copy of the receipt and as she came back with that copy I saw she has cash for my refund of my tip I hadn’t given, but it was cash, despite I paid with my debit card(😱).

Then another customer came out, very upset and said that same waitress added a 40% tip without his approval and she had done it before to him and he wanted action.

We were floored and as we were there now, 2 customers at the door exposing being ripped off with tips, then a man came out all in black and said “enough, she’s out of here”, huffed around a bit & went back in. Perhaps the GM??

I was given my tip back but in tip money, 1 ten, 3 fives, and 12 dollar bills… odd bill choice for a debit card tip refund.

No offer to comp the bill.

I sat there for a few minutes with our birthday party outside, watching the other ripped off customer, who seemed he had a few drinks, getting real pissed. We left it looked like it was going to be a much bigger scene about to break with that.

Now the next day, we have to wonder; Why the refund with tip money, is it for no paper trail with the credit card receipts??

It happened to us and another customer at the same time and that’s not coincidence, plus he said it happened to him before there. What? This has happened tonight and before and the waitress Gisele (aka Yosi M from Guatemala) is still there!!??!!??

That quick show by the possibly general manager was great, but he didn’t offer to comp a meal, didn’t get involved and was simply there for a minute maybe 2 with 2 customers that just got ripped off by his staff. He went right back in and his momentary appearance was simply that, momentary. No apology, no pleas come back, not much but a bit of a huff in a so so cameo appearance….

Is this a scheme involving more than the waitress?

How often has this happened?

Are ALL their customers checking their receipts and tips?

Very disturbing and now, I’m concerned about the machine at the table the waitress used to scan my card and pay herself a better tip! She was going to probably get 20%, she chose 25% in my case, 40% with the other customer but he had been drinking and maybe she thought she was an easier mark…

Does La Vida Seafood know this is happening ing, what about Los Cucos next door run by the same company?

Does the owner know his staff is allowing multiple instances at this location of stealing from customers? Are they stealing from him or just loosing his...

I've been delaying writing this for a little while now... But every time I drive by this place, I am reminded at how horrible of an experience my wife and I had here a couple months ago.

To start, we ordered around $60 worth of food online for pickup. My wife and I had groceries in the car but we figured we'd be waiting at most 20-30 minutes for our food.

However, after around 20 minutes of waiting in our car, we noticed that the website we ordered it on was not updating from the preparing order status. So I took the initiative to go inside and politely ask for a status. Nobody greeted me upon walking in, and one of the workers kept walking past be trying to avoid eye contact. Eventually after about 10-15 minutes, I got someone's attention. This individual didn't speak English, and was very rude to me. She kept sighing and groaning every time I asked for something or when I couldn't understand her Spanish. She eventually pulls out Google translate, and I am able to communicate with her the issue. But instead of understanding and being eager to get our food out, she let's out a sigh and storms off to her manager.

Here I was thinking I'd finally speak to a manager who would be happy to help, but boy was I wrong. Once again, I was stuck speaking to a very rude individual who barely spoke English. (she spoke a little, but not much) She first didn't believe that we placed an order, as they didn't see anything on their computer saying we ordered food. But I was able to prove to her that we did by showing my bank statement. She then became very irritated and stormed off into the kitchen and started speaking with some of the workers.

At this point, about 45 minutes have passed since I placed the order, and they still haven't even started working on the food. We were annoyed but just wanted our food. I even placed a second order for 2 beers, which they were not happy about for some reason. After waiting another 20 or so minutes they finally bring our food out. My wife and I talk about it and decide to ask for a refund (or even a partial refund). We never do this, but figured since we waited over an hour, and dealt with some horrible customer service, we were owed some sort of compensation. However the manager refused to help, and was very rude and annoyed by us asking.

My wife and I left here feeling very upset and ultimately defeated. The worst thing about it all, is the food was absolutely disgusting. Which surprised us, as we've eaten there before and the food tasted great.

Looking back on this, I am upset I never did a charge back. I will never been coming back here and hope nobody else coming here has an experience...

Update: originally a 2 star review, but I'll bump it up to a 3 today because of the quality of the food. I really love the mango fish and the dessert. The service still sucks though. The waitress drops off our food and is nowhere to be found. We finished eating and needed the check and a to go box - waited 15 minutes! The only reason why she came was bc the party next to us was waving and yelling for someone. It was a Wednesday night, so it was slow and not packed like before when there's a band. I like their drinks too. The ceviche is still way too sour for my taste, and it's become less awkward to walk in (due to the lack of diversity) but only when it's slow. When it's super packed, it's definitely still slightly uncomfortable because of all the stares you get when you walk in. That's just my personal experience, though. Wanted to dine elsewhere, but it was closed, so we stopped at the first open restaurant we saw. Felt spontaneous and was winging it. It was packed, and there was a band. They seated us in the booths to the left, but it was too close to the speakers. So we moved ourselves to the right (covered outdoor area near bar) away from the noise so we could catch up and talk. We looked through our menu and when we were ready to order we couldn't find a waitress for quite some time. When we got someone's attention, she said she won't take our order because the kitchen was closing in 10-15 minutes. I explained to her the time we came in and what had happened. The woman manager came and said she'd take our order. I got the platter with a little bit of everything (seafood) on it. The plate presentation was wonderful, but the ceviche was way too sour. So many lime/ lemon that I couldn't taste the rest of the stuff in it. My cup of water was leaking water everywhere. It wasn't easy to find our waitress when we needed her, and she rarely checked up on us. We didn't feel welcome, so we took everything to go. Service was not great, and i hate how awkward it feels walking into this place. How everyone just stares at you like you...