Laguna Grande Restaurante Mexicano & Bar — Restaurant in Town of Canandaigua

My friends and I have been coming here regularly for years, and it hurts to write this review. I'll start with the positives; good food at great prices, fantastic drinks, clean restaurant. It's why we've been coming here for years. Service is usually aloof, but acceptable.

Yesterday we went and had the best service I have ever had from Aurora, the first time we've had service there that was warm and friendly. At one point, a wasp outside caused us to accidentally knock a FULL drink onto our meal. They were promptly replaced, but when we received our bill, we saw we were charged twice for both. She apologized profusely (not her fault at all) and we asked if we could talk to the manager about it. When she came back out, she was mortified to tell us that the manager agreed to take off the food (a $5 burrito), but if we wanted the drink taken off as well, we would have to get up and go inside to talk to him. Most of us have worked for restaurants at some point in our lives, and were appalled at this, more so that he wouldn't come to our table to talk to us about it and we were told to go in there after him.

Now to get into the worst of it (if you're someone with compassion and empathy). The policy for the wait staff is if they accidentally ring up something incorrectly, they have to pay for it out of pocket. If someone needs a replacement meal or beverage, it needs to get rang into the system and someone is paying for it, whether it's the customer or the server. If you're the owner and you get upset that your waitress told us this - don't. We grilled her on the policies and she only told us after we continued to ask very pointed questions.

We as a group are there on average once a month (twice a month this month) spending collectively around 200-400 each time, depending on how many of us show up. Never have any of us worked at an establishment that punishes their workers this way, it is unheard of in the industry and is shameful. With a place that treats their employees like this, I'm afraid this review will be taken out on the server. I hope instead that those in charge can reflect on this and take responsibility for terrible policies that never should have existed in the first place. Do better, treat your employees like human beings instead of slaves. If you can't afford mistakes from your employees and customers, just increase your prices to compensate.

1 star for all the good times we've had here and 1 star for Aurora. We won't be back - we cannot in good conscience support a business that treats their employees and their...

I’ve been here before in October 2020 with a group of 6 and had a wonderful experience. Service, food and drinks were all great. Tonight was another story. I called earlier in the day to ask if a group of 4 would need a reservation. The woman I spoke to said no and that they only take walk ins at this time, but said a group of 4 would be no problem. The group of 4 I was with, walked in tonight and the woman told us it would be about a 20 min wait. Which was no problem at all, so we gave her a name and number. A member of our group of 4, which happened to be my husband, had to use their bathroom right away while we were willing to wait. My husband walked in to use their bathroom. A few minutes later, another male employee walks over, greets us and waves us to follow him to a table as he as menus and silverware in his hands. We were like wow, that was super quick. He seats us at a booth, but only with 3 menus and 3 sets of silverware, assuming so because he did not know we had a 4th person, who was my husband in the bathroom. Soon after, my husband comes out and sits down. A waiter comes to our table and is very short with us and begins to ask us for our drink orders. I tell him that we did not get a drink menu. He goes and gets one and then comes back and asks us if we sat ourselves, while the woman, who originally told us it was a 20 minute wait, is standing in a near distance (that I believe she did not realize I could see her) is shaking her head “yes”. The waiter said that the table had been reserved for someone else. (But how was that possible if I was told that they don’t take reservations?) I proceed to tell the waiter that I do not appreciate him assuming that we sat ourselves and that I would be happy to show him the employee that sat us down at the table. Despite the miscommunication within between RESTAURANT staff and being falsely accused of seating ourselves (which I can’t believe people would do that- we certainly never have or never will), the service eventually turned out to be good and the food was as good as it was before. In addition, don’t use “this table was reserved” if you tell customers that you don’t take reservations to begin with. Just very displeased with how the situation was handled by the restaurant employees...

In summary, food was alright, service left alot to be desired. If you want read the whole account... The entrance was locked. That should have been warning number one...waited for someone to open the door, another couple was also waiting.... Finally someone came and I pulled on the door loudly to get their attention. Person who answered apologizes mentions the push bar is an issue (sorry? If it's an issue there should be better attendence at the door?) We get seated at the bar, which normally is our preferred so is fine with us, but it hasn't yet been wiped/sanitize from prior, menus were somewhat tossed in front of us. No greeting from bartender. We then asked for a table and got one right away. Memphis was our waiter we found out after 10 minutes, from the guy who dropped of warmed chips with salsa, When Memphis came, he took our drink order, a water and a vodka/club soda. After another 10 minutes he was back for the food order(no drinks). He listened, but gave no suggestions about my keto limitations, but did write down: no rice, no tortilla, and no refried beans.(Waited more than 15 minutes for that drink, I don't usually check the time, but it was at least that, bar was NOT loaded.) Food came and our Fajitas were NOT sizzling, Both came as ordered. Prior to that, I had to wave my empty drink glass from across the room to indicate I'd like another.(waited another 15 minutes for that second drink). When it came I asked for hot sauce, but was brought more salsa. When he came round one last time to check on us, he said he would be right back, I bluntly said "please don't walk away, we won't see you again for another 15 minutes!" we wanted to give him our card, to check out. It was our first time and probably our last time. They got alot...