Mesita Garden City — Restaurant in Town of Hempstead

I visited mesita garden city Monday night and to my surprise I was less than pleased. I made reservations for 815 thru the website, I was greeted by a Caucasian lady with blonde hair that told me this establishment don’t take reservations. Once I walked through your establishment it was clear what kind of crowd you where trying to attract, which clearly wasn’t my kind but I never felt this way when I visited the Roosevelt location. So another hosts intervene when she over heard what was happening, state that there are reservations and told the Caucasian lady with the blonde hair to look for a table. The lady left to look for a table for us, came back less than 2 minutes later and state there was no tables available. The other host state that there where tables and gave the Caucasian lady with the blonde hair orders to sit us. The only reason this incident didn’t turn into an event was because I was on a date, which was witnessing what was taking place and was very upset. As soon as we where seated I told the waiter Manny what transpired and he was very apologetic towards the situation that Cleary wasn’t his fault. My question is how many people of color did this establishment turn away Monday night cause you lie and say you don’t take reservations when you clearly do, or you have 4 empty tables and seats available at the bar which wasn’t an option either for my kind. Spoke to the Manger the following day about what transpired in the restaurant he was apologetic, understandable but are there enough words in the dictionary to excuse discrimination. As a neighborhood local save your coins there are so many other good eats within the community, Havana central ,Cabo Rvc ,Sangria 71 etc. Also If a business is running on only being promoted to a certain demographic, it would be smart to not take reservations at all so it wouldn't be so obvious when you try to turn people away...

I will definitely NOT be returning to this restaurant because I was RACIALLY PROFILED by the rude manager Jerry. My friend and I went to have dinner and as soon as we were done eating, while we were talking, Jerry asked if we could leave so that he could join/connect our table to an empty table next to us so a larger party can sit down. As a manager he should’ve sat us somewhere else to begin with if he knew there was a party with a reservation coming in. That would’ve made more sense than rushing us out. After the second rude comment from Jerry about it being too busy for us to keep sitting there, my friend and I went to ladies room before leaving. As we walked out we noticed that a new party was sitting where we just got up from but their table was not connected/joined to the neighboring table for a larger group as Jerry said he needed to do. In fact, the table next to the one we just got up from, remained empty. We proceeded to walk out of the restaurant past SEVERAL empty tables. I asked Jerry about all the empty tables and him rushing us out as I left. He said if we really want to stay, we could go to the bar. Ha! Obviously, I’m not staying at an establishment to continue to be disrespected when I was asked to leave as soon as I took my last bite of food. Jerry was lying and wanted us in particular to leave. That point was obvious because Jerry did not ask any other customers around us to leave. Our waiter was nice and we tipped well. The food was good but I couldn’t even let my food digest in peace because Jerry is a racist who decided to profile two African American women tonight. Do better Mesita...

I had brought my girlfriend here to celebrate our 2nd year anniversary and when we walked in there were 3 hosts and all 3 of them told us we could either sit at a table which was right next to the door in a small compact tight space or sit at the bar so me and my girl decided to sit at the bar mind u we’re 18 years old so we’re like why not, not like we’re drinking or anything. Now once we sit down the lady at the bar gives us the menu and so we start looking at what to eat and the lady asks if we’re ready and we said could we have a couple minutes please next thing you know she makes a disgusted face at us. We didn’t think much of it so whatever so we know what we wanna eat now and we tell the same lady what we want and then we tell her that we want a Mexican coke and a mango Mexican soda. Next thing you know she’s asking us for ID and we tell her that we’re under age and that we’re 18 but that they told us we could sit here. She goes over to her manager and he comes over to me and is like I’m sorry but I can’t have you guys sitting here since ur under age and I explain to him that the 3 hosts he has told we could and he’s like I know but there not checking ID you guys could sit at the table over there (the tight space table) and I’m like yah no we didn’t choose to sit there because of where it was. So we got up and left because there were no other table and everything was reserved. My problem is why ask for ID after we order we order 2 sodas not 2 alcoholic drinks. Unbelievable service...