Little Coco's — Restaurant in Washington

I had such high hopes for this restaurant. My friends and I visited as a group of 4 for dinner on Saturday 3/10/18 at around 9pm. I looked at the reservations available b4 getting there and saw that there were tables available at 9, however I didn’t reserve since I live 2 min away. When we got there the hostess was so unfriendly we should have probably cut our losses and moved on but we agreed to wait for a table for 1/2hr. During our wait, 20 of the 30+ minuets we waited there were 2 empty tables in plain view. But we patiently waited at the bar without complaint. The bartender was brash and short. Anytime we ordered a drink, it felt like we were bothering her. At the 30 minute mark, I inquired with hostess how much longer our wait would be and her reply was “I said it would be at least 30 minutes. There’s at least in table with a check on it” Utterly rude. I walked back to the bar and about 10 min later she informed us that a table was ready. When I went to sit at the booth, there was a sharp nail sticking out and it scratched my leg pretty badly (it was bleeding and I used my own bandaid). The hostess was standing right there and barely said anything. She leaned in to feel the nail as if I was over exaggerating and still barely said anything resembling an apology. I just let it slide since I was still trying to salvage the experience with my group of friends. The waitress was really awesome. She really tried and we appreciated her for it - she comped us 2 appetizers for the injury caused by the nail. The food was decent as well, except I ordered a vegan pizza, they put cheese on it and then replaced the order. When the bill came, they charged me for 2 pizzas. So we had to ask for one to be removed from the bill. Like I said, really wanted to love this place. But in order to warrant return visits, restaurants must have great service. You can serve the best food in the world, but if you can’t treat your paying customers right, forget it. I won’t spend my money at little coco ever again. And you should think twice about spending...

Update: I received a reply to my original review (below) asking that I follow up via email, and soon after Little Coco's rectified the situation. I am very grateful to management for their responsiveness and generosity. It means so much to feel like we are being seen and cared for in the midst of such a difficult time.

I live around the corner and have been coming to this restaurant for a long time. We love their food, especially the penne al vodka and chicken parmesan. It's a great place to gather friends for a celebration outside and their happy hour is among one of the best deals in the city.

I went to Little Coco's this week with my sister and partner for our first outing together after recently receiving news of a tragic death in my family. We hoped for a nice, easeful, close to home meal at a time we really needed some comfort.

We were effectively forgotten outside for the majority of our meal.

During our meal, we were forced to move our table, and asked to carry our plates, utensils, and drinks across the patio ourselves. My partner had to go inside to request a fork after asking a server for one earlier. I had to go inside to ask for the check after 30 minutes of waiting, and then, again, my sister went inside to bring them the check when no-one came to retrieve it. We were offered a free apology tiramisu as we were leaving, but they asked us to wait five more minutes for them to bring it out to us. At this point after nearly an hour of waiting, we just chose to leave and return home. It was really disappointing.

We've experienced poor service here before, even with takeout when they've forgotten our order. (We were offered an apology tiramisu then too.)

We have returned many times because the food is delicious. But it's quite expensive, and I'm not sure if I'll be back after another experience with poor service, especially this time when we really just needed more care and had so little energy to expend...

Good food could not save our dinner at Little Coco from being a somewhat disappointing experience.

The food was good. The pasta was homemade and had a good bite that is indicative of fresh pasta. The sauce was flavorful. We also had a pizza for an appetizer that, despite being called Meat & Mushroom, omitted any mention of the afforementioned mushrooms from its ingredient list. Still, solid food.

What Little Cocos lack, however, was a service that matched the value of the food delivered. That is not to say the waitress who served us was unpleasant--she was very nice and attentive. But for the price of the food being enjoyed (mind you this is still Columbia Heights and not downtown), we expected the experience to be more refined. We were seated at an incredibly wobbly table, one entree came almost 10 minutes after the others, and no bread was served (which is an expectation at any Italian restaurant, let alone one with such delicious sauce that deserves to be cleaned up with a slice of fresh bread rather than scraped down the drain). What was slightly insulting was what happened at the end of the meal. Upon being asked if we wanted desert, we told the waitress that we had birthday cake waiting at home (we were celebrating a birthday). She huffed and hawed that we could leave without some sort of celebration at the restaurant, and she offered a scoop of ice cream with a candle. We did not want any dessert--we had some at home. But she insisted and we acquiesced. We received a small scoop of what tasted like Blue Bunny Ice Cream with a candle. We sang to the birthday boy, then received the bill to note that we were charged for the "gelato" that the waitress definitely implied was complimentary. Again, the cost wasn't insulting. What was insulting that the waitress used a birthday to upsell us into a desert we did not want.

Overall, our meal was good, but the experience lacking the refinement of...