Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar

Reviews 4

RU

Rupalee Chauhan

I came here with my boyfriend during restaurant week. Ive been here before during the weekends at night, but I never actually ate at the place, so since it was restaurant week, and we had tickets to the IMAX, I figured I would give them a try. Now I know that restaurant week can be very busy, and sometimes even annoying if you have numerous people coming for discounted food, but either way, this is a way to give future business a chance to come back. With that being said, the food was AMAZING. The service however, was the exact opposite. I could not say enough good things about the food and enough bad things about my waitress. She was all smiles and friendly until we told her we wanted to order from the restaurant week menu. Her whole expression changed in a matter of seconds. Again, I understand that it can be annoying since it is a busy week for so many restaurants, but who says this isnt the perfect opportunity to make great money? Sure, you will get a lot of cheap people who are not willing to spend anything, but that does not mean all of them will be! Some people, like myself, may take advantage of the deal and add more to it to make it seem like I got even more than I usually could. For two people, we still managed to get the bill up to $150 after drinks, even though our meals were only $35. Half the time the waitress ignored us. It took over 15 minutes every time we would ask to get a drink even though we were steps away from the bar. Seemed like she would forget until she saw us staring at her. There were other couples there as well attending for restaurant week and I noticed their waiter was super friendly and brought them their drinks and food in a timely fashion, and most of them left before we did, despite us being seated before them! She just did not want any part of serving us, even though we were being as nice as possible to her. I had no idea where our waitress was half the time. Towards the end, we just wanted to pay and leave after waiting 40 minutes for her to hand us the bill. She was not even the person that brought the food out to us or took our plates away. Finally after waiting for so long, we saw her sweeping in a corner and we decided to get up and ask her if we could please pay so we could leave. I almost wanted to give her tip to the other waiter that was working there since it seemed like he was doing such a great job. I understand that when its busy, it can be hard to keep up with the amount of people you have to serve, but as far as I could see, we were one of few tables she was serving. I work in a similar field when your pay is mainly based off of your customer service, and although many of us can have off days, you still have to keep your smile on your face and continue on. Working in a customer service related field, you may see so many people throughout the day, but you have to keep in mind that your customers only see YOU once, and because of that one interaction, depending on whether it was a positive one or not will determine if that customer would like to come back. I do not want the waitress to get in trouble, because like I said, I understand that we all have bad days, so I will not include her name, but I will say this experience left a very sour taste in my mouth. Not sure if I would like to come back, and its a shame because working in the bridal industry, I would have love to send so many bride and grooms to your venue since the food is so good, but with the service that we experience, I am not even sure if it would be worth mentioning.

JI

Jimmy Suarez

This past weekend I was a guest at Tropicana. I called Cuba Libre and asked what the policy was regarding eating there and getting free admission to the club at night. I was told "as long as you ate there you would gain free admission." My wife and I along with another couple decided not use our Borgata free buffet vouchers and go down stairs to Cuba Libre. We spent $70 worth of food and drinks. We were told to return at 11pm by the bouncer at the front door (white looking dude but Latino with bald head). Upon our return, he said we could not get in for free because we only ordered appetizers. After a few minutes of trying to get an explanation because there was clearly miscommunication; he got annoyed that we questioned him and then said we could not get in the club at all because we were creating a scene? Mind you we were 2 couples in our 40s we are not the type to cause a scene. He just wanted to flex his muscle, the sad part is that the manager (short Spanish looking guy I think his name was Eddie) happen to be standing right next to him and said it was nothing he could do. This is so unprofessional and I vowed to tell everyone I know of my experience, the manager looked at me and said he could care less. Anyhow I wont be going there ever again. As a result we went next door to ANTHEM and spent over $300 on drinks and had a great time with discounted admission.

YA

Yasmin Delao

I would have given it 5 stars if the services was better! The food was DELICIOUS but extremely disappointed how we were treated especially at the end. we had a prefixed menu since we were a party of 10 and they told us that a party of 10 or greater was prefixed menu only, we chose the $65 P/P menu (the most expensive one) and ended paying $126 P/P after drinks, tax & gratuity a total of $1260. They cleared our table as soon as we paid the bill some of my friends drinks were also taken away and we were told go to the dance floor and to come back there "stay behind the rope" they needed to make our table a VIP table if we wanted it we had to buy a bottle! after spending $1260 they literately kicked us out! I have NEVER EVER experienced that kind of treatment! I have had many dinner parties in several restaurant/clubs in NYC and they have ALWAYS let us keep our table especially after spending a lot of money on a dinner! if youre going just for dinner is great or just for dancing but DO NOT have a big dinner party here they are rude and inconsiderate!

HA

Haydee St. Vauldray

I was there last night for the nightclub.The manager didnt have any customer service skills. I asked for a table for 7 and he said we needed two bottles minimum $125 Moët later changed his mind that we needed to purchase a bottle of vodka $275 and a bottle of Moët $125 this was different from what the menu had. He said because its Saturday and the seats were limited and thats why he needed to charge us a higher price bottle. There were many tables empty he was just saving it for other people. Also, at the door they were giving one in our group a hard time for wearing sneakers where as there were many light skin complexion allowed in with no issues wearing shorts and sneakers. Some people also did not pay a cover charge and in our group each was charged $20. We still ended up spending more than $300 in drinks we just needed to seat down. The manager has no hospitality and I will never go back to this place again. Not recommended for anyone.