Berkeley
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Cafe De La Paz
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An absolutely horrendous experience. I scheduled a business dinner here with 20 out of town guests. The owner required a deposit of $250. and immediately cashed my check the same day. (this is a clue.) The dinner occurred a week later and the food and service were disjointed and not up to the quality I'd experienced there before. There was a large musical event/opening at the same establishment, which they failed to disclose when I made the reservation. When the dinner was complete, each person paid their tab to the head wait person. I threw in an added gratuity, despite the amount automatically added to the checks. When I asked for my deposit return, the waiter said they didn't know anything about it, and they couldn't find the owner. Five trips back and many more phone calls later, over the next few days, and he wrote me a check for the $250. Well, the check bounced. Now I'm chasing this guy Russell again. I brought this establishment close to a $1,000. of business and they've treated me terribly. I've had to call and remind the owner to go to the bank, etc. He acts like a total doper. Please take your business elsewhere.…
Bright lights and mojitos in North Berkeley..
In Short
Dishing up Latin and Spanish flavors, Cafe de la Paz lights up Shattuck Avenue with its colorful plates and consistently lively night scene. Lately, the food is said to be
alternating between good and mediocre, but their Venezuelan pancakes keep customers coming back, and the spunky sangria and mojitos convert dozens every weekend.…
Service oriented folks. Owner was great at fixing a miscommunication we had. Very straightforward, amicable and respectful. They try hard and will probably succeed regardless of glitches described further.
Disappointing. I was entirely underwhelmed by the food and service at Cafe de La Paz. Went in for lunch, excited to get some traditional South American cuisine. But, the dishes were far from authentic. Rather than incuding dishes that were traditional to particular countries, the cafe features a mish-mashed variety of hybrid dishes that are vaguely South American. One might say this is pan-South-American cuisine. This need not necessarily be a bad thing. However, the combinations of ingredients seemed uninspired and overall the meal fell flat. Nothing was terrible, but nothing stood out either. Also, despite a relatively empty restaurant, the service was painfully slow.…
Abhorent Service.
No stars! I have eaten here a few times before and put up with the slow service because of the good Latin fusion food...but no longer!
Last night, a few of my friends (4 people including myself) and I went to Cafe de la Paz for my birthday. At first, it took about 10 minutes for anyone working to even acknowledge that we were waiting for a table. Then after being seated we waited 10 more minutes for menus. By the time we were ready to order, we hadn't even been offered water.
While this was already a damper on the evening, we enjoyed our meals and sangria. However, the most exciting part of the evening was when we recieved our bill.
After the bill was placed on the table, our almost non-existant waiter returned 15 mins later to collect our cards (this being his 3rd trip to our table over the course of over an hour)-- he yelled at us for wanting to split the check--- loud enough to catch the attention of the other customers. He claimed that we should have "prepared in advance," and "it wasn't appropriate," but to be quite honest I didn't catch everything he said because I was shocked I was being so fiercely scolded.
After this demonstration, my friend let him know that he would not be recieving a tip after his less-than-gracious lecture, and the waiter became extremely confrontational.
The waiter proceeded to stomp loudly down the stairs and called the manager to deal with us. He came back up the stairs, told my friend he was a "punk" and we didn't see him for the rest of the evening.
The manager was apologetic and handled the situation well-- but explained that our waiter was usually quite good and normally "friendly". The manager took off our alcoholic beverages for the evening (about $30 off the $100+ bill).
As a table of mature adults, I was appalled that I was being treated in such a way anywhere, let alone at a restaurant! Needless to say, I will not be returning and can't say the food was worth the treatment.…
