Rebecca's

When I write a review I do it for two reasons. The first one is to inform other users and the second is hoping that business owners use the feedback to improve. With that being said, here’s my review of Rebecca’s: The restaurant is in Old River Road. In a small stretch of street occupied by good restaurants like Pa De and Cafe Archetypus. Beautifully decorated with dim lights, low hanging chandeliers, a great mural of Celia Cruz by Bash and soft Salsa music playing in the background, it is the perfect date night setting. Their back patio is beautifully decorated with Instagram worthy lights and looks like it can accommodate 10-15 people for private events. Now to the food: When you go to a Cuban restaurant in Union City, West New York, Jersey City and North Bergen, you expect good food or at least the classics done right. This was not the case. We started with the tasteless chorizo, followed by the self-proclaimed “best bean soup” outside of Miami. It tasted straight out of the can, microwaved and seasoned with salt and pepper. The guacamole was good, the plantain chips were thin and crispy. The empanadas looked double-fried and was made with the same chewy meat (read below). The Churrasco was ordered medium and arrived well done, almost burnt and very tough to bite. Accompanied by a very small side of Moro “dirty rice” that had no flavor. Today’s special was a pepper salmon which was missing its namesake ingredient. The salmon tasted like it was thawed improperly. Soaked. It arrived with an odd side of pico de gallo and mash sweet potatoes that had been left in water for too long and had lost their flavor. The Ropa Vieja was the worst offender. It lacked depth, flavor and was so chewy that my friend needed water to bring it down. Asked for hot sauce to add some flavor and were presented with Cholula (good for eggs) and Yucateco (excellent but overpowering). The paradise sangria mix was just water, sugar and a few tiny chunks of pineapple. We skipped dessert of course. The wait staff noticed how displeased we were with the food and out of an abundance of caution added a 20% tip to a group of three. $250 for burnt Churrasco, frozen salmon and straight-out-of-the-can beans felt like robbery. I hope the restaurant improves the food so that small stretch of Old River Road continues to be a source of good restaurants. PS: Please get a stronger hood vent. Smoke leaked out onto the dining room from the kitchen and the smoke alarm went off a couple of times.

Honestly, one of best restaurants in the area. It’s cozy and well decorated. We went for dinner on a Friday at 6pm and were treated to great service and excellent food options. Their dishes have the perfect balance of Caribbean staples with fine dining. The tilapia was soft, tasty, and just cooked right! Oh, this is a a BYOB locale but they have a small wine selection on the menu. We will be returning.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t review restaurants, more so, bad reviews, being that I don’t take pleasure in harming in any way local businesses, but I am so outraged with the waitress/lady answering the phone and her lack of professionalism. I called in letting her known that I had found a hair on the lechon asado, and that she should tell the cook, kitchen staff to be careful with their food so they won’t have another person calling in for hair in their dinner. Simple as that, no screaming or rudeness from my part, although anyone can clearly be upset about not being able to eat their expensive meal. She was very argumentative, rude, sarcastic, stating that there was no woman with black long hair working there, no humility, or apology whatsoever, a simple I’m sorry that you got to experience that and we will take note of it, would have been good for me. The food is probably good and I would have given the place a second chance, given that mistakes happen, but her lack of professionalism is not something I am willing to experience again.

First and foremost, I’ve been to this restaurant once before and although the food was tasty, every time I’ve tried to rebook, it’s been an issue. 3 months ago I booked online and the restaurant called me saying, “It’s slow tonight so we’re closing the kitchen early so we won’t be able to accommodate your reservation.” I think that type of service is pathetic, because I’ve been a retail manager and although a restaurant is quite different, whenever your business is “slow” you send some of the workers home early, you don’t close up show. Clearly someone doesn’t know how to use the “labor cost x restaurant sales forecasting” method. And then here we are today, my significant other and I trying to give this restaurant another chance, and rebook again, 4.5 hours before our expected arrival, and not even 20 minutes later someone calls saying “The manager just saw your reservation, and he already booked other people.” Needless to say, the manager SHOULD HAVE CALLED ME and spoke directly and apologized for the inconvenience and offered some type of accommodation instead of having someone with broken English tell me that my reservation could not be fulfilled. It’s cool, they don’t have to worry about me anymore. If you want some decent authentic Cuban food, Cuban Pete’s is way better!

When to a birthday party there and the service was very bad, didn't like the food either, it was not cooked properly. The employees were very rude. The food portion was very small. When asked for coffee they denied it because there was 30 mins left to closing. They also didnt allow the birthday girl to cut the cake even with more than enough time left to do so. Never again, i don't recommended this place to anyone. Parking is horrible as well. I would give this place zero stars if I could.

I’m extremely disappointed in my experience at Rebecca’s for my daughter's first birthday party as I had high hopes in everything turning out great. There were so many aspects of things that were discussed that weren’t produced in my event and the customer service from Sonya was terrible!!!! When first viewing the place to rent for my daughter's birthday Sonya was extremely unprofessional discussing how unhappy she was working at Rebecca’s as she received new job duties and that she wasn’t getting paid for the extra work. She talked about her plans to leave and continue about how unhappy she was to work there. Her attitude about her unhappiness of working at Rebecca’s reflected poorly on her customer service the day of my event. When arriving at a restaurant to decorate, things that were discussed before the event wasn’t set up correctly which delay the time of decorating for the event and made it that we were still decorating during the beginning of my event. She had breached the contract that we had. There were 2 packages for drinks of the event the 3$ per person or the 6$ per person. I had picked 3$ per person as I felt it fit better with my event. Sonya never gave my guest any drinks apart from my package. She didn’t offer any drinks to my guest but was charging people for things that weren’t part of my package. She was offering people drinks from 6$ package and charging me per drink that was ordered randomly. This had brought my bill higher than it should’ve been. This is extremely upsetting because not only did the majority of my guests didn’t drink I got to be charged more for drinks when I shouldn’t have. I got less for what I paid for and was SCAMMED! Another issue that I feel was extremely heartbreaking is she didn’t allow my cake to be cut and told me that she won’t be able to cut it because there are only 30 mins left to the event. I was never told a cutoff time to cut the cake or anything. If I was told a time I would’ve worked accordingly to that time which I was never provided. This had ruined my event because who doesn’t cut a cake for a birthday and it’s my daughter's very first birthday. I was so pleased with how the place was decorated and the style of restaurant which had led me to do my daughter's birthday here. I could’ve chosen any place to celebrate her birthday but I chose this place because I had such high hopes as it would be perfect. I did enjoy the food as it was delicious. My major disappointment for my event would have to be the customer service I experienced at this place. Sonya and the other female who worked with her were very rude and unfriendly. Sonya was very unprofessional and unorganized. She is in a role that she can’t handle and it is reflecting so poorly on this restaurant. I will no longer ever come to this restaurant because of this big disappointment of the experience I had. Nor would I recommend this place to anyone as many people who asked me about this place I will no longer recommend because of the service I received. What makes a place is good customer service and this place DOES NOT HAVE THAT!