www.CostaRicaTicas.com

YO News Cafe:

As some of you know the Presidente has been my primary hotel except for my nights at Cardboard Inns. I use to enjoy the breakfast and lunch there not only due to the convenience but the food was OK and the Avenue Central ongoing parade was the entertainment.

The breakfast, free or paid for, has gone downhill especially since they no longer cook the eggs in coated skillet pans. This may not seem important to those who are not breakfast connoisseurs but frying, scranbling and preparing egg omelets are not meant for a flat bed cook top which they currently employ. Gas burners, frying pans and unsalted butter along with pre-cooking the various ingredients are necessary for cooking a good omelet along with doing eggs over easy, medium or scrambling them.

NTM, some chrispy bacon or cooked ham would be a plus. Several good toasters are desperately needed. Also, they use to keep the juices and milk cooler but now they just sit in a pitcher until warm. Of course old Circus would love to have grits but that ain't going to happen.

As for lunch, the quality has slipped there also while prices have rapidly increased. The bar drinks and beer are very overpriced as are other watering holes in the gulch. The service by the wait staff is hot and cold. I seated myself on several occasions when no one waited on me....I had to go find silverware and napkins. Lord forbid if I had gotten too many napkins considering the "Great Napkin Theft" incident over a year ago.

Daniel, the hotel manager, went out of his way to ask me on a couple of occasions if everything was OK with my stay at the Pres. I relayed to him my disappointments with the cafe. Especially one time after lunch when I had just had their "tough" thin Argentine steak. Daniel made an interesting comment. "The ticos and ticas love it. Please understand that we cater to the locals and close to 80% of our business comes from them."

As a business owner I cannot argue with his point. It makes sense. What it does not make is my continued patronage of the cafe and bar. The hotel rooms and management staff still remain my preference. I shall find other suitable places convenient to eat and drink.....althoug their quality via affordability seemingly are diminishing rapidly.

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Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.

Yo Napkin thief
It does seem the Cafe, breakfast and service is not what it was a few years ago and they still keep changing things around with the buffet. They lost most of my business when they took several of my favorite items off the menu last year but I can still get them across the street at El Patio for a cheaper price.
I find it hard to believe they get 80% of their business from Ticos, I have noticed many eat there for lunch but most other times it is majority gringo tourists

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Living well is the best revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwUtj_YnNoY

agree, had so much fun there over the years but the rail is nothing like it used to be

My stomach can't handle the free breakfast anymore. I have started bringing boxes of breakfast bars down with me to satisfy me till lunch or like "Poco" stated I just head over across the street to El Patio.

To me, me Daniels' is a much overlooked point of view...we are the minority here and as much as we like to think that our shit doesn't stink because we are Americans...it does (More now than ever but that's another rant).

They don't need the gringos who wants to come down here and constantly tell them what to charge, how to cook, how to speed things up, how to fix their roads and how to keep crack and drugs out of our perceived paradice, and where to station their police.

This is their world and we are just passing through. They have been doing things differently for a long time and doing quite well IMO without the advice of the Del Rey type gringo who has all the answers.

Witness the MP's on RCB list many have been around for more than 25 years doing the same old thing...providing girls to suck your dick for $8-$15 and I frequently read how we are not going to go there anymore and they will eventually have to close for lack of gringo money..BS

We have such inflated egos that we actually believe this crap

Frankly, if some of the American business owners here would take the gringo advice given on this board I think they could learn a good lesson and maybe have kept their business afloat ..but the same arrogant know-it-all attitude prevailes...I'm refering to the ones that failed or are at least having a tough time or various incarnations ..Pirate club (there's a couple of Mensa candidates), Kamur, Centerfolds, Bruce's American Restaurant (didn't last 3 weeks) Dos Gringos, Gardens Restaurant and there are more I can't recall right now.

And as Circus says; take your patronage somewhere else...no problem with that! There are plenty of places to spend your money..enjoy it

Venture out, learn the language, meet the people and have a great NEW adventure

I still find it hard to believe Ticos are 80% of their biz but nobody here is trying to change the tico culture or tell them what to do. The food and service used to be very good and now it's not. If the NC prefers to cater to ticos with a limited menu, shitty food and service that's their choice, it's obvious they've already lost some of us as customers.

We do you say "WE" when you obviously mean "YOU"?

In the context he used it



I think he meant it as a plural, and rightfully so, in my opinion. Anybody who has been an active member of this board for over a year has seen countless times posters telling everyone how important gringo monger tourists are to the economy of San Jose and if we stopped coming the gulch would dry up and wither away.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

LivinCR wrote:

Actually, they do. They don’t necessarily have to use the advice or comments given, but if they want to continue to reap the benefits of tourism they have to expect the comments that are made by tourists. It is a given part of the tourism industry that the tourist will want things like wherever they are from and that they will expect a certain level of service dependant upon the the amount that they are paying. If San Jose is going to continue to be successful in the tourist business they will listen to these comments and act upon those that will ensure a pleasant visit and a possible return visit.

Costa Rica is now a “B” destination on its way to “C” in tourism terms. An “A” is an out of the way adventure destination that is not main stream, moving to a “B” means that travel agents and tours are in place and it is popular. “C” means that mom & pops with the K*ds can do it. “D” is for dead… The goal of any tourist based economy is to stay at the low side of “B”, some do, some just continue on down and return to struggling economies. What will happen after people have seen the rainforest, volcanoes and beaches of CR will depend upon the memories of their first trip as well as the word of mouth that the “B” tourists spread to their friends and families. Hospitality is a key word…think of Jamaica (Mon…) or Thailand (Land of smiles)…

LivinCR and ID to some point show pure signs of “local’s mentality”… I have lived most of my life in tourist destinations, and it’s an easy and somewhat normal thing to happen, but you have to get over the “I’ve got mine, now don’t phuck it up” mentality. I could go on for days with stories of the things that I’ve seen and heard… but it’s much better to just smile, laugh and remember that I/we get to live here/there and they will be gone in a few days…leaving behind money.

Just my 2 cents…

Mendo

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"It takes a lot of good beer to make a great wine"

You have been a member of this board long enough to have seen multiple post by, CRT members, advocating using our power to boycott certain establishment because we can change their policies based on "our" enormous economic influence. If you want concrete examples reread the Presidente dress code threads for one.

I will not speak for LivinCR but only for myself. Calling our view point myopic "local's mentality" is as far off the mark as the supposed monger economic influence on the gulch.

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Just to calrify a point or two

I do in fact mean we and maybe I'm off base but that's my take

Also, I don't really mean to pick on the group of guys on this board...actually I'm referring more to the non CRT members and typical tourist gringos I meet around San Jose and the beach communities...however there a few CRT guys as well who fit the role

my 2 cents...first trip ..i ate many meals there as i thought the food seemed to be safe ...bottle diet coke for me and ok service ...as for me 12 trips later i only tried to eat there once on my last trip...as i was trying to stay clear of everyone smoking at the bar and "trying' to make eye contact with the 3 bartenders ..none of which would look my way....i just left ...so now i have found more places that i feel are safe ( i work in the food bussiness ) so safe is more important to me than, maybe some others but maybe ...from what i see after 10:00 i only see 10 or 12 gringos drinking a few beers while the dining room is full at lunch time with tico"s and tica's (bussiness lunch) cant really say about dinner since i not really around during that time...the manager should take some of the young ticos from KFC next door as they understand service and they dont make tips....i am impressed everytime i go in that KFC ...and now half of them remember me ....

Service and food quality crosses national boundries. I also now do to the Patio Restaurant for a good breakfast and decent service. On our first morning we all took a walk to the "Rail" for breakfast. I was glad to see the eggs back but disappointed about the flat top grill.(Being a cook, I agree with Circus). Found a high top table in the corner of the restaurant and never saw a waitress. We went up to get coffee and found a waitress from earlier days (now pregnant) gave us a big hug and tried to get someone to wait on us. We gave up, got our own silverware and ordered from the buffet. We had her close out our check and never returned. What the hell happened to the great staff Hartley put together.
Mucho Gusto's words are valid in many areas......NEXT!

Just a mention. We found the breakfast and service at the Clarion Hotel to be excellent.

YO Twarag:

Ditto to your commentary. I'm glad to hear from an expert restaurateur, as I have been told, to your feelings about the flat grille and the service. BTW, that pregnant chica is the only hard working and sociable server left at the cafe.

Sadly, Hartley was fired. I will not go into the reasons but there were conflicts with management. Since that occurance there has been no managerial replacement that could keep the restaurant operating internationally successfully.....except for local standards.

Paco questioned the 80% local business majority and I can only equate it to .....remove the free brakfast where it is predominately gingos and other guests of the hotel (that is not covered in sales receipts). Remember, a number of CR businessmen stay there. At lunch it is overwhemingly tico and tica. For dinner, which I believe has decreased, it is a mix.

Again, I understand the the hotel's prime directive of pleasing the larger percentage of patrons. And I feel that service should be largely directed toward native customers for repeat business. With that said, I think a good manager could be more inclusive of other travelers.

And, as we all know.....we have the option to dine elsewhere.

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Damn if I'm going to repeat this shit again. I need a drink.
I've been drinking vodka every day for 45 years and I have certainly never found it to be habit forming.