Rasta Rita

I do not recommend this venue or beverage company. My husband and I got married here recently and the venue itself is beautiful and well set up for a wedding. However, the venue and its management kept our $1,000 deposit on false pretense and without providing sufficient evidence as to why, citing stipulations not covered in our signed contract. We gave Rasta Rita Margarita a $1,000 security deposit as part of our drink contract. We also paid a $1,000 administrative fee to the venue that stated it covered cleaning. Upon messaging the venue after the wedding to ask about this deposit, Mario (the owner of Rasta Rita Cantina and Rasta Rita Margarita) stated that due to pampas grass debris, vomit in the toilet, and some trash and cake on the floor, it took 4 people 6 hours at $25/hr to deep clean the venue = $600. No receipts or proof of this was provided. No proof of distinction between what was routine cleaning and what excess cleaning was provided. No proof of actual damage to the venue. When we decided to not fight him on the $600 but requested the additional $400 back, Mario refused. He then stated that he would not return the $400 because we allegedly went over our allowed rental time at a cost of $400 an hour. This simply isn’t true. Our event ended at 10pm with the music fully off, and all guests were to be out of the venue by 11pm, with all remaining vendors out by 11:30pm. This was per our agreement and wedding timeline. Mario states that our guests were supposed to be off the premises at 10pm. Nowhere does it state in our contract, or anywhere, that the event end time is 10pm and guest exit is also 10pm, as this wouldn’t be physically feasible. Our guest exit time was 11pm. Around 10:30pm, Mario contacted our coordinator stating that we must exit the venue immediately and he was already charging us “overtime”. Despite us having 30 more minutes, we cleared everyone out right away. This venue also did not hold up their end of the bargain in terms of setting up decor, which was something we paid $400 extra for and was shown in our invoice. Our wedding coordinator and Jeri (Mario’s girlfriend) had discussed us dropping off the decor and it would be taken care of by venue staff. When our family arrived on site to drop off the items, there was one woman on site to set it all up, and she knew nothing about it. This was not sufficient staff to set up an entire wedding. This caused it to fall on our friends and family to set up last minute, which was not originally anticipated. For these reasons stated above I recommend seeking a venue and drink vendor elsewhere. (Mario also tried to tell us we couldn’t write a negative review and this is ILLEGAL per the Consumer Review Fairness Act)