Casa Del Barco - Canal Walk

"We really want to like this restaurant because of it being a great location with a cute patio conveniently located on the canal. However, after dining here on several occasions during the past three years, we have given up on waiting to have a good experience before giving our review. We went for dinner last Saturday night, they were not busy. Hostess seated us immediately and informed us that there will be an automatic 20% gratuity added to our check. Normally we tip at least 20% but the service we received here wasn’t worthy of any amount close to that. Our waitress spoke so softly we could barely hear her. She did not greet us or ask if we were ready to order. She approached us and asked if we were “good with just water”. We told her we wanted to order drinks. We had to flag her down to order our food. My order arrived incorrect. I wasn’t even sure what was on my plate. We flagged her down after our food was dropped off and she says “oh that looks like a mushroom taco” I had ordered one chicken tinga and one shrimp taco. She said she would get me the correct taco and left the incorrect plate in front of me. I guess the chicken taco was correct and i was expected to eat it off of the plate with the mushroom taco which looked unappealing to me. The shrimp taco was brought to our table on a separate plate and when my husband was almost finished with his meal. When she came with the “check” she flashed the grand total on her hand held device and told us that they “took off the mushroom taco so not to worry we weren’t charged for it.” Really?? My husband asked to see the itemized bill and she struggled to locate it on her device. Other cons to this restaurant are: they only honor happy hour prices if you sit at the bar, we’ve been there during happy hour to see that the bar is two deep with patrons waiting to get happy hour prices while the restaurant and patio are empty. When we were there last week (we tried to go for happy hour earlier in the week) we were told that we could order at the bar to get happy hour prices and then take our food and drinks to the outside picnic table area adjacent to the nice patio, even though the nice patio was empty with no one even dining. The automatic gratuity is ridiculous. If they provided good training and good service then the waiters would receive good tips. They charge an extra fee if you want to request patio seating when making your reservation. They charge you for chips and salsa, your supposed to get free refills but we ran out of the tiny amount of salsa and it was difficult to flag our waitress to request a refill on chips or salsa. The food is just okay. The service is slow and honestly the service is a huge disappointment every time we have been there. I do want to give a shout out to the guy who’s job seemed to be delivering the chips, he was the only one we interacted with who was friendly with a smile and appeared to enjoy his job. He should be a waiter instead of just chip service."

"My family and I kicked off the holidays w/ Tinsel & Tequila and everything was awesome! No one had a complaint about the food, service or drinks! You can't go wrong with the Empandas and the Avocado caesar salad! It was our 1st time, so the lack of parking was a surprise. Thankfully, the great experience over shadowed ALL of that!"

"We walked in on a Sunday afternoon for drinks and appetizers and practically had the place to ourselves. My family had come into town to surprise me for my birthday. I thought this would be a great place to just sit, talk, and enjoy some drinks and appetizers. And Casa Del Barco did not disappoint. Our food was delicious. We had a variety of appetizers that included street corn, nachos, chicken empanadas, chips and salsa, queso. Yeah, we had a lot! and it was all delicious. My sisters/brothers know their margaritas and they did not complain about the ones they had here so they must have been pretty good. Our wait staff was super friendly and attentive. Wouldn't hesitate to go back for a minute. Thanks CASA! Sorry I don't have pics of the food; I guess we were so busy enjoying it."

"The only issue dampening the dining experience was the imposed 20% service charged which is then taxed. That’s just plain wrong. Otherwise, the food was decent. The fish strips in the tacos were crunchy (more crema needed and the tortilla texture was slightly rubbery). The decor was cool with bottles affixed to the ceiling and walls."