Blanco Cantina — Restaurant in Edmonton

HORRIBLE SERVICE!! Mother's Day. Came off a 24 hour shift at the hospital and was hoping to enjoy a nice mother's day lunch with family. First time at this restaurant.

When I first arrived, I asked the hostess for a high chair and she said she'd get it. She never did. Asked the server to bring it. She never did. After half an hour, I decided to go to the hostess and ask her again about the high chair. She said there was only one high chair and it was being used. I looked around the restaurant and didn't see any being used but sat down and waited. After another half an hour, hostess walked by and I asked her about the high chair. She said it was still being used. I told her I don't see anyone using a high chair, so she said she'd check. A minute later, she brought me a high chair - and it was BROKEN. Left side of the high chair is cracked and has a nail sticking out. I only received the high chair over an hour after we arrived and was holding my baby the whole time while eating and got my new skirt dirty because the baby was eating with his hands and touched my skirt. So, thank you. Unfortunately this was only a minor hiccup.

The server was horrible. She was giving attitude the whole time and unfriendly. I asked her what the "table guacamole" was about and with a snobby scoff, she bluntly replied, "it's guacamole." I meant what is the deal with the tableside preparation as I've never had that before which I'm sure she knew but couldn't help give me attitude. We were a larger group and she only checked on us once or twice the entire time we were there. Also, never brought us the waters that we ordered at the start.

The food was okay. I probably would go again for the nachos (not the service). The chipotle mango wings sucked. The dirty fries sucked too. But the nachos with beef barbacoa was delicious. The enchiladas were decent.

Not sure what the server's name was but she was caucasian, relatively tall, medium length straight brown hair. I think she would benefit from a little bit more training re: customer service. Unfortunately, I noticed these days that a lot of servers do the absolute bare minimum and expect a min 15% tip. I'm sorry, but that's not how it works. Your job is to be a good server at minimum. I will give a good tip if you go above and beyond the bare minimum and actually do a good job. Be friendly, answer questions respectfully, be helpful, and follow through with things like bringing waters we ordered and put some effort into bringing me a high chair. It's not that hard and I don't think it's a big ask. If you want me to tip you with my hard earned money, you will need to earn it and put a bit of effort into your job.

On a positive note, the free roses and mimosas for mother's day was a nice gesture from...

** edit: when head office reaches out via response to your review because they want to “make it right”, they actually don’t. They simply say they will take your suggestions into account.

I’ve been to Blanco three times since they’ve opened and here is my honest review:

The good: large space with ample seating so wait times have not been an issue so far. They do have the option to make reservations which is nice as well. Their mocktail & cocktail options are delicious and their pricing is reasonable. Tacos are quite good and the variety is nice. Staff is prompt and friendly. Washrooms are clean and well kept. Love the daily features & specials. Complementary table side chips are a nice touch while waiting for your server. Decor is fun as well.

The bad (or room for improvement): the afternoon/ happy hour music is just awful. Being in a Mexican restaurant I would expect to listen to upbeat latino jams, mariachi etc. The loud 80s playlist they have going is a huge turnoff and honestly makes no sense in the ambiance/ theme they are trying to achieve. It was kind of annoying. Although the tableside guac appetizer is a fun concept, they are completely missing the mark. It is SO HEAVY on raw onions - I could taste it for hours afterwards even after picking my way around them.. just gross. It seemed to me there is nothing in the way of seasoning such as salt or perhaps even a touch of garlic powder or lime juice, rendering it tasteless (aside from burning raw onions). The “side of cheese” upgrade for tacos is laughable. $3 for less than 1 ounce of the cheapest processed cheese - the kind that is coated in powder and comes pregrated in pouches. At $3, I was shocked to see such a tiny amount to share with my husband and our 6 tacos (it garnished 2 tacos total) and was expecting freshly grated cheese - this is a Mexican restaurant after all… For table side condiments it would be nice to offer a non-spicy option as well.

Although there is room for improvement with ambiance and menu items, I’d recommend and would give it a...

I really wanted to like this place. We went for Saturday afternoon. Firstly, it's crazy we had to wait to be seated because they weren't busy. We were not greeted by the male or female host when we arrived. They both walked off. They came back a couple minutes later, still no greeting. We asked about sitting on the patio (where several others couples were sitting. The server said "we can't right now"). There were several tables open on the patio. And several being served. So we got sat in the middle of the interior restaurant. The reason we wanted to sit on the patio was because it's a beautiful day, but also, the music inside was so loud you couldn't hear anyone unless they were very close to your ear. Our server had to lean in multiple times to hear us and we could also not hear her. That brings up the service. The server was not friendly. In fact all of the staff we saw here seemed very tense. I got the quesadillas and the nachos to start. The nachos came very quickly. They were good. The chicken is a little weird. But still edible and fairly tasty. The quesadillas were piping hot but not really hand food like they should be because they fell apart. They were cut into handheld pieces, but just didn't work as a handheld. The party I was with got the beef and cheese burrito. It was really dry. He didn't like it. He said it tasted microwaved. It wouldn't take much for this place to be 5 stars. The edits needed are mainly small tweaks to the food and major tweaks to the service.

Other than the food coming quite fast, not a lot of positives, this is probably not a place we would eat again just due to the anxiety of the staff, the volume of the music. It was also quite expensive. We ate for lunch. Two mains and an appetizer and with tip it was $82. Despite our server being apathetic and not ever smiling once, we still gave 20% because it sounds like this place probably doesn't have great management- and that probably affects employee...