La Mezcaleria — Restaurant in Vancouver

ETA: The owner reached out and provided a resolution I was satisfied with. Rating changed from 1 to 3 stars, as I believe they did their best to make amends. I will likely go back and give them another try, and hopefully be able to change this 3 stars into 5.

Very disappointed in my experience tonight. It was my wife and my anniversary, and we made reservations two weeks ago for 8 pm tonight (2025/10/11). We arrived and were told our table would be 10-15 minutes, so they sat us at the bar to wait. We didn't get seated at a table for over 45 minutes. We weren't walk-ins. We had a reservation.

While at the bar, I ordered a beer while my wife looked at the cocktail menu. The bartender served me my beer, but didn't come back to take my wife's order. We had to actively get his attention to take her drunk order after 10 minutes of waiting. He certainly gave a lot of attention to the two young women sitting next to us, though. There was plenty of time to chat them up.

When she finally received her cocktail, it was watered down, and really not up to par with what's expected from a nice cocktail menu. We sent it back, told the bartender it tasted watered down, and he had the audacity to ask us, "Was it watered down when you received it?" Yes, it was. That's why only a single sip was taken from it.

We also ordered chicharones while waiting at the bar, to have a snack while we waited, and tmwe were served a different item with a far greater price tag on it. We were pretty clear with our ordering, so I'm not sure how this confusion came about.

The hostess, who I can only say was lovely, and the only saving grace of the evening, came up to apologize, at about 8:30, for the long wait, and assured us she would remind the server we were still waiting for our table. It took another 15+ minutes for our table to be ready.

When we finally sat down, the server asked if we were good, or if we want to order anything. Yes, we obviously wanted to order something. We came out for dinner. We ordered the Carne Asada surf and turf with octopus. The octopus was rubbery. The steak was way over charred, but raw on the inside, and very underwhelmingly seasoned. I'd advise telling your cooks to turn down the temperature on the grill. It's not that hard to cook a decent steak...

All in all, not exactly how we were hoping to spend our anniversary. It shouldn't cost us nearly $200 to be given terrible food and service. Why are we paying to have a bad time? Doubt I'll be coming back any time soon. To anyone reading this, go to Cuchillo instead. Honestly, go to the Red Burrito down the street. You'll get better service and food at a fraction...

Came for our wedding anniversary. Reservation was for 8pm which we made two weeks ago. We didn’t get sat at a table until 9pm. During that hour that we were waiting at the bar both bartenders looked in my eyes and avoided taking my drink order until my husband flat out asked them to. The “signature cocktail” was so watered down I couldn’t drink it, and when I asked the bartender for another he asked “was it watered down when you first got it?” when it was clear I’d only had a few sips. There was no apology. The second drink, a basic margarita, that I watched him make the entire time was so significantly better that it confirmed that the first drink was poorly made. There was also a clear difference in the service that we received as opposed to the groups right beside us which they were so attentive to, and I don’t want to outright claim that it was due to a certain “demographic bias”, but there was a noticeable difference.

We ordered the chicharrones which is a specific bar menu item and instead of clarifying that there were two different types, they placed the order for the more expensive chicharonne norteño, which is 6x the price of what we were expecting. At no point did we mention “norteño”while placing the order. When we realized this we mentioned it to our server who said she can offer us 30% off that dish… okay. I wanted to explain more to her about our experience but she was dismissive, walking away AS I was still talking to her. This leads me to believe that there may be a certain culture at this establishment that is ingrained in the staff.

The 24oz ribeye steak that we ordered was overly charred and lacking of any other flavour, with every bite tasting worse than the previous. it was quite disappointing for “authentic Mexican”cuisine. We couldn’t finish it and decided to take it home in hopes to fix it ourselves, considering it was $85. Overall we were very dissatisfied with our experience. This used to be one of my husband and my favourite spots that we would travel an hour to get to several times before with no issue but it was so bad we already decided we wouldn’t be returning before we even asked for the bill. Not worth the money, you’re better off checking out another place like Cuchillo, dare I even say Chipotle, which has never done us this dirty.

I will say, the hostess was...

First time there and had dinner on a Saturday night with some old friends, four ppl in total. I had the fish burrito ($18) that came with a small container of pico de gallo, and a VERY overpriced zero-proof drink ($14). We all split a plate of churros that came with a container of fruit puree (maybe apple?), afterwards. The food was fine, nothing extraordinary. I liked that my burrito was crispy and the fish had been deep fried and had retained its crispness while inside the burrito. It came on what looked liked a side plate and it was a little difficult to slice into the burrito without some of it falling onto the table. It would have been easier if it had been served in a larger plate. As I'd said, my zero-proof drink was an eye watering $14 - only $4 less than my entree. My experience with zero-proof drinks has been under $10. The drink was refreshing but hardly worth the price. It was a night out and I thought I'd treat myself but I don't think I'd pay that again. The churros were fine. They were crispy and delicious but I was disappointed in the dipping sauce and the price. Perhaps I'm ignorant but I was expecting either a chocolate sauce or Dulce de leche and the fruit puree, although it tasted freshly made, was just ok. My share of the churros was $3.95 for a 3" stick which seems overpriced. The restaurant itself is small and was super noisy. The music combined with all the other patrons talking had my whole party practically shouting at each other to have a conversation. It felt like I was at club and my throat hurt the next day. The service was attentive and the server was knowledgable about the menu. The washrooms are all access and one of them was a little sketchy. It has both a toilet and an urinal with a divider in between and it didn't smell the cleanest. One of my friends had said the other (handicap) washroom was cleaner and didn't contain an urinal. I'm an original East Van girl and Commercial St was my hood in the 80s & 90s. I came from the burbs for what I consider to be a mediocre and overpriced meal but the highlight was being with my friends. I don't mind travelling to try new restaurants but I don't think I'll be returning to...