Karaván — Restaurant in San Pedro de Atacama

What a great welcome we received at Karavan! First time downtown and we sought out this place having been recommended to it by Max our knowledgeable JLA guide. As we arrived both the round tables outside were occupied with couples having drinks. Looked inside and saw a guitarist setting up and knew it would be too loud for us to hear each other’s conversation. Our Spanish is non-existent but our greeter used Google translate to good effect. He appreciated our predicament and said we could have one of the outside tables when it came free. But meanwhile sit inside and order. This we did and ten minutes later we’re outside at the corner table enjoying our drinks. The other couple like Pisco Sour, but without the egg and Google fixed that two. Ditto our off-menu request for guacamole with crispy crackers which was delicious. A definite with your pre-dinner drinks! However the breeze was blowing harder and getting dustier, so when the other outside table tucked in the lee corner came free, he moved us there. All with smiles and no sign of irritation. And we could hear just enough of the singer/guitarist whose repertoire of covers was largely US/UK. That was fine by us and no doubt chosen with tourists in mind. But it would be good to have some Chilean hits on the playlist. The food arrived in good time and was fine - vegetable wraps, fried chicken and cheeseburger with chips. Plus a good zero beer and a decent red wine. So I’m not going to rave about the cuisine but that could have been down to our choices. However I am applauding the service and on that basis recommend Karavan. There’s so much choice of restaurants on the strip that it’s good to know one place which welcomes tourists so genuinely. FWIW I think they could move their menu up a notch and make more of their pole position. Like many of these high street sites there’s a huge space behind. Currently it has a couple of jewellery makers producing interesting things - we bought a minimalist lapis lazuli pendant the following day. But the space isn’t occupied fully and the restaurant could easily expand into the rear area with an interior patio to provide sheltered open-air seating. I’m thinking early days Club 55,...

There were many dishes from the menu not available anymore, which can happen of course. 10 minutes after ordering, the waitress came back to me, telling me that the ordered dish (quinoa burger) was also not available anymore, because they ran out of quinoa, so I switched to lentil ceviche. 15 minutes later, my friend already had his starter and the main course, she came back to me again, telling me that they were out of lentils too, and asked if I wanted to have it with quinoa instead (?!). So I switched back to meal I initially ordered, but of course had to wait much longer - in the meantime my friend was of course already finished for a long time. I got a small beer as compensation, but when my food arrived, fries and burger were almost cold. Later, we were accompanied by two other friends, who wanted to order food as well, 10 minutes after ordering, they were also informed that the meals they have ordered were not available anymore. In the end, they even charged me by mistake for the dishes that I never received. To be fair, the ceviche my friend had was very good, but such a chaotic and messy service that I will never visit this...

So far the worst customer experience ever . I wish I have read some of the reviews before we came to the place. We just came for a drink which took a bit long to prepare, but ok. It all went bad when we wanted to pay for our drinks and we had card and cash options. Card didn't work at their place even though it worked at all places before (suspicious) so we offered cash (no big bills) and they didn't have change. The girl who seemed to run the place started screaming at us like she was out of control and saying it's not her problem she doesn't not have change ( there is no sign they don't accept cash and well they do accept it) and then called my boyfriend imbecile in Spanish thinking we don't understand her... well, everything you need to know to never go to the place. I truly think that's how they scam you to leave money behind, telling they don't have cash for you to leave more cash behind....