El Zarape Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Atlantic Beach

We just left, was a Thursday night, got there at 5pm. When we arrived the woman who seated us saw that we had on our masks. I asked for a seat by the window. There was 6 tables by the windows available. She rolled her eyes and told me to pick which seat, i just pointed to one, didn't matter to us, we just wanted to see the water while on vacation. She asked us our drink orders, as we told her, another younger female server walked past. The woman taking our drink orders yelled over us to the girl in Spanish then tells us "this is your server" and she left. The young girl seemed very confused, we were wondering why the other lady asked for our drink orders if she wasn't going to complete them. So we start all over, the young server clearly wasn't paying attention to us either, she asked us numerous times to repeat our orders. Meanwhile, I'm fighting off about 10 flies.... Then the first lady abruptly comes back and was nervously asking if we had our masks. We pulled them out again to put them on and then she said we didn't have to...? Weird !!!! There's scribbled poster boards EVERYWHERE that state you have to wear a mask in, but can take it off as soon as you're seated. When we received our food, my son's mozz sticks were almost black, he didn't even know what they were, had to remind him what he ordered. I got the Zarape Fish Tacos, supposed to have pico and a yogurt sauce on a soft tortilla with fried cod and cabbage. My fish was so hard and charred it hurt my teeth to bite into. There was some cabbage but no yogurt sauce or pico. The "pico" was a few pieces of wilted, slimy pieces of cilantro with just a few large chunks of anemic red onions. My husband and i got the crab quesadilla to share and i took one bite and almost threw up. Tortilla burnt to a crisp, and huge spoonfuls of ice cold, watery grey "crab meat" inside. Again, menu said it would have cheese and some pico, nope.... The young server girl was nowhere to be found. I felt bad to send it back, but this may have been the most disgusting meal I've ever had. And what a rude lady who sat us! She seemed like owner or at least management, she's running around yelling at the staff in Spanish, seemed like they were all miserable. The flies were just icing on the cake. I finally gave up trying to shew them off there was SO MANY!!! i just let them eat my food, i couldn't eat but a bite or 2 out of 2 entrees i ordered that i was excited for from their description on the menu because it was so gross. I've never ate anywhere that i felt i needed to write a review, ever... And I've had some bad experiences... Save your money and grab a freaking hot dog at a gas station...

Jean Baptiste Family Dine in | $100+ 7/15/23 We came to the restaurant to celebrate My brothers son last night with family before he shipped off to bootcamp it was ruined. This was his favorite place to eat so we choose to take the family there. Our family was the size of 10 which was smaller than a group already eating, first and foremost. I knew we would have to wait around for awhile and that's not the complaint. When it was finally our time to sit and be served it took 20 mins before someone finally came over to inform us that the waiter that was supposed to wait on us did not want to serve us.. and they were spending all that time trying to convince him to service US... ( not to make this about race but I do feel it was a factor bc we were a predominantly black family). The waiter that did come was more than friendly patient and helpful to us... And said he would include our table with his section. Another 15 / 20 mins later we got drinks one of the drinks had a bug in the Ice. Her first switch it out but they did not acknowledge it . And no manager ever came to the table to apologies for the delay or bc of he's sorry employee who didn't want to service US... Or do anything to enhance an already broken dinner, what was suppose to be a celebratory experience...The only reason mind you We did not leave it make a Big fuss was because my son who is going to bootcamp choose this place. And we wanted this to be as enjoyable as possible and not alert him to the ugliness and negativity... The bug drink never got addressed and our food was another 30 mins after that and sub par. Very bland...It was just a terrible experience for sons last night and our family first time there and together with family. Come to find out the waiter that did not want to help us, was the son or something like that to the owner who disappointing and that leaving a complaint was a waste of time... But I will let everyone know don't stay were you are not wanted and definitely Don't Spend over a100$where 1$ dollars aren't treated with Respect or Welcomed.... VERY DISAPPOINTING OUR HUGE FAMILY will NEVER eat there again and I can't believe how terrible our treatment was and food. WE did not make a big deal of it then because, we were trying to make the best of a terrible situation for My...

In our vacation to Emerald Isle we stopped by for lunch at Zarape Mexican Restaurant. The restaurant was not very full, maybe only about four occupied tables, with even fewer waiters. When we arrived there was no one to sit us down or to say hello, after waiting maybe five minutes we were seated and ordered the drinks, my sister ordered a bottle of juice which the waiter Vicente never brought her. When we ordered we tried to substitute the beans for French fries and he answered us rudely that there was no way to make the substitution. My sister and I decided to order salad instead of beans since French fries were not possible. We have worked in restaurants as waitresses and we know that sometimes it is difficult to substitute some food but sometimes in order to make the customer happy you arrange the order so that it is according to the client's taste, in other Mexican restaurants we’ve been to they’ve made substitutions without issue. Our dishes arrived at the table after 45 minutes of waiting and the waiter Vicente only tried to excused himself by saying the cook was slow. He never brought my sister's juice and my husband had ordered beans and not rice and the waiter brought rice and not beans. At the end when we finished eating we asked for some boxes to pack the food and the account and it took another 20 minutes. We were forced to stand to get the staff’s attention, since we were now late from the bad service. When the waiter Vicente finally arrived we realized that he’d charged us 5$ for a side salad that comes with the dish, for the salad substitutions, and for a correction to a mistake he’d made with our order previously. When we had informed the waiter Vicente of the errors he blamed it on the other staff saying they entered the order in wrong. We had to wait another while for the manager to arrive to correct the bill. In the end we will definitely never go back to that restaurant and I do not recommend that waiter Vicente, he should not be a waiter, if that vocation is not for him he should look for something else that he can do without causing...