El Mercado de Coronado — Restaurant in Bay Lake

Trash!!!!!! I hate writing negative reviews. I usually have a great adventure at many of the Disney food location. This is not one of those. We wanted to go in since they had finished the remodel on the Mercado, Rix and the store. I had hoped that improvements might have equalled something nice. Be aware this is also attached to a Convention Center so the foot trafic is higher than a traditional resort. We had to stand in line to go into the quick service Mercado area as what little staff they had were standing outside the seating area guiding people to the lines (trying to control flow). We were going to sit in at Rix but there was a bunch of kids in the bar playing on their phones with water bottles not even ordering. We went through the options and decided on getting a nacho and a Mexican bowl. While we were working with the lady making the food, she ran out of ingredients. She apologized for no guacamole, pico and just got half a spoonful of sour cream for one of us. She was talking to another employee about getting some more but she couldn't leave at the moment (Okay who want the toppings for their nachos and bowls anyway right?) Then as she was making the nachos she ran out of clean plates and bowls. So my bowl had to be served in a to go container. Her and that other employee actually argued over getting fresh plates when one of them mentioned she could carry very many. So again the to go container are smaller than the plate or bowl so why would I mind, I mean it just worked well since they were out of some of the ingredients anyway. So we finally escape the line and get through the registers. Then to find a seat. Every table,,, every table that we found open was dirty. Not just dirty, filthy. They had sauces, dried food, etc. That's when I noticed there was no cast members/staff to be seen anywhere. In places like this there is always a staff clearing or washing. Managers or Leads usually walk around with a broom and dustpan. Not Here. Garbage was on the floors, heaping out of and on top of garbage stations. Oops, stepped in spilled soda. It was disgusting. I actually was wanting to complain but again no staff except back at the registers. We found a table and I grabbed a bunch of napkins and cleaned up enough to sit down. With the missing ingredients the food would have been mediocre at best. I became glad of my smaller portion. We actually finished quickly and I did the considerate Disney thing by cleaning up for the next person to use the table. Then came the daunting task of getting rid of our trash. That was an adventure. When we were leaving there was a cast member outside the eating area guiding people to the line to get in. I asked "Rich" if they were short staffed and why the place was so filthy. He replied with "nope not short staffed" and "we are doing the best we can". Trust me Rich I've been around Disney long enough to know when to call in runners to resupply and the importance of getting areas clean and cleared. I then asked who the area manager or lead is to which he told I would have to go talk to the front desk. So, in sumation skip this place at all cost unless you have no choice. Even with the attempt at flow management these guys couldn't get even...

I went here during my first stay at the Disney Coronado Springs resort. It's a cafeteria-like setting with a variety of different foods including burgers (beef, veggie, and turkey). They also sell sandwiches (panini, etc), and also have a section for Pizza, and their Yucatan Chicken and Rib meal. Overall, while the price is quite expensive for the type and quantity of the food that is served, it is cheaper than any of the other restaurants on the resort. Originally, when I visited this place the lobby was quite the disaster. To give credit there were a couple of people out cleaning it, however it looked like they had just gotten out there. Considering the size of the area, might be worth management having people out there full-time.

The first day 02/05/19 I ended up getting the Texas Burger which was priced at $15.99 for the burger which was bigger than expected on a decent bun and about 5 or so potato wedges. The wedges were seasoned, but it didn't seem like it as they were still pretty bland and dry. The drink station was a mess when I got out to the lobby, soda everywhere on the counter and surrounding floor. Although, this kind of comes back to the original point that somebody should really be out there full-time making sure that this is clean. How they set it up is totally up to them, like having lobby duty for a couple hours and rotating between employees? However, besides the point.

As this is the cheapest place at the resort, in order to avoid just eating chips and dip from the gift shop again for dinner, I went back on 02/07/19 and ordered the Turkey burger which was actually quite good. Instead of getting the potato wedges this time, I got fries and they were pretty decent. Actually, much better than the wedges surprisingly. The lobby definitely seemed to be much cleaner today, however the drink station was still pretty bad. Thinking they must not clean the spouts as some of them stutter pretty badly like they are plugged. I ended up getting water to go with it. This was a bit cheaper than the last meal at $12.99, however still quite pricey for the amount of food.

Overall, I've found that for anyone that is price conscious, El Mercado de Coronado is going to be your best bet (apart from room service and the 18% delivery charge + tip) to getting food on the resort. There is a McDonalds just outside that might provide a lot more food for a better price, however I didn't have the luxury of transportation over to find out. Unfortunately came in on the airport shuttle and its decently far to walk. My best advice is to go into it with lower expectations on the food and you should be ok. Again, it wasn't awful, just...

For somewhat edible food, we had to settle for this place a lot because it was quick and usually open during the times we needed to grab food. However, as with most anything "Disney", prices are high for everything ($3.50 for water, $5 for Powerade, mac n cheese $10, 2 slices pizza $11, kids mickey waffles $11, chef salad $12, nachos $13, chicken tenders $13, chicken sandwich $15, Philly cheese steak sandwich $16, and dessert $7.50 each).

The quality was sometimes poorer than other times, and we had at least 4 issues at 4 different occasions: 1.) The first one had to do with stale, old Mickey waffles at breakfast -- the waffles were really hard that you couldn't even poke a fork through it, those waffles must have been sitting on the warmer for a long time; fortunately, we were eating on-site in the restaurant that morning and were able to ask for fresh ones to be prepared to replace them. 2.) The second had to do with chicken tenders which were hard and dry. Unfortunately, the kids were often tired after being at the parks and just wanted to eat in the room, so we didn't even get those bad chicken tenders replaced because we were not dining on-site and the kids just ate a few of them because they were so hungry. 3.) The third had to do with a dry chocolate cupcake and a dulce de leche cupcake which no one in the family liked. I guess we learned our lesson the hard way with those because those desserts were definitely not worth the $15 they cost. 4.) The fourth incident had to do with awful, rancid-tasting nachos. We decided to grab some nachos on-the-go to bring back to the room after a long day at Epcot, and the nachos were pretty horrible -- the chips tasted rancid! Unfortunately for us, it was closing time by the time we found this out in our hotel room, so we again had to deal with wasted food because we couldn't tell them about the issue that same night.

Maybe they will make some changes to improve the quality and consistency of the food they serve in the future, but as for us here during our visit in early April 2021, we are very disappointed with a number of food experiences at this establishment.

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