ZOCA Mexican Restaurant - Bethany Beach — Restaurant in Bethany Beach

Weird experience here. Food was definitely good, as was the service, but there were hiccups.

First, multiple members of our table are vegetarian and had also mentioned they did not eat cheese. A few items on the menu are listed as vegetarian (ex: "Vegetarian Fajitas"), however the rice and beans that come with them are cooked with meat products, so the meal is not actually vegetarian. If our waitress hadn't thought to mention this, we would have eaten meat products and not realized it. Good on that waitress.

We asked if they had any substitutions to make the meal actually vegetarian, and the waitress said she could instead provide mexican street corn, so we said sure, however only one corn cob came out to replace two meals worth of rice and beans, and it was covered in cheese. Further, they tried to charge us for the corn even though it was a substitution to make up for the lack of vegetarian rice and beans, and only took it off as a "managers comp" (like they were doing us a favor...). To be clear, we would not have chosen to come into this restaurant if the menu didn't specifically list some items as vegetarian, as we would rather go somewhere our whole group could eat comfortably.

Another member of our party ordered chicken that had a small bone inside it unexpectedly, as well as seeming undercooked partially (to which a member of the staff told us was only pink because of the marinade? We didn't buy that). The Chiles en Nogada was light/devoid in walnut flavor and had no pomegranate at all (just call it "mexican stuffed pepper" if it won't have the classic and important attributes of chiles en nogada.) Further, the menu had a number of typos and inconsistencies, swapping and mixing spanish and english in odd ways, sometimes clarifying/translating in the item description, and sometimes not.

Anyways, I still give 3 stars because the food was pretty good. Like I said, just hiccups. And honestly, I wouldn't have even felt compelled to write a so-so review if we hadn't been treated so oddly when we brought up these concerns to the staff there. We had heard the restaurant was pretty new, and we are pretty easy going people that wanted to help a new restaurant do well, so we voiced our concerns casually with them to help them improve. We told them we were still happy and just wanted to help them understand what turned us off and could turn others off. However, instead of listening and understanding, it more seemed that the staff just thought we were wrong instead of taking the considerations, and they treated us a little hostilely/sarcastically in return. It definitely felt like they were happy when we left, even though we were an easy going group of people with no kids, ready to spend money on drinks and more food (which we did not due to the uncomfortable atmosphere created when we brought up our concerns).

I'm sure they'll...

My family and I went out for dinner to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. It was a total of 7 of us. The services and the food could have been better. The server did not introduced her self , she knew it was a b day dinner she gave us 0 energy or excitement. We had to ask for dessert to celebrate my daughter instead of her asking of we would like to get desert. The food needs help , super basic Mexican food , please don’t order fajitas as you will get a mountain of pepper and onions and a sprinkle of steak for 33 dollars I had to order a side of steak in orders to eat the mountain of vegetables you get. The tortillas smell weird and the ones on the fajita were old. The cocktails were ok. The place has nice decore but that is about it. The guac cost 16 dollars but unfortunately it tasted almost like Taco Bell guac. The restaurant need better energy , and the food needs to be more authentic. I felt bad for my daughters as I thought this would be a nice place to celebrate her. Unfortunately this was a huge missed. Stake and Fries for kids is 20 dollars ? that is insane for the amount of...

I don’t usually leave negative reviews, but our experience at Zoca was unacceptable. My two friends and I (all 21+) came in excited to try their happy hour specials, which require sitting at the bar. We sat down and politely ordered waters while looking over the menu.

The bartender immediately asked for our IDs, which we handed over without hesitation. She then accused us of using fake IDs — with absolutely no explanation or reason — and very rudely told us we had to move. Her tone and attitude were incredibly disrespectful from the start, and she treated us terribly.

We calmly insisted that we were all of legal age and even told her to call the police if she really thought otherwise. After some back and forth, and once she realized we weren’t backing down, she reluctantly served us a beer.

This entire experience was humiliating and frustrating. We were looking forward to a relaxed happy hour, and instead were treated with suspicion and rudeness for no valid reason. If Zoca continues to treat paying, respectful customers like this, they’ll start losing more business. We won’t...