La Bodega Latin Market — Restaurant in Bloomington

Wouldn’t recommend and wouldn’t go back. A group friends heard about their birria tacos on Tik Tok First, the tacos were heavily overpriced ( $5 per taco). At most places, the more basic tacos, like beef, are less expensive than something like steak or birria. Here they were all $5, with no taco combo options (so sides were extra!!). I probably could have lived with the expense, if the tacos were even worth it. If you want ACTUAl birria tacos you have to apparently ask for the Casa Birria tacos, which aren’t on the menu. The birria tacos on the menu are not the same as traditional birria tacos. You also have to order at least 3 tacos to get the birria dipping sauce, which also isn’t explained on the menu.

The server didn’t clarify what birria tacos we wanted when we ordered even tho she seemed to know that there was a difference between the ones on/off the menu. She also didn’t ask about the dipping sauce either. To her credit, she did bring us some when we asked and said she wasn’t use to being on that side. But, the menu was done horribly and the “birria” tacos they have on the menu just aren’t real birria tacos. I’m attaching a picture of what we got vs what we saw on Tik Tok. Not even close to the same. You can see that the color isn’t even remotely the same ( birria tacos are SUPPOSED to look like the ones in the Tik Tok). How you could serve anything else and call it birria doesn’t make...

The food is absolutely amazing!!! The Brussel sprouts were the best I've ever had. The sweet potato was cooked to perfection and didn't need any brown sugar or butter. The fries are thicker cut and battered super tasty. The salmon was cooked nice as well. We had the NY strip steak, and it was cooked as ordered and yummy. The beer selection was large, too. They serve coke products, which is a plus. The vibe of the restaurant is brick and metal like historic and classic.

Our waiter was Dennis, and he was amazing, super attentive, and didn't mess up our order or anything. They were super packed on a Saturday. We got there for a 6:30pm reservation, and our table was set and ready for us. They only had 3 waiters for the whole restaurant, which was full of big tables of 6+ people. They notified us at the beginning that they were short staffed and it would take a longer time. We were patient, but I could tell that other tables were getting aggravated. The appetizer of nachos with pulled pork was so delicious and came out in a timely manner. We ended up leaving at 8:30pm but we enjoyed family time. They have Wiki Sticks for you to play with. The bathrooms are clean and easily accessible. They also had the market side with a wall full of homemade cupcakes of really neat flavors!

I will...

We tried to eat breakfast/brunch here on a Saturday at 10:30am but were unable to. Sign on door, official website and Facebook all say opens and breakfast starting at 9. We were informed the restaurant does not open until 11, so they just don't do breakfast at all? Website has separate breakfast and brunch menus so it's confusing. We would have grabbed something from the bakery counter, but it hadn't been restocked at all. There were pallets and boxes all over the shop floor with many fridges empty while the staff just stood around on their phones as we were the only people there. It was uncomfortable and felt like we walked into a store that hadn't been open for a while that day not to mention over a year. There's little excuse for such a mess during operating hours on a weekend when you'd hope to be busy, in my opinion. Just don't open until 11 if you're still going to be stocking shelves an hour and a half after open...

I hate to give poor reviews for local businesses, but it was unfortunately deserving today. Maybe we'll try again another day if the business updates their online pages with accurate...