Social Cantina Bloomington — Restaurant in Bloomington

I'm gonna do good first and then bad....

Good: the food is well plated and tasty. I ordered the pineapple bowl and was very happy with the taste. It was a little spicy for my personal tastes but tolerably spicy for the level of white person that I am. Second, the drinks are presented nicely. Third, service was acceptable. No complaints there.

Bad: I ordered the Paloma for my drink and I can't say that I have a lot of experience with Palomas but I prefer them made differently. It was very sweet and the salt, which I personally prefer mixed in the drink instead of on the rim, was grapefruit flavored... I want my salt to be salt. Overall it was too sweet for my tastes and the salty taste I enjoy wasn't there. I had flashbacks to a grapefruit martini I had. A decent drink, I'm not used to it that way though. Second, the portions are small. Me two friends and I came hungry because we were excited about it's opening. One ordered tacos, and the other ordered a bowl like me. The tacos were pretty but real small. For the price of $4 you can buy decent, larger tacos elsewhere. I'd say they were about 3-4 inches wide before folding up. Truly unsatisfying. The same thing happened with the bowls ($12 or more). When you order a bowl of Mexican food I'm expecting A LOT of food. Like comparable to Chipotle. I would estimate you get half of what you would get at Chipotle for double the price. There is an increase in quality but that leaves you impressed and still hungry. THIRD... let's talk about guacamole... What do you think? Mashed avocado with some ingredients like onion, lime juice, jalapeño and cilantro? Well you get all the ingredients but they aren't really mixed. I would say that it could almost be labeled as "deconstructed". When I order guac, I don't want to assemble it and mash it to get a satisfying experience. The ingredients weren't even small enough to mix. There were whole slices of jalapeño in the "guac" bowl. My idea of a good time isn't to eat an entire slice of jalapeño on a chip. I prefer it chopped, diced, or minced. And of course, the portions were small for that too. We ate all the deconstructed guac and has half the chips left; we were being conservative too.

Summary: quality is awesome! If you need a pretty Instagram pic go for it. However, the price is too high. The food portions are too small. I can get good Mexican food in Bloomington, be satisfied, and feel good about what I spent...

The restaurant is large and nicely decorated. There are plenty of places to sit and a large bar, if you are into drink selections. We met my college roommate from 1990, so we wanted a nice meal. I ordered the Social Nachos, as I am not a spicy eater. The menu described them as having all sorts of chips, meat, cheese, etc. Well, it was a huge platter of chips and then a SMALL sprinkle of “taco seasoned” meat (which was fine for a non-spicy loving eater like me), smaller sprinkle of cheese, drizzle of queso cheese, and I had them hold the cilantro and tomatoes. I ordered some sour cream, which came in a 1 inch by 1 inch container for a huge platter of many plain chips, so I did order a 2nd one.

I was a bit disappointed with the presentation. If the chef/cook would have presented on a smaller plate of chips, then taken the same amount of meat, cheeses, queso and sour cream, then I believe I may have had enough to cover my chips and enjoyed my meal. However, due to the way it was heated/warmed in the oven while my party’s food was made, all of the cheese and queso fell to the bottom of the platter, under the chips and became hard to find. I had so many bare chips, which were not the freshest, best chips, and then the toppings were so sparse, that I was left feeling unhappy. When I asked the server about the presentation, he said, “Yay, the toppings all go to the bottom and all you are left with is plain chips… I know. Others have complained as well.” I thought to myself, “When I was asking you about the dish, you never mentioned this information, so that will make me not want to come back here because the servers are not honest with the customers.”

The three members of my party were underwhelmed with their selections. No one had “complaints”, though each said things like, “It’s alright.”, “It’s fine.”, and the third said, “I would likely skip coming back.”

Overall, we were hoping for a better eating experience. The place was quiet, as there weren’t many customers there. We were surprised, as we had spent the day at the IU football game, Bloomington was crazy busy, and this restaurant being downtown should have had more customers. I guess we now see why there weren’t more people. I think the place itself is fine, they really just need some help with their food selection and then they need some promotion to get folks...

Wish I could give a higher rating, however, I wasn't given an opportunity to experience what I came for. It's a shame they missed out on a pretty pricey bill. We walked in at 1120pm, exhausted from our drive, looking forward to a pitcher of margaritas and what looks like tasty food. We stood at the host station for 5-10 minutes before anyone acknowledged us. There was a young man about 5 ft from us, sweeping. Finally, when he finished sweeping the floor he walked over. A little, " Hi, I'll be right with you." Goes a long way. There were maybe three tables full in the entire restaurant. It was another 10 minutes before our server acknowledged us. After ordering a pitcher of margaritas and an appetizer, we were carded. Totally within reason as we are a younger looking mid 30s couple. The server refused to serve us alcohol due to me having a temporary KY state license. I was frustrated as it is a legal document and was told that everywhere I go should honor that. The little girl that was our server stated that it was a law that she could not accept my driver's license without my passport. Haha! I'm sorry but that is laughable. She then got smart and asked if I would like to speak to her manager. Why yes, I'd love to. It gets better.... The young man that let us stand at the door 5 ft from us for 5 minutes before caring to acknowledge us...is the manager. I guess sweeping the floor was more of a priority. I get that there was only 40 minutes left of their shift and it's Saturday night but if you're going to work in customer service as a manager you could display a little more professionalism. I've never heard of this law. I have lived in IN my whole life, legally drinking for 14 years with and without temporary ID IN Indiana. Not once had an issue. Good luck to this business in the future. If they keep a staff full of college kids that make up fake laws just to keep from staying later on a Saturday night, they are...