Villa Cantina — Restaurant in Charleston

I have been here 3 times in the last 10 days! I have been telling everyone about this really great Mexican restaurant! Food and service have been fabulous until tonight. Margarita was terrible. The salsa tasted like tomato soup this evening. My order was wrong. My order was cold. Food took forever. Asked for condiments (2 times) never got them. Did not get silverware. Had to go locate that myself. It was freezing cold in there. Went out to the car to get my coat. Saw another customer walking out as I was walking in talking about how cold it was inside. Ceiling fans blasting on high directly above me. Should have asked to be moved. That was my fault. I am super disappointed. I have waited all day to have what I thought was going to be another fantastic experience, but, it couldn’t have been worse. My advice would be not to go on a weekend. I was really looking forward to this being my weekly hang out, especially in the summer months, but I will not go if it’s going to be like this. Such a disappointment given the first two times that I went everything was just perfect all the way around with food and with service. And I don’t mind waiting for my food, especially on the weekends. One would just assume that you’d have to wait but my pet peeve is when servers do not write down your order and then it coming out wrong. And not having enough staff to notice when things are wrong. Very disappointing tonight!!! Would also recommend getting a bell for people to ring for service when you can’t get someone’s attention. The people sitting next to me, weren’t very pleased either. They kept trying to ask for refills. More staff members are needed on Saturday’s!!

On the positive side, everyone seems very nice. I do appreciate that! I’m sure I’ll give it another chance, but, I definitely won’t go on the...

Misleading and Kinda Scammy…

We decided to go dancing on a Saturday night. My friend called ahead to ask how we could get in, since the place operates as a restaurant during the day and turns into a club at night. The person on the phone told her we could arrive early, have dinner, and not have to pay the entrance fee for the club.

We showed up around 8:30 p.m. and had dinner. While we were eating, around 9:30 p.m., the waiter asked us to leave because they needed to set up for the club (removing the tables for dancing). We were surprised because we thought we could stay as long as we were dining. He spoke to his manager and said it would be fine if we showed the receipt from our dinner when we enter again for dancing.

We left the restaurant and waited in the car for about 30 minutes until they were ready. However, when we returned, they told us we couldn't enter unless we paid the entrance fee, without considered the dinner receipt.

Our issue wasn’t with paying the entrance fee; it was that they misled us, starting with the phone call and continuing with the waiter, making us spend more by having dinner and then paying the fee. It wouldn’t have been difficult to just be honest and say, since the beginning, the club entrance fee was mandatory.

🍽️ Food: 'El Molino' and 'Tlaxcalita' have better, tastier dishes.

🍹Drinks: Just ok, my husband and I ordered diferent drinks but they tasted the same.

🙋Service: Poor. The menu didn’t show alcohol prices. The waiter was about to ask but then hesitated and just asked me what I wanted and he gave me a price.

📍Atmosphere: Good for having fun with friends. The music...

We were really excited to check out a new restaurant in West Ashley, but we ended up really disappointed. We walked in and were immediately seated. Upon initial review, we thought the vibe seemed cool and wall art was pretty. The music was crazy loud outside when we were walking in and almost as loud inside. It was confusing because it seemed like they were trying to have a club atmosphere, which appears to be accurate after seeing other reviews. We ordered some drinks and were astonished when it took over 15 minutes for our margarita to arrive or to place our order. To put this into perspective, there was only one other couple inside…all of the wait staff were just hanging out or laying on the booths. We finally placed our order and then didn’t see our waiter again until after the food arrived. The food was okay - they had large portions, but mediocre quality. We finished our food and sat waiting for someone to come bring us our check, but no one did so I finally had to get up to ask. Our waiter brought us our check and started telling us about the club they have on the weekend where you can drink as many drinks as you can in five minutes at midnight and ladies get in free. I had a hard time understanding the rest that he said because he started mumbling and his eyes were rolling back in his head. He was definitely on something…overall, it’s not worth it to experience poor service and okay good when there are many other restaurants nearby that meet our expectations...