Barrio Tacos Cleveland Heights — Restaurant in Cleveland Heights

I was so stoked when I learned that a Barrio was opening on the east side. I've had two really fantastic meals at their Tremont location, and countless drinks in Lakewood. Unfortunately, they've really screwed the pooch at this location.

I've been to Barrio Fairmont three times since they opened -- each visit dramatically worse than the prior one. I wrote about the first two visits on Yelp, but can only post the one last night because of Google's character limit.

Third time: Horrendous I didn't think I'd go a third time, but last night some guys invited me out for a drink. None of them had been to the new Barrio yet so I wasn't going to suggest a different location. The place was packed, but since we were just having drinks we were very happy to stand. Be warned, however, that the layout for standing there sucks -- they have a mini-ledge for drinks along the front wall, but then their hostess will just keep shoving you if you try to stand there. Whatever. Again, I tried not to let it bother me and I chalked it up to the fact they're so new.

Eventually we all sat down at the bar and ordered a queso to accompany our third round of drinks. (We'd been there about 2 hours already.) The bartender who first got to us seemed cool, but he definitely had a hearing problem. (Perhaps a disability, but more likely just couldn't hear us -- something about the way the speakers are setup made the ambient noise ridiculously echo-ish in and around the bar.) So he screwed up two of our beers, and put the entire round on someone else's tab. (Not one of the four of us in my party.) When a check didn't come, I gave him my card and requested that he bill us properly. He fixed that, and the two beers, really promptly. His attitude was exactly as it should have been -- not too apologetic, but definitely like "sorry man couldn't hear you. yeah thanks for letting me know." etc.

Then the appetizer came, delivered by someone from the kitchen (not one of the bartenders). It was the wrong one. Before he set it down, I told him "I think you've got the wrong order - that's not ours." Then I looked at everyone in my group and asked, "Did anyone order guacamole?" Everyone shook their head no, so I clarified to him, "I ordered Queso Blanco." The kitchen guy said, "Oh, no problem. Well you guys can have the guacaomole and I'll get you the queso too." We asked, "You sure?" He said, "Yeah man, of course. Our bad." So everyone was happy. UNTIL the queso arrived.

It was brought out a few minutes later by a third person, a woman from the kitchen or front end. She stood there looking at us eating the guacamole as though we were a bunch of deceitful hyenas. I said, "You're at the right place -- thanks for bringing the queso." She replied, with a really mean tone (I'd use a different word, but I don't like gendered language) "Ummmm, I'm not setting this down until you give me the guacamole." And we were all like, "huh?" She repeated herself, "You can't have both. You're not getting both. Give me the guacamole." I laughed and began to hand her the small plastic molcajete, but halfway there one of my friends grabbed my arm and took it. He was NOT HAPPY with this development. None of us were. But this was his firstime there, he's lived in Cle Hts his hole life, and it just seemed like he couldn't fathom such rude customer service at a restaurant in his hometown. So he asked her, in a much friendlier but clearly indignant tone, "The guy who dropped it off told us to eat it. We didn't order it, but its here now and you told us to enjoy it. So what do you want it for now? Are you just going to throw that away." She said, "Yeah, and you're not getting another bite." We couldn't believe her attitude. He quickly relented, gave her the guac, and complained to the bartender -- who had overheard the whole thing. My friend said, "Dude, are you kidding me?!? That's really messed up." The bartender just said, "Yeah. I agree."

Needless to say, that was our last round of drinks. I paid the check for everyone, and we went over to...

Barrio used to be decent. It was never my favorite taco place, but it's close to where I live and convenient. On my most recent visit, I spent $80. I got 3 of the named tacos they offer with 1 side of sour cream. Each taco was $6 and the side of sour cream was $1. I was expecting a full cup of sour cream, but was literally given a dollop of Daisy that was worth no more than 25 cents. I cam get a whole jar or squeeze bottle of sour cream from the grocery store for $4. I know they have to make a profit, but it was literally no more than 1.5 tsps of sour cream. I also ordered a margarita. They charge $1 per flavor added which I also think is a little much for a small squirt of syrup. It was tasty, but I feel like it was watered down. I got no type of buzz off of it and I'm a serious lightweight. Speaking of watered down, their queso was also very watery. It tasted good, but it was so watery that I had to keep leaning over the chip bowl to eat so that it wouldn't spill on my clothes. The bartender was very nice, but she was so soft spoken (which is not a flaw) and the music and noise was so loud that I had to ask her to repeat things and lean in from time to time. The restaurant was very cold. Part of this was due to the door being opened repeatedly, but I think for a restaurant located in Cleveland, Ohio, they should have a heating unit or something to curb the cold. I wanted to keep my winter coat on, but it made it difficult to eat. Their tacos are very full and filling, but they come out lukewarm and get cold very quickly. Towards the end of my meal, I placed a to go order of build your own chicken tacos for my husband and kids. It took a little long for them to come out to be such a simple order. When I got the bill, I was surprised to see a charge for the cilantro lime rice, which they have listed under protein. I know rice has protein, but I consider it to be a grain and the fact that they upcharge for it if you also get a protein like meat or steak is utterly ridiculous. On the order form, it does state there is an upcharge, but it kind of tricks you because they have darker lines between the meat and the other things they consider to be proteins. So after the tip, I spent $80 on tacos and 1 margarita. Absolutely ridiculous. To top it all off, I got food poisoning from something I ate there. I think it was one of the tacos I had never tried before. I spent the whole night between the bed and bathroom and slept with a plastic bag next to my bed in case I couldn't make it to the bathroom in time. The next morning, I was still nauseous and my whole body was hurting. Barrio will not be getting my...

I usually enjoy coming here, but my most recent visit was extremely disappointing. It was my idea for our group (9 people) to go to Barrio, so to have the worst service out of anyone at the table felt ironic.

• Queso Mix-Up: I ordered queso, and they had no problem serving it to the other end of our 9-top, but completely forgot about mine. I asked about it at least twice, and after nearly half an hour it finally came out — with a fly in it. They had to take it back and bring me a new one, so I ended up waiting even longer. On top of that, the queso is overpriced at $8.

• Basic Service Lapses: I asked for silverware, and they still forgot. It was frustrating because I already had to wait so long for my queso and now my food was getting cold that I could not and did not want to eat without silverware. My friend eventually had to get up and get it himself for us. Not to mention, I ordered a nonalcoholic beer and that also took substantially longer to just get my drink.

• Poor Handling of Problems: When I asked for a discount on the queso given the wait and the fly, the server said she’d check with the manager. She came back saying the manager refused. In most restaurants, that would have been comped without hesitation.

• Forgotten To-Go Orders: My friend also placed two to-go orders that were completely forgotten.

• Automatic Gratuity Poorly Handled: The server did mention auto-grat to me, but very quickly. Luckily, I understood what that meant, but she should know better and just say clearly that the tip is already included — not everyone knows what “auto-grat” means. My friend said she never mentioned it to him at all. Since everyone at the table paid individually, who knows if she told anyone else. The point is, it was poorly handled because she should have clearly stated that the tip was already included. What’s even more upsetting is that because she didn’t make it clear, my friend ended up over-tipping on top of the already added gratuity — for terrible service.

I come here often, so I know it’s possible to get a to-go bag of chips, and at the very least the server could have topped me up with chips, queso and salsa in my to-go bag to try and make up for the bad service and disappointment at our table — but she didn’t. It just felt like there was zero effort to rectify the bad service or the shortcomings of the experience.

It felt like our table was written off because the gratuity was already guaranteed. The service fell far below the standard I’ve come to expect here, and this visit left a really...