Zaguan Latin Café & Bakery — Restaurant in Dallas

Last night, I placed an online order through the restaurant’s website. When I arrived, the guy at the register was looking down at the register and said “diga?” without ever looking up at me. I told him I had a pick up order and gave him my name. He finished what he was doing and then went to where the order was. He stood there doing I don’t know what and I overheard him tell his co-worker (who was now at the register) that he thought orders weren’t supposed to go through if there was no tip. I don’t know if he was referring to my order, but I’m guessing so since I was the only one there and I didn’t add a tip. He was there with my order for about 5 minutes and then returned to the register. Instead of giving me the order, he started looking around. An older man came out from the kitchen at this point and was stacking sauces. The man saw him looking around and asked what he was doing. The guy told him he was looking for the phone to confirm the order. I patiently waited for him to do what needed to do and stayed quiet.

He finally had the phone and I figured he was going to confirm my order on their system. I saw the card machine showed my order and total I paid. Instead of giving me my food or asking me to show him the order confirmation, he proceeded to dial a number…my number. My phone went off and I looked at him confused and asked if he was calling me. He looked at me surprised like I caught him. He said yes, gave me my order and wished me a good night, in an almost embarrassed tone. I have no idea why he would call me. The orders are held behind the counter and I asked for it by my name. To top it all off, one of the arepas was not the type I ordered, but that was so minimal in comparison to the poor service.

By the way, my husband picked up an online order just 3 days before this and I asked if the staff did the same to him, and he said no. I’ve read the reviews from others and no one else mentions this. So what’s the deal? What was he trying to do by calling me when I was right in front of him and could’ve easily showed him my confirmation? Most importantly, why was he so hesitant to...

As a mexican, Zaguán is one of those places I like to bring others - especially American, when talking about Latin cuisine and culture. They have Venezuelan food mostly, sprinkled with some Colombian, and what I consider to be some tex-mexed flair. Needless to say, I come here fairly frequently, maybe half a dozen times a year - more than any other food establishment. I'd love to give 5 stars, but my most recent visit was somewhat of a disappointment. I always order Tequeños to start and normally they arrive hot to the point of the cheese inside resembling molten lava, but this time they were mildly warm at best. I always have a hard time deciding between arepas and cachapas so I normally order both and end up with delicious leftovers, this time was not the exception. I highly recommend the passion fruit smoothie (made with water, not milk) and their coffee is excellent too, if you're a caffeine lover, try the cortado, You won't regret it. The main reason I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5 is because this last visit the service was atrocious! We (2 people) arrived and found a table to sit at as it's open seating. We waited 5 min, no one came around; after 10 minutes, we got menus; after that nothing. 2 other tables came in, sat down, and got serviced right away with water and appetizers! After 10 more minutes waiting we were going to stand up and leave but I really wanted a cachapas so I was forced to flag down the server to get them to take our order and even after that we felt ignored throughout. I sincerely hope this was a one-time freaky timing related hiccup, I would hate to have to find another place to get my...

Absolutely no passion left at Zaguan.

I have been coming to this restaurant for over 12 years and decided to bring my family to try Zaguán for themselves. This past visit was the first bad experience here and yet one of the worst I’ve had at any restaurant.

Absolutely every single thing in our order was wrong.

Our two juices were made incorrectly. The wrong dish was sent out and they only realized when trying to set down something nobody ordered which led to another 20 minute wait for the correct dish to be made. Gave us a Cuban sandwich made incorrectly. Gave us two arepas with the wrong ingredients only to then tell us they were out of prosciutto and asked if we wanted to order something else - 35 minutes after originally placing our order. Double charged us for both a coffee and mocha.

After that entire nightmare, the waiter acted entirely flippant about the whole thing. Not even a genuine apology was offered for the embarrassing lunch.

Overall, we could sense there was a very distinct lack of passion at Zaguan now. Gone were the warm waitresses that treated you like family, the kitchen that took pride in their food.

And if require any further proof of this, just take a look at their slipping ratings and reviews.

I think it might be time to say goodbye to this old favorite.

**Old review from six years ago: If you love Latin food this is a great place to try out. I can’t speak for the Venezuelan dishes (because I’ve never been) but the Colombian dishes are spot on. I have been here many times for a delicious brunch and will keep...