Bang Up To The Elephant — Restaurant in Denver

It seems cruel to review a place after it's opening weekend but here we are... The only reason I'm doing 3 stars instead of 2 was because of our server, April. She was amazing. We arrived at around 7:30 pm and the 4 people at the hostess stand let us know that the wait would be 30 minutes. Not bad for opening night. We sat down, browsed through the menu. While we were waiting for our table, we noticed that the stained glass doors/dividers for the space aren't fixed to the floor which means they sway in a way that heavy metal and glass doors/dividers should not sway. 45+ minutes later and after seeing two parties that arrived after we did, I went up to the hostess stand of still 4 people looking over 1 tablet and asked them what the wait would be like since we've been here over 45 minutes. They said we still had a handful of people in front of us. So I let them know that I had seen 2 groups that got there after we did get seated already and that if there were people getting seated before us even though we got there earlier, we could go to another location. After that whole deal. We ordered our food and drinks (using our Winter Warmer Passport) the food came out fairly quick. It was alright. Plantain chips were good the sauces were not the best. We got cornbread, $5 and got one square of it. The utensils... I didn't think I'd ever write anything about utensils in a review. I opened my cloth napkin up and they were plastic. My sister opened her's up and they were actual metal silverware... what? The drinks came out right around the time that we were almost finished with our food after our server noticed we didn't have them at the table. The overall feel of the place is fun and different than other places but I did expect WAY more from the owners and founders of Beatrice & Woodsley. So. Much. More.

Anyway, the food was not amazing, I'm hoping the rest of the drink menu make up for it. Our poor server was so apologetic about the bar wait and she was frustrated herself, but she was so sweet and you could tell she was trying her hardest to make it all work that it honestly made up for all the stuff above. Maybe we'll try again in the future, once they got their stuff...

Ooof, we were so disappointed from start to finish as this place was recommended by a colleague. Atmosphere is fine, music ok, and the service friendly enough, and the guava soda was refreshing and not too sweet. But the rest of it....Maybe we came on an off night (Tuesday around 8), but the menu items we wanted were not available and the server didn't let us know in advance leaving us to make some rushed 2nd and 3rd choices. Then, it took close to 20 minutes for our food to arrive, a time period during which our server never checked on us and steadfastly avoided eye contact each time she passed our table. What we had hoped was to be our appetizer order of the fried cauliflower dish arrived with our lukewarm entrees. Based on my previous experience as a server, my guess is the kitchen forgot to drop the cauliflower but still made the rest of our food which was then left to die under a heat lamp. My jerk chicken, while well-seasoned, was oddly dry n chewy and generally disappointing. My spouse's bbq bowl dish was a generous portion, but each of the items were seemingly microwaved and various displeasing temperatures. Flavor was ok, but nothing was actually warm enough! The server took my dish off the check as I pushed it away and declined her offer to have the kitchen heat it up as I had no interest in microwave jerk chicken. She even gave us some donuts on the house with our check...but...they were super dense and more like bagels. Still, a kind gesture. In short, we won't be back and suggest that if you go, you ask up front what they have run out of or just don't have in stock. Also, the manager never did a table touch even with a returned dish which left a final...

I really liked the thought of this place and was super excited to take my girlfriend here. When we got there (about 7pm on a Sunday) there was very little wait time. The table wasn't as romantic as we'd like but there was definitely a variety of seating that we could've sat at to get that vibe. The drinks were awesome. They are pricey but I had the dirty banana and it was great. My girlfriend had the lady bird which was classy but maybe not worth the $12 price tag. The food was great. We started with the curry waffle fries and they were like a Frankie but chili fries and I would 100000% recommend those. For entrees, I got the coconut curry and my girlfriend got the Cubano. Very different vibes but the Cubano was light and the salsa was refreshing. The coconut curry was warm and tasty. We then ordered the Pina colada to share which neither of us had before. It was very good. You could definitely taste the rum but there was fresh pineapple. Basically the only reason I am giving 4 stars is because of the service. It was a little busy but after we ordered we didn't see our waitress for a while. Someone else brought us our food and we ordered our second drink with him. When she finally checked in I asked for boxes for both my girlfriend and I's food and our appetizer and probably about 10 minutes passed (both my girlfriend and I had time to go to the bathroom and then we talked for a bit) and she walked by, looked at our table and then went and grabbed boxes. She was super nice to tell me that they don't take discover cards which I did not know.

Overall, a very positive experience. I will be going back to try...