El Barzon Restaurante — Restaurant in Detroit

The staff was perfectly​ consistent in the low quality of service. The service was very slow but at least the employees didn't care. So that level of dedication was nice to see. This experience felt more like one of the escape the room puzzles than a dinner experience. Our team got out in just over 4 hours.

Step 1 in the game. Find the hostess and get them to acknowledge that you're not a ghost. We split into teams of two and went off on a search. Mission accomplished in just about 10 minutes, with a twist. We have a table ready for you but it's inside - not what you asked for and what we agreed to when you made the reservation. Step 1a, wait another 40 minutes for a table outside. Had a drink at the bar, if you haven't done this you're missing out. This is a rare opportunity to marvel how the bartenders can make drinks with their eyes closed to avoid any accidental eye contact with a customer. 3 out of the 4 of us might still be ghosts. And these bartenders do not see dead people.( For those of you under thirty, that's a Bruce Willis movie reference - not die hard)

"Soon" we were seated and the second Step in the game was revealed. Find your server. Easy right, we quickly formulated a plan and decided that waiting patiently was the best course of action. After 10 minutes we determined that plan to be a failure and moved on to politely asking for assistant. Excuse me sir, I say to an employee as they walk by, could you ask our server to come over when you have moment, "no problem". Fast forward a few more minutes an we're still being ignored. I wonder if he meant, not my problem. This game is harder than I first imagined. I ask another employee who was walking by if they could grab our server. The response, "sorry really busy" - ring the jackpot bells - I found our waitress. She walked past our table three or four times and never said hello or explained that she was slammed. I think that step 2 took about 20 minutes to complete but time is starting to become an abstract construct at this point.

She was about to leave without taking our order so we hurriedly threw in a drink and appetizer order. Appetizer arrived in a reasonable amount of time. Drinks however, well let's just say that the appetizers were finished before the drinks arrived.

Step 3, place an order for food. From past experience, we knew we needed to grab the waitresses attention and we hurriedly delivered our dinner order. We're there any specials? Yes, we overheard another server so we cheated on that one. Anyway, order is in - did we want more drinks. Yes we did. It didn't matter. I think it's fair to say that we at the table for over an hour before we had our first opportunity to place our entree order.

Step 4: wait for your food. This is just an exercise in patience which admittedly was not in high supply at this time. They designed this game well. At this point I began to seek out a manger to speak with. The table objected because we hadn't received our food yet and we're from the thought process that it's dangerous to express dissatisfaction with someone who is handling your food. Food finally arrived, I'm thinking it was about 45 minutes after we order. But again, time - who is the judge of time at El Barzon. Not me.

Step 5: pay the bill and escape.

In summary, if you like poor service, rationing one basket of chips, hunting down employees for attention, and taking 4 hours out of your life for some mediocre food then please visit the escape...

My fiancee's review: We came here to celebrate my fiance's birthday with his parents and were very disappointed! The drinks were good (so I was told, since I don't drink), and the appetizers were okay - the mixture of calamari, shrimp and scallops was plentiful but not particularly tasty and the scallops were mushy. Our waitress was not very helpful and acted like she had better things to do than wait on us. My entree, linguine with bolognese sauce was mainly tasteless tomato sauce with meat, not like the classic (and tasty) bolognese I was expecting. After telling the waitress he was vegetarian and asking her whether a couple of the dishes contained meat, he ordered a combination dish with three different pastas and sauces. When it arrived, one of the pastas was topped with meat sauce. When we pointed this out, she said, well, the other two were okay for him to eat. For a $25 entree? I don't think so. She was ready to walk away when I stopped her and asked her to please bring him something else, since he had said he was vegetarian before ordering. She brought him another dish with non-meat sauce on all three pastas. While they were vegetarian, the sauces were not very good, rather thick and gloppy. His mother had a seafood combination with pasta, and the squid and other seafood was overcooked and rubbery. The sauce seemed to be the same tasteless and too-thick tomato sauce that topped everything else, including my fiance's father's salmon. The salad mixtas were good, but my Ceasar salad had brown lettuce in it, including the core of the romaine heart. Not appetizing. We skipped dessert, not wanting yet another disappointing course. When they removed our half-full plates, we were asked if we wanted boxes. When we said no, we were not asked whether anything was wrong with the food, given that we didn't want to take our leftovers home. With tip, our bill was around $200, way too high for a mediocre meal and indifferent service. I will...

I'm saddened to share a low review for what has been a favorite restaurant in my family for over a decade. Four of us came for dinner Saturday night looking to impress an out-of-town guest with our favorite restaurant in Detroit. After many delays and abrupt/curt comments from our server (who was visibly overwhelmed), I sought the FOH manager to suggest she coach the server on priorities and his tone speaking with the table. She offered no apology but informed us that 3 servers had called off. Still, the restaurant was seating walk-ins and took our reservation earlier that day.

Many wines and menu items were out of stock, so by the time we had found a bottle of wine that WAS available, we were finished eating. The food, normally outstanding, was underwhelming. The veal was overcooked and heavily salted, the potatoes served in a broken cream sauce. The pasta was, as always, terrific, but the rest of the evening delivered truly underwhelming service. Two of the table's drinks were made wrong and had to be sent back.

A second member of the party spoke to the manager, who snapped back at the guest "What do you want me to do about it?" When the manager offered for this person to speak to the owner, the owner replied from the kitchen that he was "too busy." I'm sorry- I've worked in the industry all my life as well and I understand that s**t happens on a Saturday night. But if you as an owner are too busy to speak to a disappointed guest, you will likely not be in business much longer.

Perhaps a better choice would have been to take fewer reservations or stop taking walk-ins once clear the restaurant knew they would be short staffed. Our bill was adjusted, which was appreciated but not necessary. I only wish to share my disappointment with the management's inability and unwillingness to address our concerns in a civil and professional manner. Hopefully this was an out-of-the-ordinary experience. The pasta and the patio are...