El Quetzal Guatemalan Mexican Grill — Restaurant in Durham

Let me preface this with the fact that I really wanted to like this place. The location and convenience to families in the HFV and Woodcroft neighborhoods is second to none. The menu online was unique with several dishes that sounded delicious.

And then we went... I was pleasantly surprised to see a kid's menu as there wasn't one online. Unfortunately, the dishes don't come with a beverage. The kid's menu has main dishes and sides listed but no indication of how many sides come with each dish. My daughter ordered the kid's pancakes; turns out, this comes with no sides. Three small pancakes with one sliced up strawberry with no drink for $5.50. She loved them, but my 5 year old light eater cleaned her plate; bigger kids and bigger appetites beware... My son picked the macaroni and cheese; again, no side with this choice, but the server did think it came with toast. When it arrived, it was Kraft-like Mac and cheese with no toast, side, or drink for $5.50.

The service left a lot to be desired. We went just before noon on Mother's Day. There were probably 4 tables occupied inside and maybe another 4 outside. We were pleasantly surprised with the lack of a crowd on an often busy day. Our group of 6 (4 adults, 2 small children) placed our orders and waited. And waited... It took nearly an hour for the food to come out. When it finally arrived, there was only food for the 4 adults, but no food for the kids; she said she would be right back with their food. 5 minutes went by. It's hard to explain to hungry 3 and 5 year olds why they don't have any food when you don't know yourself. After a couple more minutes with no food, I walked inside to see when the kids' food would be out. Unfortunately, the response was "we're pretty busy." I looked around; maybe 10 tables total between inside and out we're occupied, all of whom have their food. If they aren't prepared for 10 tables on Mother's Day, this doesn't bode well for their future. And any good server knows to bring out kid's food as soon as possible. Hangry kids make for unhappy parents.

The adults all enjoyed their dishes. Unfortunately, they don't have an open bar yet when a mimosa would have been nice on Mother's Day, and when the website has cocktails on the menu, but at least they let us know this before seating us.

I think this place has a lot of potential, but today the service made it impossible to enjoy. To top it off, I went to the restroom with a few bites left on my plate and returned to find my plate gone. It was a fitting end to a...

We too were excited to try this place out when we saw it had finally opened but were sadly disappointed with our experience. Our party of 4 was seated at a table on the patio but was never greeted by our server to take drinks or our food order. Finally, after 15 minutes of waiting for a server, I asked the hostess to take our drink order. She took the order and then never returned with our drinks. After another 10 minutes had gone by, I flagged down a manager who was bussing tables to help us and he tracked down our drinks and had a server come and greet us but there was no apology to the table about the lack of service or the long wait.

After placing our order, we waited another 25 min for our food to come out only to be disappointed yet again. I ordered the buffalo chicken sandwich but what was served was a tiny piece of cold chicken tender covered in buffalo sauce that barely covered half the bun. I complained to the server who had the manager come back over to our table. I explained the situation and showed him the ridiculously small piece of chicken. He had an attitude with me about it and said he would just have the kitchen make another piece of chicken. About 10-15 min later a much more appropriate sized chicken breast came out piping hot that was suitable to replace the one they originally served but still no apology was made by any of the staff.

I was shocked that neither an apology nor a discount on our check was given. They obviously were not concerned about making the customer happy. It really sucks that this place was such a let down because it's so close to our house and the Woodcroft shopping center. I don't think we will be back...

I've tried Roots several times over the last year and it never fails to disappoint. From an uninviting atmosphere to staff attitudes that fluctuate from indifferent to downright rude to mediocre food... Roots has yet to deliver a satisfactory experience.

Last night was the last straw and I will not be back. The one menu item that I had yet to try was their pizza. I heard that they got a wood-fired oven from a now out of business restaurant just up the street (that we really loved) along with their pizza guru -- can't go wrong, right? Nope. First clue that things weren't going to go well should have probably been the fact that they don't spell Margherita Pizza correctly on the menu. We ordered one and requested that they add mushrooms. What we got was an flimsy underbaked crust with way too much cheese on it. It wasn't sliced all the way through so you had to tear the slices apart which made a mess... In addition to the excess cheese which just meant the toppings slid right off whatever you could manage to pick up. There wasn't much else to the pizza. Five pieces of sliced mushroom that didn't even manage to make it onto every slice, four small chunks of tomato and NO BASIL whatsoever.

If I had been eating the pizza in-house, we would have sent it back and refused to pay for it. As it was, this was a to go order which made getting a replacement not an option. Previous experience providing feedback to staff fell on deaf ears and always led to an even more frustrating experience. I had avoided writing a review of this place until now hoping that they would step up and give me a reason to really like this local...