Esperanza Latin Kitchen — Restaurant in Gainesville

We booked in advance to celebrate my mom’s birthday here. She heard they had crispy pork which is one of her favorites so we decided to try it.

Unfortunately, I am really disappointed in the experience. Sure the staff was nice but a lot of things were lacking.

First off, we did get here early for our reservation, but once the rest of our party arrived and finally ordered, it took ONE HOUR to get our food after ordering. I understand that with a larger party food will take longer so that all plates come out at the same time—but once we got our food, some of the plates were cold.

Food portions were smaller than expected-and in my opinion were not worth the price. But after waiting that long, of course we ate it because we were hungry.

Apps and entrees were just ok. Multiple things were forgotten and we had to ask our server for basic things like plates and glasses.

They have drag shows on Sundays (I’m assuming) so the music was loud- we were seated on the patio right under the speaker which was spotty and staticky… we were told the music would be turned off since it was too loud but even that took 20-30 minutes to occur.

The whole experience was just overstimulating and we felt like the wait was just not worth it.

I’m disappointed to say the least and I hope others don’t...

Egregiously horrible experience. There is clearly a lack of management and owner support. The menu was out of date as we were told that many of the drinks were no longer being made, but they were still on the menu. Several food items that we tried to order were not available. Broccolini, egg rolls, meatloaf, sweet potato fries, and more. We decided to give the benefit of the doubt and found other items to order. After waiting another 20 minutes after we placed our order, we were told that there was no street corn for one of our orders. At this point we had been there for an hour and had no food and with another item being out, no hope of food. We asked for the check and at this point we hear an employee yell across the restaurant “we’ll tell them the food is already cooked!” Which we knew was not true, since we had JUST been informed they were out of an item. After all of this we never saw a manager or owner or any form of acknowledgment of the horrible experience. Mind you, this restaurant is on the pricier side, especially for this...

Very disappointing experience after reading such positive reviews. While the Rack of Lamb my partner ordered was good (it was their last rack), the beans were undercooked. I had to change my order twice due to them being out of main entrees. With certain dietary restrictions the options were very limited. My first option was the meatloaf, they didn't have it. My second option was a "Prime" hamburger, once again they didn't have it. I ended up having to order a plain grilled chicken sandwich (nothing on it due to the restrictions), it was just ok. The sweet potato fries were cooked perfectly at least. Note that it was early Friday night (Valentines) we sat their over 2 hours before receiving our food, they were not even that busy, just out of the majority of items. On a side note our waitress was great. But you could tell she was getting flustered due to having to come out several times to let us know they were out of items. Maybe lunch time is the optimal time for this place, but after the experience we will not...