El Ancla Mariscos — Restaurant in Hanover Township

Tried them on a Sunday evening their 2nd week of being open which is generally a tough time for a new restaurant but after doing a bit of research saw that the owners had 2 other locations (Addison & Stone Park) - after chatting with our server we found out that the Stone Park location closed & they moved that staff to this new Bartlett location.

FOOD is DELICIOUS with a few unique items I’ve not seen anywhere else (specifically the pot of delicious Molcajete de Carnes and the Chalares)

I didn’t get photos of everything cuz we jumped right into eating - but we did additionally order guacamole - shrimp ceviche - fish tacos (comes with French fries) - most entrees are served with rice & French fries. We were somewhat turned off by the thought of French fries but we found ourselves dunking them into the fabulous sauce in the Molcajete de Carnes pot & then couldn’t stop eating them.

Here’s where I’m going to lean towards negative. Not a lot of tables. There’s about 4 or 5 high tops seating for 6 which run the length of the bar. There’s maybe 6 regular height tables for 4. There’s a ton more square footage in the restaurant that could easily hold at least 4 or more additional 4 tops.

Our party of 4 arrived at 6pm on a Sunday & waited about 30 minutes to be seated.

About 7pm - 3 very serious looking “security” emblemmed men wearing flak jacket/vests walked in the restaurant & originally seemed like they were looking for someone. After a few minutes they each took a strategic location standing around the restaurant against walls.

Next up - enter the first band and we completely lost our ability to talk - best we could do is scream at one another over the BLASTING MUSIC.

On Fridays & Sundays they bring in a rotation of 3 bands. GREAT MUSIC but no ability to talk during dining. While the 1st band was playing the next band arrived outside and they had more musicians and bigger horns and more drums. We decided to close out our check and vamanos - it was either that - or it was time to order the 8 mango shots drink menu item.

Morale of the story - if you want to dine and talk to one another - do not go on Fridays &...

I decided to give this restaurant a try yesterday. They do have plenty of parking, which was convenient. Upon arrival, we waited about five minutes before Silvia greeted us.The Restaurant was really hot they have no AC She began putting tables together, though they were all at different heights which felt a bit unorganized. After placing our order one of our plates was missing and Silvia had to go to the kitchen to check. Unfortunately the customer service throughout our visit was disappointing she spent a lot of time texting around the corner and rarely checked on our table. When the bill arrived I noticed an automatic 20% gratuity had been added to the total, regardless of the quality of service. This was surprising especially given the overall...

I took my family of 5, three little girls and my wife, we wanted to try the seafood at this restaurant on Friday after work to start of our Labor Day weekend. While it seemed like they were not busy, no one came to the front to even tell us to wait to be seated, it seemed like they did not want to seat us at all. Staff continued to stare at us and never even bothered to ask if we had been helped. We stood there for a good 15 minutes with everyone just staring and continuing to serve...