El Jarocho — Restaurant in Jamestown

As a small business owner myself, I try to refrain from leaving bad reviews because I understand just how much it hurts the business. I understand that business doesn’t run optimally every single night, people are human, mistakes happen, etc, so again, I don’t leave bad reviews very often and I really try to give businesses the benefit of the doubt. But this was hands down the worst all-around dining experience I’ve had to date and I left feeling like I was scammed, so I deemed a bad review necessary. I really don’t even know where to start because every aspect of the dinner was horrible. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning and go through the whole experience.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were completely ignored by the waitress who was cashing out a customer. There wasn’t a sign saying whether we should seat ourselves or wait to be seated, so after standing there for several minutes of the waitress avoiding eye contact with us, we decided to seat ourselves. We sat at the booth closest to the counter, and even after the couple who were paying for their meal had left, it was still about five minutes for us to be acknowledged. When we were seated RIGHT IN FRONT of the counter. It would have taken effort to NOT look at us.

When the waitress finally came to our booth, she was NOT friendly. We got our drinks quickly and she took our order right away, which was good. We ordered some queso dip for the chips to have while we wait for our food, but we didn’t get the queso until one minute before our food came out. Annoying, but ok sometimes that happens. The food was ok. Not great, but not terrible. We had a gift certificate to use anyway, so the meal was only going to cost us about $10 after that, and so we justified that it was probably worth $10 and at least it wouldn’t cost us the full amount today.

The waitress never came to check on us. Not even once. She didn’t refill our empty drinks that were clearly visible on the edge of our table (again, right in direct view of the counter) or ask if we would like more chips for our queso that we hardly got to eat because we munched on the plain chips while waiting for the queso. In retrospect, after taking in the whole experience, I realize that this probably was a direction from management in an effort to cut costs by not giving refills on anything. At least we’re going to go with that to give the waitress the benefit of the doubt. Actually now that I think about it, it kind of makes sense that maybe she was avoiding us because she didn’t want to have to tell us we couldn’t have any refills. Sure, we’ll go with that theory.

After sitting there for enough time to realize and accept that we really weren’t going to get any kind of wait service tonight, we decided it was time to leave. We didn’t get a check because again, the waitress never visited our table after bringing us our meals, so we just went up to the counter to pay. I pulled out the gift certificate that we had just purchased a little over a month ago. The waitress told me I couldn’t use the gift certificate because a new owner had just taken over about a month ago and was not accepting gift certificates issued prior. ARE YOU KIDDING ME. This absolutely horrible dining experience just got so much worse. We had been ok with it because we knew the gift certificate would cover most of the meal. Now we had to pay full price for the worst meal we have ever had. Absolutely disgusting. This whole experience ended up costing DOUBLE (because the gift certificate that I already paid for is now garbage) for the worst meal ever. I am willing to bet that they “change ownership” every week. 1000% DO NOT RECOMMEND eating here. It seems like management is super shady. The service was absolutely awful. Just overall a...

I was quite pleasantly surprised by their menu. There are so many things on there the font had to be smaller. I’m not complaining, lots of choices I was impressed. The food is authentic Mexican. If you’re looking for super spicy that would be new Mexican. They did have a chili habanero sauce at the table if you wanted to add more spice and it was fresh. While placing my order for the nacho supreme I noticed it had guacamole and I expressed that I was very happy about that to the waitress. When my food came out it didn’t have any guacamole and I asked the waitress. She told me they didn’t have any guacamole. I wish I was told that when I was expressing joy up upon placing my order. Serving sizes were reasonable. My husband ordered the chimichanga which was very good. The interior of the restaurant was clean, it looked recently remodeled, it had simple yet festive decorations, unfortunately there was no paper towel to dry your hands in either the women’s or the men’s restrooms. When checking out, I was astonished to see the tablet offer three tip options 8% 10% or 15% there was no option to leave a custom tip but even more surprised that there was an 8% and a 10% option. Would I eat here again? Yes I would. The service was quick, the food was tasty, the waitress was kind, and the...

This is essentially a Mexican diner - food is always very good and tastes freshly made - salsa and chips are different every time - main dishes also vary from visit to visit (leading me to believe the food is 'homemade'), and are always flavorful and enjoyable. Service is fast, and the staff are always very nice. Prices are inexpensive, and serving size is enough so that I am content when I leave. Parking is metered on the street, but I've never had an issue finding a spot for lunch or dinner. And it's kid friendly.

Wow -- Maybe a bad night ... but I felt I had to amend my review. We returned for a meal wanting to relax in a place we knew. Rice was hard and rice&beans were at best tepid. The chori pollo was brought out w/o any sausage -- the chicken&vegetables were served with the frozen vegetables still frozen in the middle (not fresh veg -- like Birdseye frozen veg). On informing the staff - no money off, no apologies ... Just the bill at full price. I'm doubtful we will return for a while ... This visit was Awful. Reduced by only 2 stars out of respect for meals in the past - if this had been our first visit we would not have returned. Made me...