Uncle Julio's Annapolis — Restaurant in Maryland

This is how you run a successful and previously wonderful restaurant into the ground. We've been dining at Uncle Julio's since opening day. We're usually there at least once per week, sometimes we're in there two or even three times in a week. But lately cracks have started to appear. I'm not complaining about the fact that they are often short-staffed; everyone has that problem the past few years and service is usually great even if there's a wait because of that. The reason we go there so often is because it's always been a reliably fun place with great food and service and really nice people. We're platinum loyalty members and have been for years.

Today for the first time ever we decided to leave without dining after they walked us through a nicely warm dining area into one that was probably at least ten degrees colder. We were told there was no server yet for the (already busy with customers) warm area so our choices were to wait another 20 min to sit there or to sit in the cold area where they had just turned the heat on. If I have to stay bundled up for the cold weather outside that's not a fun dining experience. If you know you're going to be using a previously closed dining area you need to heat it before the customers arrive on a cold day.

We've also noticed recently that the fixtures are starting to get shabby because the restaurant is so busy, it's a popular place and for good reason: until recently it's been great. They need to put some of those profits back into the restaurant as it's getting shabby. Some booth backs wobble so badly if the person behind you leans back you get a jolt while dining and the seats to many of the booths are torn and terrible to sit upon. There was also an unusual incident last year where I had a reservation and someone at the restaurant changed the time of it to an earlier time on the day and then canceled it without my knowledge till we arrived at what was the time I had set days earlier. When I wrote to Uncle Julio's corporate office I never received an explanation or an apology of any kind. I confirmed what had happened with Resy, their online reservation service after the fact. Luckily, we were still able to be seated right away that day as it wasn't too busy, but you never know and since we were meeting a friend for lunch that day it was important to know we could be seated at a certain time.

The food has been consistently good most of the time and most of the employees are very friendly and nice and the ones that stay a while we usually become quite friendly with because we're such frequent customers. However, all of these little problems that keep appearing over the past several months could definitely impact how frequently we go there in the future. We've seen this before, a popular place that suddenly stops receiving the caring management it needs to keep its quality up and then sadly people slowly stop coming and it closes down.

I should point out that on Taco Tuesday sometimes they don't drain the fat from the ground beef before serving it, which means it coagulates in the bottom of the jar as it cools, rendering the beef encased in unappetizing fat. Sometimes the liquid fat fills the jar to about the halfway point, so it would be great if the kitchen would consistently drain the fat before sending the ground beef out.

I'm writing this here because writing to corporate as I just pointed out is futile, so I'm hoping someone at Uncle Julio's sees this and does something about it before apathy completely destroys the restaurant we've loved so much since the day it opened. Please remodel where needed, keep the heat on when needed, and find management that cares about the place before you destroy it. Most customers don't say anything when they are unhappy, they just stop coming. We care enough about the place to say something, please keep it up and keep it fun so we can keep coming there for years to come. There's a lot of competition in Annapolis and we went somewhere else tonight. I hope we never feel the need to leave Uncle Julio's like that...

We stopped in for dinner on a beautiful Sunday evening after a busy day watching our daughter compete athletically. We had a short 15 minute wait (for a booth inside) as was discussed with the polite young man at the host stand. The restaurant seemed to have a steady flow of guests with most tables occupied. Though there were also several tables unoccupied, they were in need of immediate attention being cleared. I noticed several staff meandering around but ignoring the unkept tables. Once we got sat, we were greeted by our server after maybe 5 minutes or so. He was very efficient in the beginning, quickly bringing our drinks and taking a food order for our hungry daughter. Her food came out fast which was fantastic. Once we placed the remaining food order, we basically never saw our server again. We asked other staff for a minor food correction, more chips & salsa, and other necessary things during our meal. THE FOOD WAS OUTSTANDING!! Came out within a timely manner. Our server came back to check on us as we were finishing up. He did bring me some containers for our unfinished food but no bag to place the different size containers in (which I couldn’t comfortably carry). Our table had zero dishes or glasses removed which made it challenging for me to pack up our food with all the clutter. I will say he was very kind in bringing me a bag of fresh chips to take home. When it was time for me to pay our bill, our server presented an electronic handheld device to process my credit card payment. Once payment was processed, and it was time for the gratuity to be added (mind you he’s still holding the small device but has it positioned where it’s partially visible to me) without hesitation, he starts to automatically press the 20% gratuity button as he says to me, “20% right?” I found this to be so brazen and incredibly rude. I told him I’d tip him accordingly which ended up being more than the 20% (after I had to walk up to the host stand to ask for a bag and ask why the handheld timed out before completing my payment with added gratuity). I’ve worked in this industry for longer than dirt and appreciate that he came to work so that my family and I could have a nice dinner out. I don’t know if this is standard procedure for your service staff to feel entitled to a certain tip percentage regardless of their effort or urgency, or if he just felt that he deserved that but he overstepped boundaries. I didn’t see any management or else I would’ve addressed it during our visit. I’d like to reiterate that our food was truly delicious and I’m thankful for those that showed up for their shift. We’ve always had lovely visits to your establishment...

We had a party of 8 come celebrate a birthday. We got there at about 7 and left at almost 10:30. Most of the time was spent sitting and waiting. It took almost 45 minutes to get drinks and another 45 for our order to be taken. 2 stars for atmosphere because we needed to use our flashlights to view the menu because it was so dark in there. By the time our order was taken, we’d been through 2 rounds of chips and salsa. Skip the mild salsa…it’s mild in taste…as in tasteless. They also don’t have shrimp tacos in the menu which was really a disappointment. They trialed a limited menu but need to work on the basics first. The food was okay. The Fresca salad would’ve been great but was DRENCHED in dressing and I couldn’t finish it. It also only had 4 “jumbo” shrimp…needs at least 5-6 to balance it out with all of the salad mix. The rest of the food was okay I think…we were just so hungry by that point. There was a Togo order placed after we received our food that was brought out in maybe 5 minutes but in a dine in dish…our server apologized and informed that it would be taken off of the final bill. We got the final bill and it was on there…and then taken off. We did the chocolate piñata which was a cool concept. It was a little awkward because the set up is HUGE. We had so many dishes on our table and kept being advised of how much room to make on the table but not many dishes were being removed from the table. Our server Tina was extremely nice and personable but it did seem that she was the only server in our section with 5+ tables. I went to eat my Togo steak fajita bowl today and there was only steak, rice, tomatoes, and maybe 1 pepper. Very glad it was free because that would’ve been $18 in the trash. This is my second and last visit. Large groups beware…small groups too..my first visit 3 years ago with my husband for lunch and that was a...