Mercado by Butchertown — Restaurant in Nashville-Davidson

A delicious restaurant with a nice atmosphere and aesthetic. Mercado had some really great Mexican food that is fancier than a normal Mexican restaurant. We started off with drinks, which I got the house margarita on the rocks with salt (you can get salt, sugar, or tajin on the rim). It was pretty good but a little small for $10. Someone else in my group got the frozen house margarita with salt and she liked it as well. Then we got the queso (comes with chorizo and pico de gallo in it) with chips. The queso came in a skillet and was quite good! The chips were decent but needed a bit more salt in my opinion. Then, I shared the Baja fish tacos and the Birria dumplings with my husband. The Baja fish tacos were delicious! Super crunchy from being fried, and had a refreshing slaw and sauce on them. They were a tad too spicy in my opinion especially after eating multiples of them. It would be nice to mix and match tacos here but you have to pick 2/3 of all the same kind. The tacos came with beans that were a little under seasoned to me and then salsa that the tacos were delicious to also dip in. The Birria dumplings were also very good! I thought it was a smaller portion (only 5 dumplings for a while meal) and wasn’t appropriate for being a full dinner. Overall delicious but smaller portions for a more expensive price.

The service was fairly good. The drinks took a long time to come out but the food didn’t take too long. He kept our drinks/waters filled which was good. He also split up our checks (correctly) between 9 people so that was great!

The atmosphere is really relaxed and nice here. I liked the aesthetic is fancier Mexican with a lot of neutral tones. It was a little loud but not too bad. The seats weren’t too bad either. But they don’t have a ton of room for larger groups. We were in a large group and they made room for us but we were just at one really long table which made it hard to talk to everyone. Bathrooms were clean and nice! Though it was annoying they only had one individual bathroom for each gender so I...

The Good: 1.Walking distance from my home

2.Good design and décor

3.Rooftop bar

The Bad: 1.The hostess was about as friendly as a venomous snake

2.Waited at the table for literally 10 minutes and then had to get up to ask if we even had a server, Finally one came after 15 min. to pour warm water in our cups.

3.Ordered drinks, waited again another 15 min for them to arrive and was seated next to the bar so we could clearly see the bartender was not busy. The food came which was bland in flavor, small portions, and the beans were cold.

My husband ordered another beer, and waited another 10 min. It was clear that the waiter forgot. When he asked the waiter if he had in fact forgot the order and he said yes. He didn't offer to get it right away, He didn't apologize in anyway and honestly seemed like he didn't cared in the slightest.

After paying, we passed by the "venomous snake" aka-(hostess) again and of course No " Thanks for coming, have a nice night" She looked at us dead in the face and said nothing.

6.Overall, the staff act as if they are doing YOU a favor by working the job they were hired to do. As if you the paying guest is an inconvenience. I saw this same behavior with every paying customer while we were there. People were constancy looking around for their waiter. We were very kind and understanding as sometimes it takes a few months to work out kinks in a new restaurant, but it takes nothing to be friendly. I hope the owners can and will get in there and change things, Its has so much potential...

I went for my first time thinking it was going to be good, reading reviews and word of mouth. However when I arrived I was very disappointed. I had the charbroiled oysters. They lacked flavor as they didn’t have much butter at all. And they tasted very…off. Even my coworker said the same. I then had the fish special, it was some cod. The cod was undercooked, horrible texture but the sauce was nice. However I told the bartender I no longer wanted it after a few bites and swapped out for a burger. The burger was the best part of the meal yet was still lacking it was like a burger from a school lunch the bun was awful and it said it was a smash burger but we seem to have forgotten the definition of a smash burger, because it was not. There was no sauce, just cheese, pickles, maybe onions I can’t recall it was so forgettable. The cod was “unable to be removed from the bill” even though more than half of it was on the plate still. But the bartender took care of my old fashioned which I’ve also had a lot better ones around Nashville. The actual service from the bar was okay, it took a while for us to get acknowledged but besides that he was okay. Everything was just lacking, I’m not sure who the executive chef is or if there even is one? But we need to get it together over there before I ever think about going back. I see other 5 star reviews but as the Nashville scene is now flooded with fad restaurants with mediocre food and overpriced drinks what can you expect. That’s all the locals...