Barracuda Bistro & Bar — Restaurant in New Haven

Where do I begin? After hearing good reviews about this place for some time now myself and a few family members decided to set up reservations for a “Girls night out”. We made reservations for Saturday 09/26/2020 @8:30 PM. This was confirmed by a staff member of barracuda via Email the day before. I arrived shortly before 8:30 and was told to Wait because they were very busy. By 8:35 everyone in my party had arrived and we were waiting to be seated. Only to be greeted or should I say ACCOSTED by the OWNER SONIA SALAZAR. “I have Party of 5 for Jessica at 8:30” no ma’am reservations were for 7 people. She walked away came back and informed me the best she can do is seat 6 of us in a tight little corner because that’s all she had and once again she walked away. Problem number 1: what is the point of making reservations if you still won’t be accommodated properly?

Eventually we all squeezed in to the booth and waited for someone to come over and assist us. At about 9:20 pm we finally waved SONIA down and asked for menus “WE DO NOT HAVE MENUS SCAN THE BARCODE ON THE TABLE WITH YOUR PHONE AND THE MENU WILL COME UP!” Ok now so everyone is fully aware we’re in a pandemic but shouldn’t things like that be told to your guests as they’re being seated? I guess not.

By 9:30 still no one had came over to offer a drink or anything (keep in mind this is for an 8:30 reservation) Once again we waved Sonia down and asked when can we get some service. She claimed someone will be right over my aunt asked if she could place an order with Sonia who replied “I’m not a server” and walked away. Literally seconds later we witnessed her Rudely demanding that a server who we came to know as ERICA take our orders. It didn’t seem to bother Sonia that Erica was also serving 4 tables outside and appeared to be the only server actually serving. After we placed drink orders and my aunt placed an order for their chorizo Mac n cheese, we waited. By 10 pm nothing had arrived not even the drinks but they managed to sit a party of about 8-9 girls next to us who were highly intoxicated. Drinks finally arrived still no Mac n cheese. As soon as we were going to find Sonia again someone comes and place a bowl of steaming hot Mac n cheese on the table no utensils napkins nothing. We asked for a fork and again we waited. After waiting 15 minutes for a fork we decided to just pay our tab and leave. We phoned EL AMIGO FELIX a family owned bar and restaurant that’s about 5-7 minutes away from barracuda. We were told to come there and we will be taking care of. Arrived and we were seated and had drinks on our table within 10 Minutes of us arriving. NEVER EVER AGAIN WILL I SUPPORT BARRACUDA NEW HAVEN. I also feel as if we were treated poorly because of our race. If you care about people and want to be a part of change in the world this place would be the last place that step foot in. It starts with a little change to make our world a...

(Last visited 11/21/2021.) If you know me or my fiancée you know how we feel about brunch and even more about bottomless mimosas, but this place doesn't quite offer that... something else though... read on. Here's how it went!

Atmosphere/Appearance: First and foremost, I highly recommend that you make reservations in advance. We got lucky today. Set right downtown New Haven near Yale is this gem. Good luck with your own parking since this place doesn't have a private lot, but there are plenty of spaces on the street or structures around. It's a cozy and quaint place that can't hold a lot of people. It's almost always packed in here and the energy is through the roof. I loved it. The left side of the restaurant is the bar section with a half-wall separating it from the other side, which holds all the tables. The giant exposed ventilation that runs from the ceiling right to the floor is a super cool, modern-rustic touch.

Service: Chris took excellent care of us both times that we've visited this place. He's quick with getting things we asked for, friendly, fun and ridiculously helpful.

Food: So we must discuss what you probably searched to find this review... This place does NOT offer bottomless mimosas, however, if you buy a pitcher of mimosa, you can buy refills for $1.00/piece. How many you're allowed to buy is up to the restaurant. The first time we came, we were allowed to buy multiples, but the 2nd time we were only allow to buy one additional, so take that with a grain of salt. For my entrée I went with their Barracuda Nachos! These consist of yuca fritas topped with blackened chicken, pepper jack cheese, tomato & scallions served with sour cream, salsa and guacamole. You can add other proteins for additional costs. They were SO FREAKING GOOD and just different compared to traditional nachos elsewhere. I loved them.

Value: A pitcher of mimosa is $20.00 and the refill is only $1.00. See the value there?! Lol. My nachos were $12.00 and it was an additional $2.00 for your choice of pork belly, steak, mushrooms, chorizo or blackened chicken. I think this place was absolutely worth it and you'd think the same.

In conclusion, this place was awesome and it's a reason we've driven 45 minutes twice to hang out here. We will continue to visit this place in the future!

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First the restaurant was not busy at all.

Waitress was extremely rude. Spent more time at the bar then taking care of our party. The menu was vague and when ask to explain she didnt care to explain any of the dishes and she had an attitude when I did not like how the foods presentation was and sent it back. She responded by saying "haven't you been here before, you didn't read the menu". Simple vegetarian dietary orders came out wrong (we wanted a cheese quesadilla with lettuce in it... not difficult at all) but it was soggy and not well put together (imagine a restaurant messing up such a simple request. We ask to have them remake it and they told us there out of tortillas. Ok... So we ordered plantain chips with gucamole, they sent out a plate of crumbs, like crumbles if that makes sense! We ask if we could have whole plantain chips and was told there was no more plantains so we told the server we did not want the order 2 minutes later they sent out the order with whole plantain chips and said they " We found 1 bag left in the basement" THE BASEMENT.... I couldn't make this up if I tried. Manager did rectify the problem but after the manager fixed the problem the waitress ever so rudely informed me she got in trouble and me and my wife should not come back because she has the right of refusal. I'm a regular at te amo tequila and been to 80 proof multiple times never have I had a problem. I been here 5 times first couple time was amazing with a different waitress, the last 3 times same waitress everytime and always a problem. Food used to be good now its subpar at best, just wish my wife had better food cravings so we could go elsewhere. Google does not allow 0 stars or this would of been my first time giving a restaurant 0. Save your time go to the owners other establishment (te amo tequila or 80 proof) save yourself the...