Virgil's Cocktails and Cocina — Restaurant in Raleigh

Ate there last night. Had a local deal to use. Here's some notes:

1- NOT a family restaurant. When booking the reservation, I told them that we have a toddler and needed a booster seat. Not only did they ignore that, but they seated us at a high-top table next to the DJ.

2- ambiance - half star. There was a DJ and the music was good, however it was loud (not uncomfortably loud) so if you come here expecting to have a conversation with anyone, it will be tough.

3- Food. Half star. I got carne asada tacos that immediately fell apart when I picked them up. The steak was well prepared though. We also got the guacamole which was very spicy. My wife got the ACP dish and she couldn't finish it because it was too spicy. Overall the menu was lacking so I'm not quite sure if food is really there thing. Since we were next to the kitchen it sounded like the cooks (chefs?) were just there to goof-off.

4- drinks. They only had a couple of beers on-tap. Was wondering why no Mexican beers on-tap, but they did have bottles. They had a few cocktails but nothing that imaginative. There was nothing for my toddler. The waitress said they had Coke, Diet Coke, and Sprite. Really? Not sure if the bartenders were new but there were glasses being broken.

5- Wait staff. Not sure if our waitress was new but she couldn't tell us about anything on the menu, was asking us for our order as soon as we sat down, and didn't even give an option for my toddler (she had to eat just rice). There was someone who I thought was maybe the manager dressed nicely with an earpiece running around even with most of the tables open.

I honestly thought maybe they just opened and it was a brand new place. Then maybe I'd give them the benefit-of-the-doubt. Just my opinions, give it a try for yourself. Not saying don't try it,...

UPDATE: Unfortunately Virgils fell from 4 stars to zero in my book. In summary we waited 3 hours for room temperature tacos. Backstory: We went here for Cinco de Mayo. It was not that busy just to preface. They only have 15 tables total only half of them are full. We has a reservation and our table was given away to another party. Already off to a rocky start. Then we found another table. Then our server did not greet us for 15 minutes. The rest of our party arrived and we waited 45 minutes for the $6 margaritas and chips with guac. We kept ordering margaritas in the meantime. I'd say the wait was 45 minutes for a margarita. The margaritas were not strong until the last round. When we asked the hostess and a waitress to get our server we got an eye roll. Our server kept saying that their system was down. Then attempted to make a terrible joke about the situation, the only joke was the service. Apparently the staff at Virgils can only survive a moderately busy night with their finicky iPad serving system. Literally 3 hours after we initially sat down we got our room temperature tacos and my husbands order was still wrong!!!!! It's tacos. Everything is prepped you only have to throw the meat on the grill this is not rocket science. Disappointed never going back. Now I understand why there were still reservations available at this taco place on Cinco de Mayo. The only thing that helped was our 3 rounds of drinks were on the house. We had to pay for the tacos........

How the mighty have fallen.... Original review: It's a good place to get affordable good quality Mexican food. The salsa and chips were fresh. The atmosphere was great. My only qualm is that they ran out of orchada at 11:45am on a Saturday. So make...

I would recommend skipping this place. For excellent all around latin inspired food and amazing drinks go to La Santa which is affordable (and has the best queso!). Or Gallo Pelon which is the sexy sultry mezcaleria (mezcal focused bar) with actually good food and better drinks. For great hipster tacos you should go to torchy's tacos or head over to Durham to La Vaquita.

I went to Virgil's twice about a week apart to be sure I gave it a fair shake. I have to say the drinks, most of the food, the entrees, and the service are definitely underwhelming. Over the course of the two times I went there I ordered 4 drinks and tried two of my partner's. The drinks were kind of weak and not particularly flavorful, despite the great descriptions. The patio was nice and easy to get seating for during the week, we made a rezzie on the weekend.

The one stand out five star thing on this menu is the sopes. Otherwise the tacos were bland, the carnitas were underwhelming, but my arroz con paella was pretty tasty. Worst of all we had chips chili con queso tasted completely like the burnt bottom of yesterday's pot. I don't know if they didn't wash the dishes or the queso was scraping the literal bottom of the pot, but it tasted horrendous. Our waitress was super new and inexperienced and we really wanted to be patient with her so we didn't complain about the food. We just finished up our other apps (the sopes!) and left...