El Cap Restaurant — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

I had a fantastic time at El Cap the previous times I went to lunch here. Today was completely a different story. The waitress took our appetizer order and drink order. I flagged her down to let her know we were ready to place our lunch order. She refused to take our order. Her response was “We are old school. I will take your order after your appetizers come out.” I have been there before and did not have this interaction with any other wait staff there. It took two hours total to be served a round of appetizers and lunch. Only one round of sodas. We were only a party of 5. (2 adults and 3 pre-teens) There was a couple that came in about an hour after us. They got their food and refills before us. She sucked up to the tables around us barely spoke to us unless we got her attention. (I had to ask the table next to us to borrow their ketchup because the waitress kept avoiding us.) The other adult with me did not want me to get a manager. I don’t complain about servers in restaurants to managers unless the service is really bad. I respected the wishes of the other adult and did not alert the manager. The waitress also told the other adult that they were backed up really bad in the kitchen due to “to-go” orders. I did not buy that line since the tables around us turned over within an hour. There were two other parties of 4 in the section and 2 parties of 2. Our pre-teens were not being rowdy nor carrying on loudly. They were normal pre-teens. The kids did start to gripe because the food was taking forever. When it finally came out the fries were lukewarm, the chicken tenders the kids wanted were also lukewarm. One of the basket of nuggets had two nuggets in them that looked uncooked and smelled weird. My Philly steak sandwich was dried out to the point I couldn’t even eat it.

I have no idea what happened there today. It was super disappointing service since the last 3 times I have been there everything was fantastic. (I moved to the area in June 2021, I know restaurants have been struggling due to Covid and the adjustments restaurants have...

Have been going to El Cap a couple times a year since 1994, but will never be back after tonight. We came in with a party of nine and the server came by three times to tell us how slammed she was without taking a drink order ...no big deal, it happens and she was running around frantically. What's unacceptable is when the server finally comes by for a drink order and is getting more and more visibly frustrated that not all nine people didn't want just either a coke or water. After about 20-30 minutes she comes out and half the drinks are wrong. Some waited for the correct drink while others just took what was given to help out the server who was getting more upset. A little bit later the server comes back and takes our orders...I asked for a second beer and was scowled at as she walked off without acknowledging me, but she came back some time later with it so no harm no foul. We were celebrating a birthday and we're all just talking amongst ourselves while we waited. The server then came by to take an order from an individual at an other table, turned to us and blurted out "The kitchens backed up to, so..." Perhaps she thought we were complaining, but at that point everyone was still in good spirits and we're not stressing the wait. At the two hour mark patients was exhausting and the kids in our party were fed up, though they hung in there for two hours with no food so kudos to the 7 and 10 year old. When we got our food, it all came out wrong. Most of us picked off the toppings we didn't want or requested the condiments that were missing. One plate went back because it had cheese on the burger and was ordered without. After some time the.l condiments came out when the food was cold....the same cheese burger came back out with what looked like THE CHEESE WAS LICKED OFF the patty and turned over!!! At that point I requested the Burger be removed from the bill and left my party to take the person who received that mess someplace else to eat. I hope this doesn't become the standard for El Cap, but we will be taking our business elsewhere...

New review 3/18... I want to start this post by saying if you are a patron of one, they don't want your business! I have been a patron & prior server at one time at this place for over 30 years. I made plans to meet my aunt today, like we have so many times before, at noon to have what we expected to be an amazing lunch. My aunt was sat by a waitress at an outdoor table, to be clear she did not seat herself. Upon arriving my aunt was being accosted and yelled at for sitting alone at a table that she had been seated at. The nasty older lady (unfortunately I wasn't there long enough to get her name) was by far one of the rudest personnel I've encountered in a long time! The way this lady was talking at us was disgusting and she should be ashamed. I don't know what the need for nastiness was.... My aunt almost cried thinking she had done something wrong, but really kept it together. The waitress said she was short staffed and was going to ask her to get up if I wasn't there in 2 minutes. She came back to the table to argue 3 more times about the rules and state her dominance. I recommended we leave and take our business elsewhere which she said we should do. I so badly wanted to cuss her out, but felt grace was needed since you never know what someone's going through.

Sadly, I will never ever go here again or ever give them my money again. I will also make sure that every single person I've ever been here with knows how this restaurants employees treat their customers. It shouldn't matter if she was a party of 1 or 10. I get not holding a table up for 10 minutes. But this wasn't the case. I hope this lady can check her attitude and professionalism for the next customers. If not, El Cap will be losing way more than what it lost today.

Prior review: A St. Petersburg hidden gem. Always get a little El Cap rubber duck on my jeep when I'm there. Awesome staff, and even...