Toro Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in San Antonio

Went in to celebrate my friends birthday, as We arrived the manager and two employees greeted us. We asked for a table of 3, they said none were available, even though there were a few empty and dirty. They offered the open bar seating, the birthday girl agreed to sit at bar top. We sat down, both bartenders couldn’t handle their job and bar guests. Place wasn’t that busy. After about 10 mins menus dropped, water, and the male bartender left again. No greet, no offer of drinks, nothing. Then our third guest grabbed his attention, which was minimal, and order himself a glass of wine. It came 5 mins later. Bday girl and myself still not able to order our drinks. Suffice to say, terrible service at bar top! After 30 mins finally ordered myself a bottle of wine. And got to order my food. At this point, manager patted me on back to ask me if I was dining alone- NO! You saw me walk in with people. And then asked our group to move down to allow two other people to squeeze into a small space next to me. No big deal, it was the way he went about it, making me feel uncomfortable. He kept talking to me, not making me feel any better, I asked him to leave me alone. He went to whisper something to bar staff and they all turned to look at me. Again, uncomfortable. Finally as food arrived, there was not enough space on bar top, so I moved a napkin holder over only to get attitude from the bartender. I eventually got up and left! Didn’t eat! Left feeling so unwelcomed! 50 mins in that place and nothing good happened! Never going back! Downtown’s location is better! At least there they care! I’ve gotten better service...

So we came back to La Cantera Toro to give another try and this time we were blown away with the food and service. The paella and tapas were perfectly delicious and the server Andy was very knowledgeable and overly helpful, just perfect 🥇 Coming back w friends 🥘🇪🇸❤️ Original old post: This was my first time at any of the Toro locations in San Antonio. Picked the La Cantera Toro Kitchen and Bar location as is our closest one. We patiently (for months) waited for this restaurant to finally open. Our expectations were high. And that’s probably why we left disappointed. We went Friday for dinner, had no problems getting reservations. We were promptly sat and loved the place and atmosphere. We ordered a bottle of Spanish red wine, a Spanish Estrella beer, paella, croquettes, patatas bravas, Tacos, and a Tortilla Española packed to go. Our server was amazing but could not open a bottle of wine, my wife had to take it from her and show her how to uncork it correctly. That wasn’t a problem as she was young, learning and we enjoyed teaching her. Some of the food was the problem, the paella was horrible! My family is from Spain, we been to Spain many times and that was not a paella. It was too salty. The calamari and octopus rubbery and hard to chew. The tapas were delicious. Our other disappointment was the Tortilla Española that we ordered to go. When we got home and opened it, wow, it was two tiny slices, like one quarter of the pictured tortilla! We were upset over that. We realize this Toro location is new and will give it time to get it right....

Bugs. Nasty cocktails. Poor service. Enough said. We should've known our experience would be awful when we walked in and there was not a single person dining there (but all the other restaurants were packed). As soon as we were seated my mother in law picked up her silverware and a roach crawled off her plate & flew to the ground. A server immediately stepped on it but he nor our actual server bothered to bring a clean plate or napkin. Gross. We were willing to overlook this & stayed anyways. I ordered a durcal cocktail that tasted like soap and we immediately sent it back. The bartender was less than kind. I asked her about their rum selection and she could not answer my questions. We asked for toasted bread for the 2 babies we brought with us and our server told us (with a bad attitude) that the chef refused to toast the bread. When our food finally arrived we were disappointed to see that the shrimp was clearly frozen & tiny- a stark contrast to the quality and size that we get at the Stone Oak location. When we asked for a manager we were told there was not one on-site. We didn't bother eating & just tried to leave but we wanted to at least pay for our drinks- the last straw was when they attempted to charge us for the nasty drink we sent back. The server argued with my mother in law the whole time we were there. Overall...