El Farol — Restaurant in Santa Fe

First let me say, Angela, our server was AMAZING. Everything else about El Farol was AWFUL and completely not worth the money. I would never ever ever ever ever ever go back there, even if they paid me.

My husband and I went on our vacation to Santa Fe and were originally going to go to El Meson for dinner, but unfortunately, they were on vacation when we came in June. We decided instead to go to El Farol to see the Flamenco dinner show. I was really excited to see the show because I love Flamenco dancing. The cover for the show was $25 per person. I called two weeks in advance to make the reservations.

We arrived an hour and a half before the Flamenco performance was set to begin and were shown to our table. I was immediately disappointed. We were shown to a small table at the very back of the venue. There was very little view of the stage at all. I expressed disappointment and was told that people who had tables closer to the stage arrived two hours early and was told that if I wanted a better view of the stage that I should have come earlier. I was also told that the restaurant had overbooked the performance, meaning that there were some people who paid to see the show who didn't even have a table to sit at during the Flamenco performance. I said that I was a bit sad because together my husband and I paid a lot of money to see the show and we would not get a view. The hostess that I talked to went to get the manager (I think, but I suspect it was the owner's wife). She came over and fussed at me and told me that I would have a great view from the table we were at and that we would be able to "see just fine." I knew this would not be true. My husband suggest that we just leave. I would have, but when you make reservations for the show, they take your credit card number and they charge you cover whether you see it or not. We stayed so we would not lose $50.

We ordered dinner. Our table was so small that it was a juggling effort to make two entree plates fit on it. The food was only okay. It was VERY overpriced. My husband and I ate dinner at the Amaya the night before and not only was the food cheaper at that fine establishment, but it was of a superior quality. The salmon at El Farol was overcooked and the portion sizes were very small.

The Flamenco show began at 8:30 pm. And as I suspected I couldn't see. Flamenco is a wonderful expressive dance that is 90% footwork. I had to sit on my knees on a bar stool in order to get a glimpse of the dancers' feet. Even so, I really didn't see much. Plus, there was a post smack dab in the middle of the room.

The audience also ruined the experience. There was a table of entitled girls who kept talking during the Flamenco show. The whole room shushed them many times. The Flamenco performers asked the audience not to use flash photography or record the performance. No one, of course, listened to this. They were very disrespectful of the performers.

The owner also ruined the evening. He stood right in front of the stage watching the dancers or moved around the restaurant blocking people's views. He pushed in between my husband and I to try to get a set of Christmas lights to turn on, but never apologized for it and never apologized for my poor view, even though he saw me sitting on my knees on the bar stool.

So, to sum up. The server was wonderful. The food was mediocre and overpriced. The venue is not a performance venue. Don't let the owner fool you into believing it is. The Flamenco was good, I think, but I wouldn't really know because I couldn't see. If you really care about good food and seeing good Flamenco, El Farol is not the place for you. Instead, see what's on at the GiG Space. Now, THAT'S a...

Allow me to shed some light on the confusion. The Flamenco show is $25/person in addition to whatever food you order. And it's totally worth it! How many opportunities does the average person have to see authentic Flamenco?

There are no quiet, romantic corners in El Farol. It's more of a hopping joint with live music and dancers tapping their toes. When there's no music playing, the floors are authentic, old wood and sound like it when walked on. If you want a quiet romantic dinner, go to Geronimo.

There is a huge parking lot literally across the street from El Farol. If that doesn't do the trick, Geronimo, right next door, has valet parking. I've never lacked parking options.

It's true the food at El Farol is hit or miss. I was there a week ago and two of my lunch companions mentioned how dry the chicken was. When one told the waiter, he promptly brought out a new dish with fresh chicken. However, my soup was spot on. I loved it. The bread was dry and appeared to be a day old. But the salad was amazing. See? Hit or miss.

My daughter and I used to ride our bikes there for a dessert treat. Once, we ordered the lemon dessert and creme brulée. Both look the exact same except brulée is torched. Well, they torched the lemon dessert confusing it for the creme brulée.

In my mind, once a restaurant's prices reach a certain high, there's an understanding the food will be impeccable. Every. Time. Geronimo does this. The Compound knows this. Those two eateries have fine dining down to an art and they know it. So their prices can reflect that self assuredness. Their prices reflect the absolute quality you can count on. El Farol would really like to play in the big league with the big boys, but doesn't seem to have the same commitment to excellence those others do.

I'll keep going there though because ultimately it's not that bad. I don't expect orange juice to come out...

I have been here many times and so sad to say this restaurant has gone done hill immensely. It was hands down one of the worst experiences we had. I work in the restaurant business as a server so I am always very forgiving. If you make a resy at 8:00 be fore warned, ,as they close at 9:00 , that you will be ignored. I guess the closing process actually starts at 8, because we didn''t see our server for some time. We were completely forgotten! Our server finally showed up after some time and by then we were ready to order everything. We ordered our food with the idea that maybe we'd want one more thing. Our server NEVER checked back on us at all nor did we have the opportunity to order anything else. Plus, by then we were so annoyed we just wanted to get the check and leave. We had already started the evening at the bar and had a delicious jalapeño margarita. We loved the jalapeño margarita so ordered two more along with our food. When they came to the table they were so mouth puckering sour we couldn't drink them! Our server NEVER checked back with us. We had to ask the support/bus staff for our check. We basically saw our saver 2 times, once to take our order and for our check which we had to ask someone else for. Sadly, when I presented the situation to the manager she blamed the situation on the server and told us that they had gotten bad feedback about that the exact server from other guests earlier in the night. Shame on them for setting him up to not succeed. Not once did the manager ask what she could do for us but continued to blame the circumstance on the server. That ,sadly, is poor management! You should want your staff to succeed and offer help to achieve that!! THE WORST MEAL IN SANTA FE!!! DON'T WASTE YOU'RE...