Tacos, Community & Beer — Restaurant in Town of Clarence

I've just been once, but sometimes you know you love a place the minute you walk in. This was that place.

I met some friends for lunch one afternoon on the spur of the moment. I'd been wanting to try TCB since the start of construction! My friend Heather said it's her husband's favorite lunch spot, so when they invited me to join them for lunch, I jumped at the chance.

When I pulled in, I noticed the spots in front of the sidewalk are reserved for the boutique store next door. No problem, I easily backed into a spot beside the sidewalk.

My friends were inside waiting for me. When the bartender (I think his name is Jeff?) walked up, he greeted me by name. Nice touch. It made me laugh.

TCB could stand for all kinds of things - Taking Care of Business is the obvious. But it could be Treating Customers Beautifully. Or Talented Crafty Barmen (and women, I suppose). Any of those would work. But since this is Tacos, Community, Beer, and they had the Community down the second I walked in the door, I needed to get a little T and B. For the T, I ordered a taco salad, which turned out to be amazing. I'd definitely order that again. If you're looking for a healthier option on Taco Tuesday, or Taco Anyday, go with that. And for the B (I'm not much of a beer drinker, so I asked for help). I know I like sour beers, so Jeff made a couple of recommendations & I went with the one that had the raspberry flavor. I loved it. [I want to like beer so bad. My brother owns a microbrewery, for crying out loud! But I suppose I'm lucky to find one I like & can go back later and order with confidence!]

I'm sure you can glean all kinds of other important facts from other reviews, so since I can't add anything new to those, I'll just tell you this place is a five star...

A very strange dining experience; we came here for brunch on a Sunday afternoon and found ourselves doing more work than I would normally expect at a restaurant.

We were sat on the patio which had a nice atmosphere minus a group of regulars that decided this would be a good spot to tailgate before the game (throwing footballs, blocking access to go inside the restaurant). After ordering a round of margaritas which were tasty, we put in our food order; the first strange aspect of the food was our loaded nachos that weren't really loaded- everything that should have been loaded was optional. While I understand being accommodating to various diets and preferences, we had to ask for each individual item to come on the dish, versus just asking for an item to be removed. We had to prompt the waiter to include the meat which would have been left off. (Strange, but the food tasted fine). The next portion was our tacos which your waiter doesn't bring to you (you go to a kitchen window to pick them up) and then you need to make them yourselves at the "topping" bar. I may be old school, but if I'm paying money for food (hipster taco money albeit) I don't think I should be required to pick up my order and make up the taco myself.

If this was a hot dog stand style where you wait in line, order, pick up your food and sit down that would be completely fine- but this place seats you, and has a dedicated server that brings some of your meal and your drinks; why not just bring out the tacos too? Would it be difficult to ask what you would like on them and just have the kitchen top them?

My .02- food was fine, but not a dining experience I would...

I was really hoping for more from this place that's right around the corner from me but so far I've been underwhelmed. I've visited on two occasions and have tried the Pollo, Carnitas, and Barbacoa. When I was there yesterday I wanted the Asada but was told they were out of steak. Seemed a bit odd to have a staple missing at 12:30 but hopefully it was just an ordering mistake.

The flavor of the tacos is just ok. My biggest complaint is the quality of the shells. By the time you get your tray back to the table the bottom of the shells is all soggy. When I bit into my pollo the juice shot all over my hands and tray. Hopefully they can find a different shell that will hold up more than two minutes. It could also be the metal serving tray they use that is causing the shells to get soggy. The best one so far has been the Carnitas but I think that's more about the sauce added.

They do have a wide variety of topping selections, more than some other similar restaurants, which is great to see.

The biggest disappointment is the salsa. On Tuesday's they have a special of free chips and salsa with two tacos. The first time I chose the medium salsa and it appeared to be fruit based. It was very sweet and hardly any spice at all. Yesterday I had the mild which was terrible. It was extremely watery and had no flavor at all. I told a coworker it tasted like cucumber water.

The space itself is beautiful and the bar has a great selection of beers so I'm really hoping with a few tweaks they can really improve. Because it's so close I would be there...