bartaco — Restaurant in Upper Merion Township

Horrible Experience! Can me down To wait staff.

AJ a server started of the experience with a well rehearsed introduction of himself and the menu and recommendations but did it in a way from the tone more like someone who’s regurgitated this a million times and a major amount of “Here I go again!”

Me and my fiance just look at each other as in “What the hell just happened?!” A few minutes later after reviewing the menu AJ returns and proceeds to take our order. We decided to go light and just get an order of guacamole chips and salsa.

I’m then taken by his long state of a look of shock on his face.

He than say two words with a smug Attitude. “That’s it?” I stop and register on what’s going on here. I laugh and say “yea that’s it”.

Then I’m quickly remember “drinks!” I say “I’m sorry can we also get two beers. I tell him the brand he turns and walks away. A Few seconds later her returns and asks us for our IDs mind you I’m 55 my partner is 45.

She forgot her ID in the car which is very far away mind you. And I say I can vouch for her jokingly. He follows with “Yea no.”

At this point I’m heated I ask for his name again just to be clear. He quickly follows with “Why so you can give me a bad review?!”

I was floored I stood up and said get me your manager now. I tell my fiance to leave and wait outside.

AJ quickly returns and tells me the front manager can’t talk to me and he will need to find another and walks off. I’m so furious at this point I turn and walk out.

It’s been a long time since I walked out a restaurant.

I will be following up with a call to a manager tomorrow on AJs horrible demeanor...

This is such a nice place to go for tacos with your friends and family! They have outdoor seating and regular seating. My friends and I wanted outdoor seating but they closed it off due to the impending rain so they seated us at the tables closest the the outside, which was basically open. We were disappointed about not getting the outdoor seating but were fine with the close to the outdoor seating too.. this made us feel like we were in a restaurant in Cali lol The menu is simple with a good amount of different choices to choose from. Their tacos are per price ($2.50-3.50 each) which is not bad at all! You order by writing how many of each taco/dish you want on the paper they have at your table My friends and I shared the corn fritters (ball of fried corn + cheese), guac & salsa set (which was really good too - we loved the salsa verse and the Roja salsa), and the grilled corn (elote - so good!) Then for the meal I got the Baja fish (super crispy on the outside yum!) & crispy rock shrimp which were really good! I would definitely recommend both. My friends got the tuna tatako, pork belly, carne asada, cauliflower, and chicken chorizo tacos which they all loved. My one friend got a poor belly bowl which was okay.. they give you like 5 pieces of pork in the bowl which is okay. All in all, the food was great and the vibes in there were really good! The drinks there are good but sometimes taste a little watered down. The best ones were the Reviver & the hey miss dragonfly sangria. Would def recommend this place for the ambiance and food .. great for...

Not to sure how to describe this experience. The food was great and our drinks were good as well. The issue was the service or lack there of.

All of your ordering is done from your phone, which in theory is fine until you have more than one person at the table ordering on one check. My partner was paying so I had to scan the QR code on his phone in order to be on the same check, which I thought would be okay. I picked my stuff and hit send and a minute later (after having to enter in credit card information) my partner sent his food. I figured my stuff would be on a hold until he sent his food, nope. We got our food and drinks at different times and none of it was paced (apps immediately followed by entrees). This wasn’t told to us when we first sat down otherwise we would have tried to pace our food ourselves.

Our “service leader” only stopped by in the very beginning and once to help us with getting us on the same check. Other than that there is no real service other than 5 different people bringing you your food/beverages. When it came to paying, the program automatically populated 20% gratuity, which in any other case would be the golden standard. However, having to place and pace our orders ourselves, it seems kind of ridiculous to tip on service we didn’t receive.

This is no shade to our service leader, who was doing what they’ve probably been told to do. But your servers weren’t serving. They were food running. I hope they get an actual hourly wage and don’t depend on tips for service they are not...