El Jaripeo — Restaurant in Virginia

I decided to take my mom for lunch today since we hadn’t been back in a long while and love this place previously… When we arrived we were warmly greeted by the hostess and seated, the server came not too long after and took our drink orders. When she came back with our drinks we placed our food order and although the food came a lot quicker, the server was nowhere to be found… We sat there waiting and seeing if they would pass by but it seems the servers were hanging around the bar just socializing instead of checking in on their tables. Food was delivered by the hostess and we never saw the waitress that took our orders initially again… No problem if everyone is helping out but we had empty drinks and no napkins and we had to get up to find some help as no one bothered to check… The place is virtually empty as you can see in the pictures submitted and not once were we asked if our food was okay or something as simple as offering a refill on a glass of water that was empty.. I work in hospitality and customer service as well and know it can be a bit overwhelming if it’s busy but at this time there was only two other tables besides me and my mother. This definitely affected our experience as they weren’t attentive only when dropping off the check and after that it was quick… If it’s that slow checking on tables once after food arrives shouldn’t be too hard to do with as many staff that they had in the restaurant hanging...

We discovered this place over a year ago after moving to the north end of Charlottesville near Hollymead/Forest Lakes! Up until then we were regulars of Guadalajara, and let me tell you, after comparing the two over several weeks I have to say that El J's (as we call it) TAKES THE CAKE! Now we have not obviously tried everything on the menu... but every single dish we HAVE tried is DELICIOUS, the staff is extremely pleasant & willing to modify orders (which is necessary for certain members of our family), the food is always fresh and comes out relatively quickly, the chips are pretty standard but the WHITE dipping sauce is incredible (and my family likes the cheese dip as well) and UNLIKE Guad they don’t charge extra for refills on chips!! Also, their prices seem slightly lower than the other Mexican restaurants in C’ville, and although we agree that the new Plaza Azteca’s food is good… we cannot afford to spend an arm & a leg on the same thing we can get at El J’s for much less! Overall we LOVE this place and recommend it to anyone who has not been there or for some reason was not impressed with their first visit, for we are pretty critical judges of “authentic” Mexican food, and El J’s is our spot when it comes to Charlottesville! :) Happy Grubbing &...

I'll be honest. Most of the time I've been here has been fine. But I've had two experiences with this place that have been so bad I never want to eat here again. Some time ago (a year ago I believe) my wife and I placed a to-go order online. I ordered it. Waited about 20 minutes before I got there and then proceeded to wait ~45 minutes to actually receive my food once there. It was cold, and it was wrong. I was livid. And tonight my wife and I went in, were seated quickly, had our order taken, and then waited an entire hour just to end up walking out the door without food. "The kitchen was confused" about our very simple order of veggie fajitas and a taco salad. The order never made it. Just be honest. But being walked by for an hour and barely receiving any attention (our waters were filled once) has left me with an absolutely sour taste in my mouth for...