Bar Camino — Restaurant in Walnut Creek

i am really rooting for this place! I was a fan of Maria Maria - but never got to try El Charro before it morphed into Bar Camino. I am not sure if most of the new decor is courtesy of what was left from El Charro but it is lovely. i especially love the ofrenda towards the front of the restaurant and the super comfortable dining chairs.

The food definitely has promise . . . their version of nachos is very different than what you're probably used to but honestly, they are more closly aligned with the original version . . . served as individually dressed totopos. . . i get the premise but eating them is challenging and i would suggest cutting the totopos into quarters instead of halves. The toppings are really delicious! You rarely see pozole verde on menus like this and it was a nice surprise. They have really beautiful serving pieces. . the soup bowl rests in a little wooden platform and is quite striking but the soup served in it needs work. All the garnishes, which should be served on the side to customize your soup, are piled on top and they used what looks like pre-sliced coleslaw mix in place of the plain cabbage that should accompany pozole. . .I completely understand they might not be going for complete authenticity and that's ok but it's a missed opportunity to present a dish really well. I also wish they'd offer an option to mix and match tacos as I would like to try a variety. If nothing else, go try the Horchatalada . I sort of rolled my eyes at the name but sweet-baby-jesus-rum&coconut is that drink GOOD!!!! a happy little marriage of horchata and a pina colada. Mmmmmm. The margaritas are STRONG and icy deliciousness!

I...

I went to meet a friend I hadn't seen in over 10 years and since we used to come here a lot when it was Maria Maria's we figured what better time to check out Bar Camino. They did not disappoint! It felt like old times here but even better! We had Jose as our waiter and he was awesome!!!! So helpful and patient as I waited for my friend to arrive. He had suggestions on what to order for food and house margaritas. We loved everything! I have to say it's one of the best Mexican spots I've had in awhile and I go to have Mexican food a lot all over. And the service was Top Notch!!! The atmosphere is nice too. Cute decor inside and the outside patios would have been great except it was an extremely hot evening so we stayed in the bar lounge area. The margaritas are strong so just a heads up if you aren't used to drinking too much like myself lol but really yummy and refreshing. We had them on the rocks with salt. We also got to sample an amazing drink that was pina colada and horchata mixed. Wow... I definitely want that as my cocktail next time I go there. As far as food, the guacamole was tasty and so were their chips and salsa (so glad they give two salsas, one being the green tomatillo salsa since I'm a salsa addict :). From their happy hour menu, we ordered 2 fried fish tacos and 2 birria tacos and they were huge and flavorful and loaded! Birria ones were our favorite. The fish ones were a close 2nd fave though. We will definitely be meeting up again here before summer ends and plan on taking family and more friends here in the near future to have them try Bar Camino. Hopefully we get Jose again...

First time going to Bar Camino. We were so excited. The place looks super cute. I’ll start with why my review is 2 stars. Unfortunately, the our entrees were extremely salty. We ordered the TexMex Combo. I had them bring an extra crunchy taco. We are not people that shy away from salt by any means, but we did have to send the food back. They did make us a chicken quesadilla after we couldn’t eat our first round of food. That also came out too salty to eat. I got a stomach ache two bites into my food. I didn’t order a second entree. After reading through more reviews - this feedback is thematic. Recommendation to owners to talk to your kitchen/chef. This is a consistent call out through the Google Reviews. I didn’t catch it prior to dining in.

The chips and guac were great. No complaints there. Also got a couple house margs. Totally fine. We got the chocolate cake for desert. It was fine. Of course the ice cream was a salted caramel. So again… salty.

Service was excellent. Our server was very apologetic that we couldn’t eat our food. Truly tried to be as accommodating as possible. Also- didn’t charge us for those meals. He could not have been nicer. Shout Out to the amazing service.

Interior could not be cuter. The vibe is awesome. Would be a better place to start the night for a few drinks. Maybe don’t do dinner. Pretty easy fix to adjust your recipes. Let me know when you do and we...