Del Pez Riverfront — Restaurant in Wilmington

TL:DR - good food but service is trash. Update: I may have gotten food poisoning from my dinner there.

I came to Del Pez for dinner with my friend around 10:30 p.m. on a Friday. I've heard a few people talk about the restaurant and how good the food was so I wanted to check it out. We were promptly greeted by the hostess and seated in a booth near the entrance for the kitchen after she asked if we'd prefer one. It took a while for a server to come out and greet us, but in the meantime we heard some pretty explicit, not-discreet-at-all conversation between multiple servers near the opening of the kitchen near our booth. I walked over to the bar and requested a manager after the extended wait for a greeting and overhearing those NSFW conversations and he made it to the table only a minute or so after our server did. Our server, Madelyn, only acknowledged us after bringing food out to the booth next to us.

It appeared that the booths were her section and we were the only other guests seated in that area. I don't know if maybe she was unaware that she was sat with another table, but she didn't acknowledge a delay at all when she did greet us. We ordered drinks and appetizers [per Madelyn submitted at the same time], but my friend needed a little more time to figure out the entree she wanted to order. The first round of drinks came out in a timely fashion and they were great. We finally placed our order for our entrees after the drinks arrived. There was a very long delay before the appetizer made it to the table and our server wasn't the one to bring it out. In fact we weren't checked on between the time that the drinks were delivered and the entree was ordered and the time that the appetizers came out. We asked for plates to split the appetizer and about two minutes later our server came out with the requested plates and also our entrees.

I was annoyed by the timing because we only ordered wings [no special requests] and submitted the order for those at least 10 mins before we ordered entrees, so why was everything coming out at practically the same time? The wings didn't seem very hot, so they may have sat in the window for a bit.

The next issue came when my friend ordered another round of her Blue Rocks Lemonade [I don't recall the exact name-photo of drinks attached]. A completely different drink was brought to the table. We swiftly mentioned to the server that we think the drinks may have gotten mixed up and she told us that she specifically asked the bartender and the bartender assured her that it was the same drink. After one sip my friend could tell that it wasn't the same drink, but again the server didn't come back to check in on the table so we flagged down the manager from the booth when he was walking back to the kitchen. He looked at the glass confused and asked if it was an alcoholic beverage, which to me implies that the bartender may have used the wrong glass for both drinks or the drink was made so poorly that he confused it for a soft drink.

Ultimately my friend got another drink which matched the appearance, taste and quality of the first one she had. The food was actually pretty good, but the service will definitively be the sole reason that I am hesitant to return. Before I leave a less-than-favorable review on it place, I do like to give the manager an opportunity to address my feedback real-time. While the manager was receptive he didn't really seem engaged in trying to over correct the problem to offset the experience. For example, typically managers if contacted will pop over another time or two while the guest are seated to make sure everything is still okay. A little more care would have gone a long way.

We paid full-price for everything and my friend who's the queen of at least leaving 20% even for mediocre service only wanted to leave the girl $5 which would have been less than 15%. We ended up just leaving a flat 15%. I'm incredibly disappointed by the experience and wouldn't recommend it to anyone seeking a dine...

I really like this establishment, but my last two experiences were not great with the most recent one being horrendous. I usually look forward to coming here for the shrimp tacos which are my favorite. I don't like beans and request for no beans to be on the side or on the tacos. I understand mistakes happen (as this has been missed before) so when I went most recently.. I really stressed to the server that it was really important that there were no beans on the tacos. We got chips and salsa for appetizer and requested for hot sauce and side plates... we received side plates and hot sauce 30 minutes later and after asking 3 times. After ordering our entrees, the server came back and asked to take our order again ... I'm guessing he was new/frazzled/confused. My shrimp tacos finally came out and there were beans on them and instead of the order of fries on the side there was rice! We only asked that it be corrected since it was totally incorrect order when I stressed the importance of no beans and how do you mix up rice with fries??. My new order came out and the tacos were missing the bacon that comes on the tacos (which in my opinion makes the tacos and part of the reason why i love them)... At this point I lost my appetite and was so disappointed. I let the server know that my order was once again incorrect but to not worry about it (I was trying not to be a pain). I thought maybe they would have still tried to correct it or at least take the tacos off the bill. The manager came out and I let her know they messed up my order again for the second time and her response was "OH I heard, here are some churros." Unbelievable.. nothing was done to rectify the situation besides some churros (which were great). Why should I have to pay for a meal that was not correctly made to my order? The service was horrible, food was not made to order TWICE, and the manager did not do anything to resolve this. I won't be returning here for a while which is unfortunate since I work in the area and often times frequent this establishment for happy hours, work dinners. Also.. we were waiting for an outside table for 45 min and when we were called to be seated they had given out outside table away to another party and tried to seat us inside. Really disappointed and sad to write this review and hope that they can turn around and bring back the good food and...

I really wanted to give this place 5 stars but few things inhibited me from it.. 1- our waitress was fairly unversed with the menu and when asked for removal of chicken from the enchiladas (since no cheese/non meat enchilada options were not available) she wasn't sure if this could be done?!?! Not sure that I've ever heard of a customer not getting to pick if they don't want a meat item in the meu, 2- the restaurant was essentially empty but I had super difficult time booking for party of 8, not sure if it's a staffing issue but I called few times and kept being informed that there wasn't anything available.. to my surprise when I arrived... the restaurant was almost fully empty, 3- a very limited menu, 4- I asked for tacos without bacon and it came out filled with bacon... this was promptly addressed but honestly I think the item was simply placed on a plate and the bacon pieces were attempted to be fully removed because when the item returned I again found some pieces in the dish.. at this point we had been there longer than desired which brings me to my next point, 5- food took way too long to come out. 6- molten cake was at best average, almost tasted like it had been defrosted.

Now to the good points, 1- nice, location, appears to be a gentrified location, 2- Restaurant is nicely designed, fairly large and clean, 3- The waitress was pleasant and did fill drinks quite promptly so that was nice, 4- the food that I ordered was quite tasty and delicious.

Overall I don't think I'll come back. If they expand the menu, more informed staff and appropriately fix mistakes then I may consider future trip in this direction... which I don't suspect will happen...