Escobar's

The one time I've been to Escobar's, the food was absolutely amazing!, hands down the best I've had in C-U! But the service was HORRIBLE. The waitress we had was particularly bad, but I noticed that some of the other servers seemed great!

I wanted to like this place, really. I've been here twice. The first time, I ordered the duck dish, and I was underwhelmed by it. The second time, hoping I'd just had bad luck, I brought a group for my birthday. I had the lamb, which was OK, but not worth the price. One of my friends got a cocktail glass with lipstick still on it, and another friend's entree had a long hair in it. The waiter said that it didn't look like any of their kitchen staff's hair, which was almost worse. The owner came out to apologize, which was nice, but they didn't do anything beyond not charging my friend for the dish with the hair in it. That friend mentioned to the waiter that it was my birthday, and they didn't offer a dessert or anything else to me. I won't be back, and I don't think any of my friends will be, either.

So torn...

Food + Décor = 5
Service = 1
Attitude = 1

Décor was quaint & created a warm/relaxing atmosphere. Food was delicious & consisted of many local ingredients. Coffee (also local) is memorable. I ordered the Guatemalan Torta: eggs, ham, black bean spread, and Monterey Jack cheese on Cuban Bread $9 and my brother had the Guatemalan breakfast: Two fried eggs with black bean sauce, sour cream, fried plantains and tortillas $9. Portions were large, fresh, and appetizing - the torta bread was soft and chewy = awesome; the other ingredients worked well together (ex. saltiness of the cheese + sweetness of the ham). Bonus: I was able to have half of it as leftover lunch today which tasted just as good and wished I had a cup of their coffee to accompany it. The Guatemalan breakfast is a version of the torta deconstructed and my brother's favorite part was the plantains.

Operations/management aspect was a mess & unwelcoming. There was a sign that stated "wait to be seated" but that only works if you actually have someone seating people. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity a server appeared moving at snail pace. Coffee came in a cup the size of an airplane coffee cup because they ran out of regular mugs. No one stopped by after food came to the table to check how our food was or refill coffee. I was finally able to locate a server by the time I was close to being finished for a coffee refill, box, & check.

Management was unprepared/understaffed to say the least but the alarming part is that they didn't seem to care or wish to be there themselves and it felt like we were intruding. I'm hoping we were secretly on an episode of Punk'd because that delicious meal took too much effort.  

Great concept, terrible execution.