El Palomar

Salad was bland, two thick pieces of tomato and no beans in my burrito but it’s a good place to eat with family if you order the right thing… but great costumer service

I just went to the restaurant this evening. I had the skirt steak enchiladas. I thought they tasted good, but I received food poisoning. I hope they get reviewed by the local health authorities for bad sanitation issues.

Decent Mexican food. Free tasty chips. The room is cool — high artistic ceiling and Spanish-​esque. The tortilla soup was delicious. Overall, I had a good experience but not somewhere I’m dying to go back to or raving about.

We went to El Palomar to celebrate an early Father’s Day since the family will not be together on the actual day. I was delighted to see that they are now accepting reservations which made the evening a lot easier. Despite the fact that it was UCSC graduation we got a table. The service was excellent. My 2 girls and I had Jose’s special dinner which easily satisfied us. My husband had the carnitas special and found it to be succulent and well prepared. We were serinaded by a talented duo of mariachis and enjoyed the excellent architecture if the room. The only less than satisfactory experience was the pomegranate sangria that was far too sweet for any of our taste. We have had many a family celebration here over the years and will always consider it as one of our favorites. We will certainly return.

Great natural light in the bar area for dining. The enchiladas, refried beans, and rice were good but not special. The chips and salsa were very good.

Great atmosphere, incredible food, friendly staff. Much pricier than we expected though.

Pretty good service, pretty good food, delicious endless salsa!

I’ve eaten better Mexican food at a Taqueria — the food was bland, unimaginative, and tasted like it was cooked in a microwave. For entrees ranging from $ 15 to $ 30, I expected much better. Also, we were nickel-​and-​dimed for everything, even an extra bowl of salsa. Avoid this place and go *anywhere* else.

Food and service were both very good. Kate was our waitress. Friendly and prompt service. I had the enchiladas verses which I thought was good. My wife had seared ahi and was impressed with how much fish was in the dish. Other dishes enjoyed at table were skirt steak quesadilla and a vegan burrito. Big portions. Most had leftovers.

The waitress Kate was incredibly rude and disrespectful to our group in the cantina. She gave us attitude once we sat at the table even though we explained that we had already ordered almost $ 100 worth of alcohol from the cantina and were planning on ordering more. She ruined our evening there and did not even try to make things right.

I come to El Palomar at least once or twice a month and I have never had such a ridiculous experience before. I went in with a group of 6, and we are all teenagers (3 of us are 17, the other 3 are younger) and I understand that they probably thought we were going to be trouble or not leave a tip. The waitress (tall, short blonde hair) was immediately rude when she walked up to our table so we tried extra hard to be kind to her. Awful service– had to ask multiple times and multiple people for water and chips & salsa. I asked for a refill of my Sprite and our condescending waitress made sure to let me know I «only get one free refill and I’ll have to pay more money if I want another one». So I asked another waitress and she said that’s not rude, u can get as many refills as I want and there isn’t a rule like that at El Palomar.
Then it came time to pay after we had already been there for 1.5 hours.
We got our bill and all of our orders were combined, we asked for our bill to be split as we are kids and do not have exact change to pay for everything. They immediately declined our request to have the bill split because «they don’t do that here». We called the manager over AND THE MANAGER started laughing at us and repeating himself «what do you want me to do? How can I help you? I don’t understand?» and kept laughing at us– so so so rude! Then he split the bill and everything was all wrong so we asked for it to be fixed because everything was mixed up. They brought it back finally and after three tries of splitting our bill they finally got it right. I understand that splitting a bill is a pain (but is it really?) and they had a negative attitude towards us because we are teenagers, but the way multiple employees and waitresses were acting was completely out of place and makes me never want to go back to my favorite restaurant in Santa Cruz again.

Service was lacking — we almost didn’t stick around & went somewhere else.
Ordered food & it took over an hour to get to us. The place wasn’t packed; hardly saw anyone else eating at that time. Not sure why it took so long. Waitress wasn’t too keen on answering our question. I wish I could remember her name… dang.
I felt like we were a bother instead of a valued customer. NOT a good feeling.
Getting food custom made was difficult. We ended up having to send our plates back 2x. that’s a lot of food wasted because nobody would listen to us the first time. The waitress was quick to just hurry us up. I don’t think we’ll be back unless everything else is closed.
Don’t really recommend this place — I do recommend you explore other places first.

Great Service, delicious food, awesome drinks! Best Mexican food I had in a while. I had cheese enchiladas and my girlfriend ordered shrimp taco’s. Everything was at best as it could be.

Detailed Account (March 3, 2016): 2^nd time not 1^st account experience
Pros: The establishment is designed okay. There are a few televisions to watch games. The restaurant has a taco bar on the outside if you want to get a quick order of tacos. The seating layout is ok.
Cons: The food was unseasoned and bland. I ordered carne asada tacos and the shell fell apart when I lightly picked it up. The meat was not cooked the way I ordered it. The margaritas were watery and salty. When I asked if I could have the margaritas remade, I was given a disdained look. The waiters took over 45 minutes to bring me four tacos and one very salty margarita. I did not order any extra (guacamole, cheese, sour cream). I was alone and wanted to see if I would be treated differently without a guest. The 2^nd time was worse, only difference was that I did not encounter the manager and my African American friend was not there. Similar experience except that I was not overcharged. The 1^st time I was mistreated and the manager was offended and attacked me on Unilocal.Manager has used Unilocal as a tool to ignore and dismiss my complaints.

Loved my chicken tortilla soup. The chips n salsa. Lemonade. The Spanish rice. The Chilequiles (or whatever that was!)
Was very surprised with the décor.
It was beautiful with high ceilings, fireplaces, nice beams and the sun room kinda place.

I have had mixed experiences at this restaurant in the past, but on this visit they were firing on all cylinders. Food great, service excellent, and comfortable and clean. I had some friends visiting from out of town for a big event this weekend and wanted to show them a nice time and the Palomar helped a bunch. Beer was very cold, chips were warm, and the salsa excellent. I liked how we never had to ask for more chips and salsa, they were just on it.
For improvement I found their tacos weak, due to them being very runny and falling apart when one tried to pick them up. Also, having a code for a restaurant bathroom is an odd choice when it is located deep within the restaurant and a waste of time for customers who have to track down an employee to get the code.

We stopped in as we traveled thru the city heading north. The restarant is gorgeous in an old hotel.
The hostess and server excellent. Our water and chips/​salsa were kept filled without asking.
The food was good, nothing exceptional… Just good basic Mexican food. The silver coin margarita was excellent.
I love mole sauce and theirs was pretty darn good. The only issue was charging $ 3.00 extra for it. I eat at a lot of very good Mexican restaurants and have never been charged extra.
Al in all… A nice spot that we would try again.
Thanks!

Got a direct message yesterday from another Unilocal elite who asked me about my latest review for El Palomar. Apparently she liked the food (as did I), and the service (as did I), but not the extra charges or the experience. Sounds like the same shenanigans are going on now as they did half a year ago. I hope a savior comes to deliver these poor workers from the hands of the awful management soon.
Note: My family friend was the original owner of the El Palomar ranch and helped pay for the construction of the building that houses this restaurant. They also greatly assisted in the initial operations of the hotel and restaurant so I take a personal interest in Johann’s comments and his responses to Unilocalers.

***************************** 1391 ***************************
A cool and delicious Mexican restaurant with awesome happy hour 3 – 6 pm MOM-​FRI, I love the casual bar area with plenty of big screens for you to watch sport. A formal dining room in the back and an area for food to-​go only as well.
Decent tequila, whiskey, and bourbon list here for drinkers. Miguel and Rachel both are solid bartenders, beautiful smiles, friendly. Miguel made good margaritas to your liking.
The food is solid as well. I love the shredded Chicken Taco. The Seafood Ceviche, fresh seafood marinated in citrus juices was delicious. The Simmered Pork in a tomatillo sauce served with tortillas, yummy.
I can’t wait to come back to visit again… football season is around the corner.

What you are about to read is UNBELIEVABLE!!! But this is FACT. It honestly happened to me. I myself am still in shock! Please read the whole thing!!!
The food was great-​the service okay. I ordered according to the menu but the waitress wasn’t pleased. The check came and I argued politely over $ 2 and they took it off.
Now I paid my fare and left. The next business day I had an additional 7.25 added to my bill. I assumed that the waitress overtipped herself. Well this wasn’t the case – but to get it reversed was a different story.
I called and spoke with a manager who gave me Mike’s number. I called and had to speak to MIKE the business manager.
He called me the next day and seriously CHEWED me out for telling his manager that the waitress over tipped. I couldn’t even ask a simple question.
He was YELLING at me letting me know what a lousy person I was (in not as nice words) for telling his managers that the waitress overtipped. I couldn’t even get a word in edge wise, although I was trying, so I hung up. He actually made me cry! :(
I am a customer of your place of business. That was not respectful or responsible of you. Goodness!
I haven’t been yelled like that since I was ten before my mom got her crazy meds!
The restaurant made the mistake of overcharging me, I made the mistake of assuming the gal tipped herself. I’m sorry! But Mike called me twice to scream at me! Not ok!!!
Either way, I hung up, being that all I wanted was $ 7.25 back on my card, not getting yelled at, chewed out with inappropriate language that I made a mistake too.
But GET THIS – Mike CALLED BACK to CONTINUE TO CHEW ME OUT!
So I tried to assure him I called the restaurant to apologize for my mistake – but he again wouldn’t let me talk. He continued to pretend to let me talk then interrupt and yell.
So again – I just hung up. I didn’t want to be disrespectful but also did not need to be yelled at so rudely. I didn’t want to hang up – but I refuse to take abuse over ridiculous things!
I’m so sad that I had to write this review. The guac was so good – but…oh well.
It still sounds unbelievable, but I PROMISE it is ALL TRUE! Crazy huh?!?
So please think twice before choosing to give this place your money!
⁷⁄₁₀₀

Die Nachos und Cocktails waren ganz gut.

I really liked this place! The food was great and very reasonably priced! I would give it 5 stars if the service was better. Our waitress seemed to have too many tables, but it wasn’t too bad. I would definitely return!