Review: Agave Viejo

The other day while walking to San Pedro Square on my lunch break I noticed that one of my favorite classy lunch hangouts, Speido Ristorante, had sadly closed its doors. But, in its place was a trendy looking cantina and tequila bar – Agave Viejo. Apparently Speido’s San Mateo location is still open and Agave Viejo is a “sister location.”

While attending the free Music in the Park last night, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to hang out with some friends and venture to Agave Viejo. Happy hour lasts until 7pm so we made it just in time for a round of blended margaritas. The waitress showed up with an oversized shaker – very cool. But, then we realized, how are we suppose to pour our BLENDED drinks in a shaker? Hello, these aren’t cocktails on the rocks. Our mysterious waitress went missing, so we had to visit the bar and ask for a pitcher. The bartender looked at my friend like she was crazy -- I’d like to see him pour the margaritas into our glasses.

After our waitress arrived, she seriously had no idea what was on the menu. She didn’t know what “well drinks” were and hadn’t tried anything on the menu aside from the enchiladas suizas.

We all ordered and waited and waited…the chips and salsa were good.

Then, we got our food. I ordered my traditional Mexican staple – traditional enchiladas. Unfortunately, I wasn’t crazy for the sauce. Once again, maybe it’s because I’m picky (please see my Manuel’s review) or maybe it’s because I am spoiled with my grandma’s cooking or maybe these just sucked. The sauce was very similar to the enchilada sauce that you would get at Chevy’s – very dark red with almost too much chili powder and not enough salt (haha although, I did polish off my entire plate since I was suffering from starvation). There was also a side of rice and pinto beans – nothing special, once again I ate it.

THEN, the check came. Drinks were suppose to be $4 dollars each, with 4 people our drink total somehow came out to $16.25, where the extra quarter charge came from, I have no idea. Perhaps it was for using both a shaker and a pitcher?

THEN, my friend got a taco salad and was charged extra for chicken (even though the chicken was included), our waitresses response: “Oh yea the menu’s weird, someone else asked me about that, but yea the chicken is extra.” Oh hell no – give me the manager. Manager looked, basically said his waitress was an idiot for charging us and re-did our bill.

Now, I have never worked in a restaurant before and have never been a waitress. And, I understand this girl was probably new since this place just opened. But, if you are new at your job (regardless of the industry), you should probably go to work PREPARED. Familiarize yourself with the menu, prices, variations that the cook can do, how the food is prepared, etc. Don’t give me some BS answer about “oh yea the menu’s weird” – so what she is really saying is “yes, I also made the same mistake to that table, but that sucker actually paid the extra bucks.”

I guess this isn’t a real review – more of a rant! Bottom line – people need to make sure they are hiring *smart* people, since they are always a reflection of them. When you look dumb, so does your boss.

Bottom line – food was mediocre, atmosphere was awesome, waitress – see above.

Information:
Name: Agave Viejo
Address: 151 W Santa Clara San Jose, CA 95113
URL: http://www.agaveviejous.com/
Pricing: On average $10-15 bucks for dinner; most Happy Hour drinks are $4 dollars.
Byte Rating: 1.5 out of 5