Margaritaville

It had been a while since I last went to Capitola Village, so I was excited to try Margaritaville. This place is always hopping on the weekends with a dance floor and DJ, so we decided to go on a Sunday night.

Margaritaville website

The parking meters in the Village go until 8pm, so it wasn't expensive when we arrived at 7pm. A stroll overlooking the beach and all its driftwood was followed by a few other restaurants, which started to get me hungry. Kabobs, Thai, pizza... a nice selection down there.

There wasn't a hostess when we walked in, but a sign saying "Seat Yourself". There was a big table of kids for a birthday party, so we opted for a booth across the way. It took awhile for someone to bring us menus. Turns out someone who worked there was also celebrating her birthday and a lot of the staff were helping her party. They were in the booth next to us.

We finally got our menus and we ordered margaritas. The Groupon coupon we had said two drinks and two dinners. Sweet! I ordered a blended one without salt, but it came with it. My guest said her raspberry one on the rocks was good. The waitress said we could upgrade the tequila to a better quality for 50 cents. But I could barely taste the tequila in mine!

I excused myself to visit the restroom and found a woman walking out of the men's room. And there were two guys in the stall. Needless to say, there were some shenanigans going on in there. Thankfully, I made it out alive.

She ordered the Capitola Club Sandwich with a side salad. It had a grilled chicken patty, bacon, avocado and cheese. She said no tomatoes, onions or mayo on the sandwich and they got that right. She liked the soft roll it was served on and the salad was good, but not note-worthy.

I ordered the fish tacos with a side salad. As you can see, the portions were good. I asked for Italian dressing and what came was a mystery. It looked the same color as Wishbone, but didn't have the seasonings in it. It tasted bland. The tacos were good with shredded cabbage, salsa and tartar sauce.

So, an interesting time at this place. Slow service to start. An adventure in the restroom. Uneven food quality. But she said to mention that the waitress we had was nice. Maybe Sunday nights are the wrong time to visit. They were closing just as we left, but that's no excuse to stop providing good service.

Scores out of 10:
Food: 6
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 2
Price: 4
Overall: 4