Every time I take Military Hwy to Nice Thai, I'd see the old Burger King and the work being done to…read moreit. Over time, you could tell a new resto was going to take it over - in this case, it's El Fogon.
El Fogon is a restaurant combining many Latin cuisines. Per their website (https://elfogonrestobarandgrill.com/), they offer food from Columbia, Peru, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico. That's quite the variety, and when my mom and I looked at their menu, we were both surprised and excited.
Fogon's interior looks nothing like the Burger King that it used to be. There's plenty of flair and bright colors - my attention was definitely focused on the esthetic and decor. It was a lot... busy, but I came away impressed, especially since everything was clean and organized.
Our server sat us, gave us menus and took our drink orders. She was the only one on the floor and seemed to also be the bartender on duty. There was only 1 other party when we were sat, but roughly 3-5 separate parties arrived after us.
After taking some time to look over the massive menu, we decided on the chicharrón appetizer, the tacos de carne asada (mom), and Lomo Saltado. I liked the chicharrón, while the Lomo Saltado was fantastic. Mom seemed to like her tacos, so that's a plus. Neither of us could finish our food, so we had leftovers for later.
Although the food was fantastic, the service was... slow. Our server was nice enough, but she was pulled in many directions during our visit. What's worse, she didn't really move with any urgency. Our drink orders took a bit to hit our table; and after we ordered the chicharrón, it took a while for her to come back around to take our entree order.
We spent most of our visit waiting - problematic, at best.
When we were finished with our entrees, it took a long time for our server to return. My mom has this routine where she starts looking around the restaurant to find and flag down our server. Our server wasn't on the floor - I know for a portion she was tending to the other parties and what have you. But since she was the only server on the floor, it was simply no fun waiting.
There was a manager on duty, but he was busy chatting up a four-top that came in. They all apparently knew each other, so there were portions where the manager was ordering our server to get things for this four-top. The manager did nothing but chat up this table, and I decided to shoot him looks because our server wasn't coming through.
Mr. Manager finally got the message - he said something to the server, and she immediately came over. We got togo boxes, paid and that was it. As we were walking out, the manager thanked us.
So El Fogon may suffer from the same issues I experienced at the Shore Dr Lendy's - lack of staffing. It doesn't help, though, when the lone server on the floor doesn't appear to be hustling. At the same time, I would've liked to have seen the manager help out (to be fair, there was a food runner, but he was a little slick because he made sure not to actually look at other tables while he was delivering food; he just went to tables, dropped off the food, and went right back into the kitchen, head mostly down).
I want to drive home the notion that this was only 1 visit. Their service could be impeccable when fully staffed (although I've read a couple of Yelp reviews that seem to support my observation). They are a new establishment - sometimes it takes time before things begin to run smoothly.
If El Fogon wants to thrive, they need to address their quality of service. I like their food, though, but if I have to wait this long during each visit, I will quit visiting.
Thank you, El Fogon. JV
