Top 8 Gluten-Free Spots with Outdoor Seating to Enjoy in McAllen

Anne Marshall

Yvonne England

Brian Daniels

Tracy Randolph

Freddie Mc

Ross Engel

Last night at Espana was a MESS. My wife and I were looking forward to eating here due to it being be our first date since having our baby, additionally we have always had a good overall experience from previous visits. First of all, we get there around 6:45PM and get seated without incident. Once seated, the waiter took awhile to get to our table to get our drink order (one of themes of the night). By the time the waiter showed up, we were ready to order pretty much everything (drinks, appetizers, and entrées). After we place our order, my wife gets her mixed drink about 10 minutes after our order. I ordered a glass of wine, which took about 20-30 minutes to receive after our order. We got our food close to an hour after we ordered. One thing we noticed was that other tables around us were getting visited by their waiter quite often. Our waiter would check in with us about 1 out of every 3-4 visits compared to the other waiters. Now we have received our food. Our appetizer was missing, which never came before our entrees. We asked the waiter to remove the appetizer from our tab. Our waiter proceeded to give us an explanation that there was a glitch in their iPad ordering system, which after some time, he realized had to order everything verbally and from memory. He stated that is why it took so long to get my glass of wine. My wife has a gluten sensitivity and one the things she was most excited for last night was the gluten free (GF) pasta. When she got her pasta dish, she had a few bites and realized something was off. I called over the waiter and ask if the pasta was GF. The waiter said yes, then did a double take, and sprinted off to the kitchen. We he came back he told her it wasn’t and referred back to the ordering glitch. He took the plate and said they would remake it. At this point, a floor manager wandered to our table and asked how the evening was going. My wife’s unenthusiastic response prompted the manager to ask further questions, which we told her about the GF issue. She offered us the mistake pasta dish, on the house. During our conversation, our waiter came up to her to let her know of some issue going on. She said she would be back to talk to us, but that never happened. It took the kitchen 45 minutes to bring out my wife’s replacement dish. At that point, we ordered dessert and a to-go plate once we got the food because we didn’t know how long they were going to take. Not surprising, it took quite a bit of time to get our dessert (creme brûlée) and to-go order of fries. It also took awhile to close out our check because the waiter 1) didn’t check up on us consistently 2) he put items on our ticket that we didn’t order. To end the evening, our waiter proceeded to apologize to my wife for the poor experience, which he then proceeded to laugh it off like it’s a joke. We didn’t leave the restaurant until almost 10PM, and that isn’t because we chose to take our time. In summation, the only saving grace of the night was the food, despite it taking so long to get. My wife and I consider ourselves to be understanding and patient people. I work in the foodservice industry and I try to be empathetic to kitchen issues, but last night was inexcusable. Espana’s service was completely lacking. Their service recovery was non-existent. I hope they take this criticism as an opportunity to improve their service.

Kathryn Kurtz

Joan Harrison