El Jardin Coffee & Restaurant

May 30, 2016 we drove two and a half hours primarily to eat at this restaurant for one specific dish. I called ahead the day before just to make sure it was available. However, there must have been a communications problem because when we arrived our waitress said it was no longer on the menu. After freaking out a bit our awesome waitress Audrey said she would do whatever she can to see if it was possible since the one cooking is Carlos and it was his recipe. Sure enough she pulled it off and we could have our Pollo Con Crema. She said if we want to have it in the future to call ahead and make sure Carlos will be cooking during the visit. Thanks Audrey you are the best! Thanks Carlos the Pollo Con Crema was outstanding as usual! The place was very clean, food was fresh, portions are large, and service was outstanding. Audrey was full of energy, smiles, and eager to please customers a true example of customer service. Thanks El Jardin for a great visit and totally worth the five-​hour drive!

they messed up my togo order about 6 months ago ! decided to give it another try and they messed it up again ! when you order food to go you should not have to make sure its all there before you leave? smallest enchiladas i have ever seen !

The atmosphere and guacamole dip were the only positive things I have to say.
The nachos were greasy and soggy.
The water smelled like bleach.

Very good food and service. Guacamole is excellent! The flavor in their food is quality.

Had a great lunch! Flavor was perfect, everything cooked perfectly and my girlfriend and I couldn’t ask for more. Will absolutely be back again soon!

This place is good. The only time I come here is when I make my way into Columbia with a group of friends from time to time. The service here has always been great whether we’re eating outside or inside. Today we came here with a party of 8 but I only snapped a photos of some of their meals (below).
I went with the chicken tacos, rice, and beans for $ 12.45. This is a bit higher than I’m used to paying for the same meal at places in town. Luckily the taste of the food is decently competitive enough with other places in town. It’s one of the few places you can eat if you’re in Columbia, so I’ll justify the costs. My meal was good. They put oranges on everything here. On your plate, and for some reason the ice-​t even comes with an orange peel (???).
Had a decent visit this time around but everyone at the table who had the green sauce complained of it being way too salty. Just my luck that I could care less for the green sauce. My tacos that originally come with it were ordered without it, so hopefully I’m spared of a heart attack. No lie though, apparently it came off like they poured a whole can of morton salt into their green sauce. The handful of people at the table who had green sauce were pretty disappointed. It’s crazy when I think about how a sauce can ruin a meal. When it’s a mexican restaurant the sauce serves as a piece of the puzzle that determines whether or not the customer can properly assemble a solid opinion about a place.
Their opinions were that the food was average if the green sauce wasn’t incredibly salty. I’ve come here enough times during the past couple of years to give this place a 4 out of 5 without having tried the sauce. I have yet to have a bad experience with the food or staff here. Note I likely only eat here 3 – 4 times a year if I’m in town visiting. The closest El Jardin relative to my location is in Manteca, CA. It’s not the kind of Mexican Restaurant Chain I’ll drive 20 miles out to go out and eat in the next town over for, but it’s more of a place that’ll have good enough food and offer you a good enough experience while you’re visiting the town.

Everyone at our table enjoyed our meals and service. We stopped by on the way back from the snow.
Reasonably priced restaurant with beautiful interior. Will return if in the area.

I like the place and will come back twine Harte is good too. I has chicken enchilada and it was taste

More flour chips in the basket please ! Other than that. Yummers and the staff is nice. Bathrooms are super small and the swamp cooler is not in a good spot but whatever. It’s an oldish Columbia building gotta put it somewhere. The fried ice cream thing. Wow my kids and I couldn’t even finish it !

Had a great experience. Great food and service at a reasonable price. One of the best chile verde burritos I’ve ever had. Cheers

Please improve your chips!!! Perpetually disappointing.
We have been here several times since its opening many years ago. We come back because we keep thinking it will get better and its the only resturant in town where you can eat outside.
Sometimes the service is great, their crab enhiladas and shrimp tacos are good. What is alweays disappointing is the chips. Most the time they taste rancid, the salsa can’t save them. Maybe expectatoins are too high because with the previous owners, we would have rated this resturant 5 stars.

Not a good experience. Usually of the 3 El Jardin restaurants located near Sonora the Columbia one used to my favorite; however the past several trips have been bad. We waited extremely long to have our order taken & for our food brought out. The orders weren’t correct but we didn’t have extra time. It wasn’t busy and the server has been there for a while. Its too bad that the last few times I’ve come in where disappointing. I do recommend the El Jardin located downtown Sonora.

Delicious food at reasonable prices.
Went there on Friday night at 6PM and had no trouble getting an inside table. The outside tables were a little busy but most of the inside tables were available.
My wife ordered the crab enchiladas and loved them. They came with lots of crab meat and a yummy red sauce. Her order was mistakenly served with refried beans instead of black beans but it wasn’t a big deal so we didn’t say anything.
I ordered a 3 enchilada combo dish that came with a shrimp, chicken, and beef enchiladas and devoured them … they were so good!
My kids each ordered large cheese quesadillas and said they were better than the ones I make at home. My feelings aren’t hurt. Really.
Service was exceptional. Bar service was fast… she stopped by as soon as we sat down. Waiter was super friendly and fun to talk to. Good luck to him in his basketball career. :)
The next time we’re in Columbia we will definitely come in again for dinner.
Tip: Beware of the inside booth seats located to the left. The jet-​powered A/​C unit on back wall may leave you wishing you sat somewhere else.

My husband says he has never had a better fish taco. The veggie fajitas were delish. They should have come with three tortillas, not two, so if you order the fajitas, ask for an extra tortilla (which were really tasty though). Vegetarians, beware, the refried beans have lard in them, so ask for the black beans, which are safe. The black beans were really good though, so it was okay.
The décor is adorable, the service is good, and the food is great. The patio is just beautiful. It was too hot to eat out there when we were there, unfortunately.
A couple of things they could improve upon — the kids meal was very limited (I’m sorry, but my kids eat more than just junk food, so diversifying the menu with some vegetables would be great). The staff seemed bored a lot of the time, when there were things they could have been doing. I still give them a 5 star because the food is so good and it is completely within walking distance of the historical park, so it really is, in my humble opinion, the best option in town.

I am a local to Columbia. In the past I have had wonderful service and food the lemon chicken tacos used to be my favorite. Not anymore! 2 weeks ago me and my husband sat outside in their beautiful courtyard and were ignored for at least 20 minutes before order was taken and twice now I have order to go food only to find out when I got home our food was not prepared correctly or edible for that matter. It had a sour awful smell!!! It was not what we ordered and was overcharged! Why change a a good thing? I hope that management decides to change staff and ingredients to fix this problem I’m done wasting my money on garbage!

This location is HIGHLY undependable out of all locations. I highly recommend calling before visiting because the closing hours will change without notice.

Friendly service. Lots of good food. The chimichangas are HUGE! We never have to wait long for our meals. Be sure to bring your appetites, because they give super generous portions.

Nice small establishment. Just a block from the historic gold rush town of Columbia. We arrived as the sun was setting and chose to sit out on the patio. The temperature dropped quicker than we expected, but no worries as the staff lit the propane heater as soon as we sat down.
I ordered the chimichanga supreme and my food was served fast and hot. My chimichanga was a good size and full of meat. The customer service was fantastic. I would recommend this place to anyone.

Vegan fail. They don’t have anything on the menu that’s vegan, so I risked having them make a vege burrito. That’s normally a good bet, but they didn’t even include any rice, oddly. Apparenrly the waitress had written down not to include rice, but certainly I wouldn’t have choose to leave it out.
Anyway, it proved pretty tasteless, even with the rice I added from my girlfriend’s also bland (non-​vegan) meal. They ended up comping it, so props fo that, but what really made the experience unpleasant were the endless flies outside. Yuck. Next time I’ll try the Thai in Sanora.

Meh.
It’s just plain old Americanized Mexican food. If you’re into that, I guess this is a good place. I’ll cross post this review for all their locations I’ve tried, because they’re all the same.
The inside is usually clean and service can be hit or miss. Most of the time I have had no problem, and they’re friendly enough.
I do have to at least appreciate that they make fresh flour tortilla chips, you usually only get one or two in your basket (the rest are corn). I would totally pay extra to get a full basket of the flour!