Garcia’s Internazionale Restaurant

Boo — they are closed — been a while, not sure what happened — but a bit tired of empty businesses in CVille

I discovered Garcia’s through their Saturday night drum circle group (which is a lot of fun!) I’ve eaten here a few times and found the food to be pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but it works. I’ve had drinks at the bar a few times, and the 2 different bartenders were very friendly and attentive. It’s sad that there are so many negative reviews because I really don’t think the place is that bad.

This may be the worst restaurant in Columbus.
3 of the 8 dishes arrived frozen in the middle (frozen Mexican food???) and they were universally awful. The tamales were all dough with little meat, the chile rellenos were all greasy batter and filled with Cheese Whiz, the pork dishes were all dry.
The waitress was clueless and slow, even though the place was empty (on a Saturday night, which is a good indication of how bad this place is) and the men’s restroom was filthy.
Avoid at all costs.

Garcias is a dive. And not a cool, edgy dive. The kind of dive that you run from screaming. Let me preface by saying I usually try and find redeeming qualities everywhere I go– looking at the glass half-​full. Despite that, Garcias exceeded my wildest expectations of what I thought could be bad.
I had a terrible time at Garcias last Tuesday when I went for taco night. Obviously you get what you pay for. So in buying $ 0.75 from a non-​taco truck in Hilltop, I realize that they will be simple tacos made from cheap ingredients. Fine.
Besides the fact that these hard shell only tacos are made with a teaspoon of iceberg lettuce, canned tomato, and either «taco meat» or refried bean– they also for some reason take about 45 minutes to make when the entire establishment is maybe operating at about 35% capacity. I could have served the same number of people in my house by myself with better ingredients much faster.
When I politely told the server that we would like to cancel our second round of tacos simply due to the fact that they were taking quite a bit of time and that our evening’s schedule would not accomodate further waiting, the kitchen staff took it upon themselves to come out of the kitchen and «explain» to me «how things work» at Garcias. I responded simply that as a paying customer I did not need such condescension delivered in the form of an «explanation.»
When I approached the manager for the evening, he told me that I «must not be from around here» and that I don’t know «how things work» and my expectations are too high for 75 cent tacos. When I told him that my expectation wasn’t for the product, it was to be treated with courtesy in a place I am providing with business he accused me of using expletives with his staff (quite the opposite) before telling me himself to «fuck off.»
I have never been so insulted by any group of individuals in my life, let alone in a place that I paid good money to visit. In the span of my experience at Garcias, employees, the manager, and even the owner himself took it upon themselves to question my character, integrity, and moral fiber. Garcias is such a dump I find myself wondering if the proprietors even know the meaning of such concepts.

This is an unfortunate review that I have to write as I generally like to keep a positive outlook on local establishments. My friends and I went to this place as we had a few times for the taco deal that they do on Tuesdays. For the most part the prior visits had been a decent enough, but this last visit has changed my perspective on the business entirely.
My friend after having to wait 45 minutes for a simple order of 3 tacos decided to go ahead and cancel his order. When he went up to express this he was accosted by the service staff for being unreasonable. Soon after the bar staff, a member of the kitchen staff, and the owner himself began cursing at him in not one but two languages. Hearing this I voiced my concern for their behavior and received similar four letter words including, and I quote ‘Go f*ck yourself.‘
Lastly, the restroom in this place is pretty bad. There was grime and a strong odor coming from it when I required its use, I would steer clear.
I have never been disrespected in this manner by any establishment in my 25 years. The owner of this establishment cares not for his customers and would rather curse them out than simply accept a problem that occurred. I would suggest avoiding Garcia’s Internazionale Restaurant at all costs.

I came here a few months ago-I’ve never eaten worse food in my life. The whole experience was a joke. I wouldn’t feed this food to my dogs. It took me days to track down a manager, which was the owner who was incredibly rude and challenged me on my complaints. STAY AWAY!

I have never been to a worse restaurant.
Chips and salsa are not free. They give you free popcorn. When you order the chips and salsa, they cost about $ 3.50 and come from a bag and a jar. The queso is gas station hot dog queso with a little shredded cheese thrown on top for flair. I had the «jumping beef» and the best thing on my plate was the rice and the fresh peppers. Everything else tasted like it was microwaved or came from a can. My wife had the pulled pork tacos and thought more or less the same. The beans that came with her dish were cold and had almost no seasoning.
The place is old, I guess. You can tell. When we got there, we were the only people in the place besides a few young teenagers sitting at a table with a lone adult. They had brought in their skateboard and were practicing kickflips. After we placed our food order we realized that this was the kitchen staff, because they went in the back and cooked our food.
I would have been happier eating at the Taco Bell across the street.
STAY FAR AWAY.

I’m not sure what the haters on this site were looking for… it’s not Applebee’s, it’s not El Vaquero. If that’s what you want, go there. If you want somewhere with real human beings who talk to you and make your food to order, then Garcia’s is wonderful. My wife and I have lived in the neighborhood for ten years but never gone in this place… tonight we decided to try it on a whim and were endeared by the funky vibe and good food. If you live in the burbs and bought the Groupon because you wanted to try a «cute Mexican place» then beware.

Avoid at all cost! Went there tonight for dinner, and it was horrible. Only 3 tables had patrons, so should have been a sign for 7:30 on a Saturday night. Ordered chips and salsa ($ 3.95). Took 15 minutes to get what tasted like something from Giant Eagle. ½ the chips were broken into pieces too small to dip into the salsa. Chimichanga was cold in the middle. How do you deep fry something yet keep the beef inside ice cold? Told the server, she said she would take it off the bill. Well, when the bill came, it was still on the bill. Asked the server about it, and she said that since 2 bites were taken out of it, it was considered eaten per the manager. Mind you, the gaucamole ordered with it was untouched since the chimi was ice cold, and the guacamole was an extra charge. I think Gordon Ramsay needs to take his Kitchen Nightmare’s show to this place as it truly is a nightmare! Will never, ever go back!

Thank you Groupon for another few bucks wasted — this place is beastly. Canned nacho cheese and Zatarain’s boxed rice are miles better than what this place has to offer.
The service is shitty: the waitress kept asking the customers to get up and get their own drinks.

We went here because we had a groupon. Waitress was attentive. She asked what we wanted to drink. I said:
— What do you have on tap?
— nothing but we have everything on bottle
— do you have miller lite?
— no not miller lite
LOL, moving on
We looked at the menu and being fans of Peruvian we wanted to order the peruvian options. BTW this place has peruvian and mexican options. We wanted to order the ceviche but lo and behold, it’s only served on Fri and Sat and you have to place an order 24 hrs ahead. WTF? OK so we ordered the Lomo saltado which is one of the Peruvian staple dish (and the ceviche but oh well) and a Peruvian Tamal. Yes, just 1 tamal is tamal not tamale. 20 mins passed the waitress tells us there are no more tamales. So we order the chile reyenos, even thos mexican but there was nothing else peruvian that we could order for that day.
Lomo salteado was nothing out of this world. Just OK. Chile rellenos were subpar. Seemed like they were under cooked. Weird, how can you under cook something deep fried. They were small too. Came with a side of beans that tasted like they had chorizo. They were pretty good but for vegetarians, they should ask first.
We ordered the guac and chips and the guac didn’t even had tomatoe, onions and jalapeño.
At the end, the good thing is that it was pretty cheap. I wouldn’t go back though.

After buying a Groupon for this restaurant based on what I thought were some good reviews, I was incredibly disappointed with this restaurant. I ordered an appetizer of guacamole, salsa, and queso with chips. Every single one of these dips were straight out of a can, and the chips from a bag. At this point my boyfriend and I were a little weary for our actual meal. We both ordered the Supreme burrito with chicken and refried beans. The burritos were mostly rice, with some straight out of the can beans and bland chicken. They also came without any semblance of red sauce, which is pretty standard with most burritos (I guess the extra one dollar to get the burrito wet was the only way to keep it from being completely dry). We only ended up eating half of our meal before paying, completely dissatisfied. Do not let some of these reviews fool you into thinking you’ll be getting a quality meal. I usually try to ignore the bad things people say about restaurants if most of the reviews are good, but this is an exception.

My evening got off to a really bad start. The place was freezing and I asked the waitress if she thought it was cold and she replied «no» but she was wearing a heavy sweater. Since I came down there just to eat and didn’t have plans to go anywhere else, I put my heavy coat back on and sucked it up.
I started off with an order of guacamole which wasn’t too bad although the chips it was served with came out of a bag. And most of the menu items that looked the most promising were only available on Friday and Saturday.
When I gave her my Groupon for payment, she made me pay cash for my coke. At that point I didnt feel like arguing with her but checked today and sure enough it was only alcohol that wasn’t covered.
Anyway, a lousy meal at a lousy restaurant!

I was excited to try out Garcia’s. However, it was atrociously disappointing. I’ve driven by many times and after seeing they had $ 3 margaritas and great reviews on here and urban spoon, I decided to give it a try.
I will never go back there again.
My boyfriend and I went for margs and dinner. The margaritas tasted alright, except they used daiquiri mix to flavor my boyfriends strawberry one, which I thought was strange and made it taste a little off.
We ordered some chips and queso while we waited for our food and were surprised to receive a plate of Tostitos and «queso» that definitely came from a jar they probably bought at giant eagle. The main dishes were less than mediocre. I ordered fish tacos with rice/​beans. The rice was severely undercooked, the beans were good though, and my fish tacos did not have any flavor whatsoever. The fish tasted fresh but when the menu said «grilled tilapia» i was confused when i received small pieces of fried fish. I asked for hot sauce, which I read on here is homemade, and was grossed out when I was given a large crusty bottle with a teaspoon of hot sauce in it.
My boyfriend ordered the cilantro pork which was much better than my dish, but once again, mediocre. It tasted similar to a dish my mother makes, but not near as tasty.
After a dissatisfying meal and a very awkward experience with two different women serving us throughout the night, my boyfriend and I decided it was time to get the hell out of there. We were shocked at our $ 45 bill and that my boyfriends «strawberry» marg was twice as much as my unflavored one. After flagging down a waitress to ask why his was $ 6 vs my $ 3, all she had to say was «I don’t know, they just do that». We left the restaurant extremely disappointed and completely sober. Which, after having two large margs, I am convinced they had no alcohol in them.
Safe to say I will never return and I have since told everyone I know to stay away.

We originally went here for a community charity event and was impressed firstly by the quaint authentic ambiance and the friendly staff. It’s an older restaurant and shows some of it’s scars, proudly! Single person restrooms that are reminiscent of an old home and a little dark and corny but kitschy décor. HOWEVER, it is clean, friendly, comfortable and most of all– PHENOMENAL food– had the chicken with mole sauce, a cheese quesadilla, and probably the BEST margarita ever. The owner and his family (this is a legacy restaurant, family owned and run for generations) are usually there most nights, and the authentic flavorful food is out of this world, not just Mexican but South American/​Latin options as well. Just as impressive as the food was the owner and his family and their deep caring and contributions for the community. This place has roots and host drum circles and supports several other artistic support events regularly so it’s worth coming again and again to feed your soul and belly!

I’m not a Peruvian cuisine expert, but Garcia’s was a great find — it’s an affordable ethnic mom-​and-​pop restaurant and I was surprised to find this gem in a city like Columbus.
I stumbled upon Garcia’s by accident. All of the other ethnic restaurants (even Taco Bell!) within the .5 mile radius were closed on a late Friday night. I was a newcomer to the city, hungry and starting to get irritated. But the minute that I walked into Garcia’s, the Columbus snack scene was looking better — service was instantaneous and attentive. For an appetizer, I had some of the best plantains of my life — it was fried just right, with a dash of confectionery sugar, and it was only $ 2. In any other city, this would have been a $ 4 – 5 appetizer. In addition, I had the tamale entrée — the portions were generous, fresh, homemade and only $ 6 – 7. Make sure that you ask for their hot sauce — they have at least 4 different flavors. The ingredients come from their garden and the hot sauce is made fresh every day.
Even better, my meal (appetizer + entrée) was within the range of $ 10. In the future, skip Rally’s and try Garcia’s.

I checked this place out because I’d heard such wonderful things, what a let down. The service was slow, we waited about 10 minutes before ordering water and margaritas, but it was busy and I don’t think they were staffed appropriately. The gentleman was friendly, but VERY overwhelmed and scattered.
Our food arrived quickly, too quickly, we still hadn’t received our drinks, we were half way through our meal before our waters and margaritas arrived. The food was bland and lacked texture, but I may have ordered wrong, I ordered the cilantro pork. I did taste my friends dishes and I was equally disappointed with theirs, same issue, tasteless. The margarita, so glad it decided to show up, it was DE-​licious! One of the best I’ve ever had.
Overall, disappointing, but I will try it again as I want to much to like this place as much as I like their margarita.

This review only encompasses the bar offerings, so I can’t say anything about the food yet, which does have some intriguing Peruvian items. I had a pisco (Peruvian brandy) sour which was quite nice and their margaritas don’t skimp on the tequila, which is the dominating flavor rather than some fake fruit. For beer they have a selection of Mexican beers, though I don’t recall seeing anything from Peru. The atmosphere is old school Columbus for sure with the dull color scheme, but there are redeeming qualities including the owner Iggy who is very nice and personable and made us feel welcome. I’ve passed by so many times thinking about going in and I’m glad I finally did. For a unique, rather surreal experience go here on a Saturday night at 8:30 if you’re going to order food with your alcohol, 8:45 if you’re going to just sit at the bar and drink. Stay after 9…

Great place to meet with friends for a good time. This restaurant has been here many years near the corner of Hudson and High. The Garcia family also had Jack and Benny’s on the corner as well as the apartments located in the building.
Poppy Garcia brought his family from Peru back in the 1960’s seeking a better life for his family like others. The place is now run by Iggy Garcia who is a very good and gracious host. The food is excellent any you would want to eat it until the plate is practically licked clean.
I have had burritos big as my head, with a side of chips and salsa or beans and rice. The Cheese Chili Relleno are some of the best I have ever eaten. Fresh gespatcho, family grown tomatoes, cucumbers and jalapenos. Ceviche, full of flavors you should order a day in advance so it can marinate well. There is pulled pork, Southwestern Quesadilla, there is Chicken, Beef or Portabella mushroom. Fresh salads, like my favorite is the Nemenhah Medicine Wheel salad. Lettuces, cheese carrots, peppers, read onion, and special dressing. Plenty of food to choose from.
I also like the drinks, the Pisco will make your head whirl, the Garcia special, and their Margaritas for just $ 2.99, along with sodas, beers domestic and imported. Full bar.
I love the CHEERs type atmosphere where people know your name, and they are always glad to see you. It is like being with family.
Prices are great for any price point.

Garcia’s is one of those «hole-​in-​the-​wall» «mom-​and-​pop» type places that never seems to physically change, as if it were trapped in time. This is an aspect I actually like and find kitschy.
Tonight was the first time I’ve been back to Garcia’s in probably 6 or 7 years, and unfortunately my friend and I were greatly disappointed by our meals. We started with the fried plantains, and the only flavor they had was a slight tanginess, as if they weren’t ripe when they fried them. Since I used to enjoy their chimichangas quite a bit I thought I’d order one for nostalgic reasons. The only good thing I can say is that my «chimi» kept the theme of the meal going really well due to its lack of flavor. The majority of flavor came from the fried tortilla, and that wasn’t exactly a good thing. My friend felt exactly the same way about his entrée and was also very disappointed. Something that really confused me was that we were given fortune cookies at the end of our meal, as if we were in a Chinese restaurant. (I’m still trying to figure this out.) Sadly, the cookies had apparently been sitting around a while because they were stale.
I would probably give only one star to Garcia’s but I will admit the service we received was very personable and friendly. Also, despite it being old and run-​down, the interior space is one I kind of appreciate because this type of «mom-​and-​pop» place has become hard to find around Columbus.
If anything, sit at the bar for a margarita and enjoy the cozy atmosphere, but I’d advise to stay away from the food.