Anonymous
12/15/2023 15:22
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
I just want to say I think the Gaithersburg uncle Julio’s is still good! We always get good, friendly service there (occasionally a little slow on busy nights). My kids love the kids meal. We live in Rockville so we either drive to cactus cantina in NW (which I still love) or Julio’s in Gburg
Anonymous
12/15/2023 01:31
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:I know this isn't perfectly on point here -- because it was never good to begin with, but I'll say Domino's pizza.
It used to be fine for what it was, cheap pizza that would show up on your doorstep right quick. The last two times I ordered it, I ate one piece and put it in the trash. Which is saying something, given how starving and exhausted I'd have to be to order from there anyway. Downright inedible; and you can tell by the fact that I was willing to order it all means I'm not exactly a food snob -- so if I say it was bad, it was very, very bad.
Just had dominos tonight. My kid alwyas asks for it. Garbage. The underside was soft and undercooked. Blech!
Anonymous
12/14/2023 23:39
Subject: Re:Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:I know this post is old but I just found it and I feel so seen! I thought I was going crazy about Uncle Julios.
The Bethesda location was our absolute favorite restaurant, went there for every special family occasion, and now I am convinced there is some evil figure in a corporate office building somewhere methodically making it gradually worse and worse and raising prices at the same time, laughing an evil laugh at all of us suckers who keep going back.
So many examples - the old yummy chips are now MIXED IN with cheaper, hard chips. They stopped putting chili sauce on the cheese enchiladas, they are now just hard cheese and tortillas wrapped up. I loved those enchiladas! The kids menu has been replaced with some strange and inedible "bento box" that even my non-picky, uncle julio's loving kids were like wtf is this. I swear, every time I go back it's a new thing that is worse. And the menu changes all the time, more than it should.
And the service is just insanely bad now. How is it so bad? We ordered takeout the other day and they just totally lost it. It's like they train them to be bad?
After the last time, I finally said no more. But I, too, feel like I have lost a friend!
I will probably never stop going. My family was going there before H.W. showed up on Fairmont Avenue. But we went to the Bethesda location the night before Thanksgiving and it was clearly staffed for a regular Wednesday, not the night before Thanksgiving Wednesday, and it was mobbed. Our server was completely swamped as was the bar since we didn’t get drinks until after our entrees came (well after the appetizers we ordered.) I agree that they’re always changing the menu, although I will say that the spicy pineapple margarita is new and delicious. BUT they took the chicken fingers off the kids menu, which I get since it’s unlike anything else on their menu, but now the only thing my autistic kid will eat there is the $35ish steak. I agree the enchiladas have gone downhill - I always get the green sauce, though.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 23:35
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:Founding Farmers downtown. It was perhaps just past its peak, but still good brunch when I moved to DC in 2008-09. I went 2 years ago because a friend was in town for a conference and that’s where her group wanted to go. It was awful. Mediocre food, tables so close together, full of tourists. As the only local, I was embarrassed.
A classic, blistering, and rare 0 star review from the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/founding-farmers-review-where-the-biggest-temptation-is-to-leave/2016/06/01/76b2c844-204e-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299_story.html
Anonymous
12/14/2023 23:28
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:Clyde’s
We’ve had a lot of bad Thanksgiving dinners in restaurants (cough cough Founding Farmers), but our Thanksgiving dinner this year at Clyde’s Tower Oaks was yum.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 23:25
Subject: Re:Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
you know it might be the shrinkflation an d staffing issues but we all collectively became better home cooks as well. that might be why everything at these "bowl" places seems off, and 2 years of being germaphobes didnt help. We have become our immigrant mothers who sniffed at eating out casually b/cit was overpriced, not as tasty and unhygienic.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 23:19
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:Chipotle the last couple times has been gross. Dirty kitchen, dirty tables, trash cans overflowing, unswept floor, disgusting bathrooms!!
Same with Cava. We stopped eating there since we all end up with stomach pain. Meat wasn’t as fresh and lettuce was brown. Overly salty.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:37
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:The DT in Arlington (Langston) is fine. I've never had any issues.
Still fine. We eat there once a month and have eaten there regularly since they opened. The only casualty of the pandemic is that the salsa bar is gone.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:29
Subject: Re:Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:Sfoglina - mediocre food, ambiance, and service
Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear this.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:29
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Founding Farmers downtown. It was perhaps just past its peak, but still good brunch when I moved to DC in 2008-09. I went 2 years ago because a friend was in town for a conference and that’s where her group wanted to go. It was awful. Mediocre food, tables so close together, full of tourists. As the only local, I was embarrassed.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:26
Subject: Re:Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:
I am the above poster and the Uncle Julio's chip situation is crazy. There were literally two different types of chips in our takeout bag - they are getting like Sodexo chips or something super cheap and stale and mixing it in with the older better chips. They have to be in some sort of financial trouble or something to be making all of these cutbacks.
And I disagree it was never good!
It’s called inflation.
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:23
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Chipotle the last couple times has been gross. Dirty kitchen, dirty tables, trash cans overflowing, unswept floor, disgusting bathrooms!!
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:18
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Clyde’s
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:14
Subject: Re:Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Sfoglina - mediocre food, ambiance, and service
Anonymous
12/14/2023 22:10
Subject: Restaurants you used to like but have gone downhill
Anonymous wrote:Matchbox
Have any of you been to the Matchbox in McLean? The ambiance is elevated Wendy's, lol.