El Velero de Nayarit

Okay, admittedly the front end of this place is a mess, but they clearly know what they are doing in the kitchen, AND the have some really good seafood to do it with. First of all, let me say, I have only been once, but if I lived in Chicago, I would definitely go again. My wife agrees.
Bad stuff first, yes it is a noisy place with TV’s going and blasting music and vinyl flooring, which doesn’t help. What we put up with for good seafood! At a reasonable price!
But yes, the wait staff (one young lady) was kinda clueless, but nice. And they do seem to pay more attention to the to go orders. Also, the restaurant does seem to be having some other issues. Cash only and no alcohol! Not a real problem. The grocery store across the street has a cash machine and the liquor store one block west has cold wine and beer. Cheaper that way, anyway.
The food. Ah, the food! We had the shrimp ceviche. Simple. Nicely done. My wife ordered the seafood mocajete and I had the shrimp (camarones) diabla. The shrimp were nicely prepared (e.g. not over cooked) with a simple spicy sour sauce. Not overly complex, but good. The mocejete was another matter. Lots of seafood with the best, most complex sauce of any mocajete we have ever had. I got to have some too. Delicious!
Back to the diabla. I really wanted to order the zarandeado, but it is for more than one and not cheap. I love this dish when it is done right, but even in Mexico, I have had it wonderfully prepared and awfully prepared. So at the last minute I changed my order and got something I did not really want. On reflection, I probably would have ordered oysters. Did I mention that they have fresh oysters on the half shell, And oysters cooked in a variety of ways.
If you live within 10 miles of the restaurant be sure to go, put up with the defficiencies to get great seafood at a reasonable price.

Muy rico todo y el servicio excelente el champuzon muy bueno y ambiente familiar el único inconveniente es que no acepta tarjetas pero de ahí en más todo es excelente

Good food, horrendous service, and highly incompetent delivery. Only order if you plan on picking up. If you call to request something, or to resolve an issue, you better speak fluent Spanish (like I do), or you’re out of luck. With service so Indifferent and unsympathetic, it does not matter how good the food is.

This place has potential if it wasn’t for the horrible service you get from the waitresses.
I’ll start with the good:
Excellent food
Good Prices
Now the bad:
Service
Wait time for food
The Extremly Loud music
The food was excellent and it was decently priced. However, after taking our order we did not see our waitress for another 25 mins. She came to say that the kitchen is really busy because there was a lot of orders. However, the restaurant was not even half full. When the Dj stopped playing the ridiculously loud music I could hear other tables complain that they should just get up and leave since they had not received their food either, and they were there before we were. We finally got our food after 40 mins of waiting, and while most of the food was delicious some of it was cold. The main issue with this place is the wait staff, just simply horrible. Some waitresses were even watching their own kids by the bar while waiting on tables. I would only go back if they changed some of those issues there.

I have been to E lVelero de Nayarit twice since last summer (2014). At the time I saw one review on Unilocal & it was negative. The person particularly complained about the service. I’m not sure if that person & I had dinner in the same place. My girlfriend & I were served by two teenagers who couldn’t have been more solicitous, attentive, and charming — a couple of really nice kids. The food was terrific. We had the charolada velero. It was incredibly flavorful. Subsequent to that visit I had the fish Veracruz. I can’t remember, maybe it was snapper, some kind of white fish. What ever the case, this was likewise spectacular. This style is a particular favorite of mine & this was the best I’ve ever had. My advice is to enjoy this restaurant while you can, before it’s «discovered».

The service here was bad for my first visit, which was yesterday. I went with a guy friend, the waitress totally put her back on me and talked to him. I didnt even hear a word she said, i asked my friend what did she say? Because obviously i didnt hear anything. He just said that what we wanted to order. I felt like that was a total disrespect, i was recomended there for the food. But if their service is this bad and disrespectful then never again! By the way we just left, didnt order anything and never came back nor are we. This place was just terrible and it was on my firsr visit. Smh… i dont recomend this place if youre young and if you go with friends or a couple because i herd rhe waitress ignores the ladies and keeps her eye on the males… smh disrespect.

Love the food here. No frills décor and it can get noisy, but that’s all part of the charm. If you can put up with 3 TVs that often blast 3 different shows as a jukebox cranks ranchero music simultaneously, you’ll be rewarded with excellent Mexican style seafood.

Wow, where do I start?
Oh I know, Mexican Mexican Mexican delicious cuisine that is focused on seafood!
I came in yesterday for a take out, about 12 pm. The atmosphere in this place is not the greatest. It looks spacious but they haven’t used this great space for their advantage. The walls are covered in mirrors and they have lights of a different color.
Any who, concentrating on the food. ITS DELICIOUS! This is not your typical place where you eat cold boiled shrimps, cocktail sauce and a wedge of lemon on the side.
This food is phenomenal and affordable.
I had the caldo de camaron (picoso) which is a spicy shrimp broth. Well guys they don’t play around with the heat! I think the broth was made of habanero peppers! lol than I had coctel de camaron, really flavorful! They added octopus too! And last but not least I order charolada velero it was a combination of prawns, crab legs and lots of shrimps swimming in their huichol sauce! Oh god as I am writing this I want to go running and eat there again!
I walked out with food enough for 5 people on a bill of $ 67.54. Yes it may sound scary but in other seafood restaurants a bill for 5 people will leave you broke! Yikes I am coming back Velero, I am!

Prior to visiting El Velero de Nayarit I read the previous review posted. Living in the neighborhood, I always wanted to stop by. El Velero is the only sea food restaurant in the area, if not for this restaurant I would have to travel far to another sea food restaurant. The previous review made me wonder whether or not I should stop by. In the end however, I decided to give it a shot. I was EXTREMELY happy with my choice. I feared I would be greeted with bad service but in reality I was welcomed warmly and offered wonderful service.
I asked the waitresses (whom were very beautiful if I may add from the shortest to the tallest!) if they had new employees or a new chef. Her response was that there was new waitresses and cooks. The food was EXQUISITE, the waitresses were BEAUTIFUL and HELPFUL, and the owners were very FRIENDLY I was even offered a free drink. I felt silly thinking I was not going to stop by because of the review I had read earlier on. Since I live in the area I plan on coming more often and bringing family and friends.
I believe previous bad service was due to former workers. The owners informed me of trouble they were experiencing because of them. In the end, I felt the owners and workers were truly genuine. W/​this new service I am sure the business will prosper!
GIVE IT A CHANCE & STOP BY!!!

Had I searched Unilocal and found no entry for this restaurant prior to my visit, I should perhaps have had second thoughts about bringing my wife and kids here. But I actually took my chances and went to the restaurant once on a weekday when not one other customer was seated. The service was attentive and friendly. I promised them I would bring my family to sample their food… what a mistake I made.
This time unfortunately our experience was unforgivable. After seating ourselves, we waited approximately 10 minutes before the server approached our table. She attempted to hand us menus but I had to ask her (in Spanish) to please clean the table. (The waitress would be best described as a beauty school dropout who must have begged the owner for a second chance.) After clearing the table, she gave us the menus and disappeared for another 10 minutes.
She took an order that included two appetizers as well as their Sunday special of the day, a shrimp cocktail. In addition to the appetizers, we ordered a $ 40.00 tray of langostinos (prawns), their specialty of the house as our main course. While we were waiting for our appetizers, she brought out a tostada of ceviche (on the house) with a single plastic fork for four of us to share.
When our appetizers appeared, she first tried to tell an adjacent table that they had ordered the food she placed before them. After looking at us, she sheepishly relocated the plates to our table even though we still hadn’t been provided with any setups (knife, fork & spoon) and she just left the food and walked into the back. I got up and found where the silverware was stored and proceeded to give myself the McDonald’s experience at 20 times the price. I could not find any plates so I asked her to bring them when she caught me red handed.
Two minutes later she tried to serve up the main course. We told the waitress to bring it back until we had completed our appetizers. Unfortunately, my wife had a bad gut feeling about what they might do to our food in the kitchen, so I went back up to the bar and asked for our check (and also told her that my wife was afraid to eat the food.) The waitress blamed the kitchen staff for all of the problems but I would say she deserved 80% of the culpability. (The other 20% can go to whoever made the hiring decision as well as the training or the lack thereof that was provided.)
It pains me to write this review because I really wanted to support this local business. Sadly, I cannot see myself ever bringing another person to this restaurant.