Chance Bistro

I came to Chance Bistro looking for a good dinner. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the customer service was. I asked for ice tea and they brought it out in the coolest diffuser. You just set on top of your cup if you need a refill. I ordered a fundido appetizer. It was good, but it could have come with more tortillas. I shouldn’t complain because the waiter gave me extras for free. I had chicken enchiladas for my main course. They were delicious! The sauce was really good.

Another stop in our Coronado food tour.
I think what we had was a beef taco? Whatever it was, it wasn’t anything special; meat, a few onions, and a drip of their hot sauce? Was extremely dry and I only finished it because I was hungry.
Also noted, that this place was empty when we came in. Our entire tour group of 16 were the only ones inside. I wonder why? Maybe their dishes are better than what I had, but I’m not sure if I will ever come back to find out.

Good stuff. Latin themed restaurant with a couple of nice options if you like such things as Huevos Rancheros or having tortillas with your breakfast, not on the busy side of Orange. It winds up getting crowded later for breakfast on the weekends so if you get here by 10 or so, you should be able to get a table. All of the food was really good. The apple cinnamon crepes were excellent (according to my son) and the omelets were also well prepared. The only addition I would suggest for breakfast would be to include some toast or bread as not all entrees have it. Other than that, this place is a little slow because it is an independent restaurant but it is worth the wait. The food is also reasonably priced. A nice find with generally a much shorter wait than many of the other places on Coronado.

The 5^th stop on the Bite San Diego Tour it was not too bad. I think I would go back for a regular meal. The prices are reasonable.

The food is amazing, always incredibly delicious. The food is high quality and freshly made. I would highly recommend it. Plus, the are great at
catering to gluten-​free needs. A hidden gem!

It was sort of awkward walking in, no one greeted us and we had to grab menus for ourselves. I feel like we sat a long time before anyone even noticed us. ordered an omelet with bacon, cheese and mushrooms. I had about two bites of bacon and the rest was just overloaded with too many mushrooms. I had the breakfast style potatoes too, which way under-​cooked. Im pretty sure they were just microwaved. I can excuse the poor quality of food if the service is great. Which it wasnt. With every request that we had, the server seemed annoyed. I realize that refills of water are a lot to ask for, but I was hungover to say the least, so my body was demanding it. Sorry, dude.
Overall, the food and the service was poor enough to make me not stoked and more willing to try one of the many other places the island has to offer.

Our server was nice, but the food quality and execution were poor. My salad greens were not fresh (they were half wilted) and the steak on top was cut into small pieces before being cooked, so it was widely varied in the rareness of each piece. Not cooked to order, and did not taste very good. Some of the selling-​point ingredients were not in my salad.
My companion’s meal was lukewarm, fries were lukewarm, cheese on hot sandwich was not melted.
I tried to pay with a gift card and had to wait 15 minutes until the manager came in for his shift in order to process it. Then, they would not allow me to use the gift card proceeds for the tip. I had a few dollars left on a $ 100 gift card and the manager said he could not give me the remaining dollars.
I left the place without the balance on the card because I was just so tired of waiting and aggravated. I actually think that is illegal, but I’d have to file a complaint with the Attorney General for that.

Wow…
Had to beg for a menu. Had to get up and ask for more coffee. The food came out cold. The flavor was just meh. Had to ask for silverware. What happened?
I have visited this place many times since my last review and the last handful, I have noticed a steep decline in service and quality. I chalked it up to a bad day, the weather, a rush, whatever and just let it go, but honestly I can’t find anymore excuses for this place.
I’m not going back… unless I’m forced to.

Took a Chance on a Saturday and must have got the «B» Squad. The service sucked and our entire table had wrong orders, no silverware and horrible food to. The restaurant wasn’t crowed only about 6 people total were dining. We were trying to figure out if we were at a different Chance on Orange street after reading some OK Unilocal reviews. I ordered a veggie scramble and the eggs tasted horrible and smelled like wet dog, very old gross eggs and the vegetables weren’t fresh either.
We were all dying of thirst and asked for water at least 5 times then finally had to go in and fill up ourselves. Don’t think I’ll be back and won’t recommend to anyone.

Nothing to complain or rave about. Food was decent, while lacking a little seasoning it was a filling meal.
Service was on the slower side considering it was nearly empty. A little pricey for what it is, youre better off with burger lounge next door.
I’ve read several positive breakfast reviews, we went for dinner and were not impressed, morning time might be the time to go.

It was going on, oh, about 10 years, but I’ll have to reset my «haven’t sent a meal back» clock after eating here. The food was god awful and the service was just as bad.
The wife, kids and I took time from our tourist duties to eat here after reading the Unilocal reviews. Reading the other reviews, maybe their Mexican is the only good thing, but I doubt it after eating the rest of the fare. My wife and I had dishes that were… uhhh… clearly bought at the local grocery store and prepared in the back. Most amusing was that the waiter talked my wife out of the tuna sandwich in favor of the «recommended» steak sandwich which was tough and tasteless. We shutter to think how bad the tuna was.
The kids had standard kid-​food — pancake for one and mac and cheese for the other — but their food was the most aggravating part of the meal. The mac and cheese was clearly Kraft, which is fine. (Although not for $ 6/​plate when it was $ 3/​plate at Tent City just down the street, which is a much, much better restaurant.) It was also clearly left over from last night because it came out stone cold. Then they over microwaved it.
Now I realize that no one goes to restaurants for «good» kid food, but the botched mac and cheese was a metaphor for the rest of meal. If you can’t even make Kraft mac and cheese, why are in the restaurant business?

A funny thing happened on the way to Baskin Robbins… My hubby, son and I were vacationing in San Diego and were craving Baskin Robbins. We turned on Garmin and went hunting. Good old Garmin got confused and took us to Baskin Roggins, which was actually someones home! We didn’t ring the bell but discovered Coronado.
The next morning, when we were craving breakie, we headed back over the big blue bridge and parked on Orange Ave. It is such a cute little town that we knew we would find a cute little place to eat. Chance Bistro was that place! It was empty but we were hungry and the offerings on the menu looked really good. I am happy to report that everything we had was fantastic.
I had the Machaca plate which included shredded beef, tomatoes, onions, serrano chilies, beans and home made tortillas. My son had the Coronado Burrito which was eggs, beans, spuds, bacon and cheese. I can’t remember what my hubby had but when the waiter came to ask us if we were enjoying our meal, we all had a great laugh when he realized that all of our plates had been completely cleaned already.
My only wish was that we were actually staying in town and could have come back here for lunch and dinner! We’ve already decided that our next vacation to SoCal will be spent on Coronado and in Chance Bistro!

LOVE Chance. it is our go to breakfast place. and now with their new menu for lunch and dinner we are finding ourselves there more often.
The staff is fantastic. Jonathan, Jose. Jim and Tammy are gracious and friendly.
The food is outstanding. have never had anything less then yummy there. and the service is 100% spot on.
Can’t wait for Jim and Tammy’s new restaurant to open. I am sure it will be just as good!

Our first night in town we wandered in to check things out and the owner greeted us and offered us a menu to peruse. Everyone seemed friendly and we liked the atmosphere so we decided to come back the next night for dinner. I have to admit, I can’t say the service was perfect but the friendliness of the waiter and busboy made it okay. We brought a bottle of wine over from Wine Styles and it took quite a while to get it opened and poured, but the «no corkage fee» arrangement they have with WS is nice. Also, when it started raining outside and we asked to move in the staff was very helpful and got us all set up with a nice table inside.
We ordered the Caprese app, scallop app (which was more like a meal and very good), spaghetti and meatballs and the ribeye special, which the waiter recommended. All good choices! The steak was just lightly seasoned and cooked perfectly.
As we were too full for dessert the first night we decided to return the next night for the Chocolate Bomb. It was described to us as chocolate mousse, but for me it was too dense and too sweet, not the light, fluffy mousse I’d hoped for. Nevertheless, we enjoyed sitting on the patio sipping wine, nibbling our dessert and watching people attempt to parallel park on Orange, which was hilarious. We’ll definitely be back because, despite some shortcomings in service that I’m sure will be ironed out with time, it was a really nice place to be.

Chilaquiles: Excellent
Chips were fresh and crisp but not hard.
Red tomato salsa was slightly sweet, not spicy.
They came with eggs even though the menu didn’t mention it.
French toast: cinnamony good
Scrambled eggs: good
Bacon: crispy good
Friendly service

So I’ve been wanting to check this place out for awhile, but everytime I have suggested it my husband throws a fit because he is a burger lounge fan (which is right next door). Last night was my lucky night, after a delightful evening of wine tasting next door at WineStyles with friends, Burger Lounge was too full to accomodate our party of six :)
The menu offers quite a variety, so there is something for everyone. The food was excellent. Chance Bistro also waives their corkage fee if you bring a bottle of wine over from Wine Styles!

Got together for a late lunch with a friend and got to try something new. Since we sat outside I couldn’t tell you what the inside is like :) but we had great service, I swear every person who worked there checked and made sure we had whatever we needed.
Positives:
Interesting variety of dishes.
Very attentive service.
Nice sized servings.
Seating inside and outside so you can pick your poison.
Negatives:
Nothing really, except my Caesar salad didn’t really taste like Caesar (bit of a snob when it comes to that).
We ordered the Avocado & Shrimp starter, not bad since I love Avocado. Lots of butter and went well with the basket of toasted bread. I ordered the Caesar Salad w/​side of Anchovies and Alejandra got the Insalata Capresse (lovely slices of mozzarella, tomatoes & olive oil, balsamic vinegar), she loved it. My Caesar honestly wasn’t that good because the dressing tasted like Italian. Now if I ordered it with that dressing it would have been great. We ended it with the Chocolate Truffle Cheese cake which was wonderful!

The restaurant is located on the main drag of Coronado (Orange Ave) so its centrally located. The thing I love about the place is its atmosphere. It’s small so it feels intimate but its not too much to the point where it was stuffy. All the people were dressed casually and engaged in candid conversations with others at their table. San Diego has some of the best weather in the world so I recommend scooping one of the tables out on the patio.
The food is fairly good too. I ordered the salmon sandwich. The salmon was cooked perfectly and the bread was soft and chewy. My only complaint was the tamarind sauce. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good either. I also tried the linguine with clams. If you do not like garlic, this dish is not for you. I happen to love garlic, so it was delicious.
A few notes on the service. The waitress we had was HOT and she didn’t seem to mind when our table asked her a few questions about the menu. She also came around periodically to check on how we were doing. So, service was solid but not spectacular.
I would come back here again.
Cost: $ 63 dollars for a pepito sandwich, a burger, linguine and clams, salmon sandwich, Pellegrino, and a soda.

EH… a big EH… two stars for the service and the décor. The food was okay– nothing to speak of or write home about. I didn’t finish what I was eating because the greens were ready to jump off of the plate and introduce themselves to me they were so old. The fish seemed to taste a little on the odd side and did not taste seared.
I am planning to give them more of a «Chance» though at another time. Extra star given for the fact that they serve customers at Wine Styles next door. I thought that was pretty cool.

My wife took me here on my birthday, and I have to say, it was a wonderful experience. We decided to order three courses and split each one. The wait staff was super accommodating and friendly. They were very attentive without being over-​bearing, and just so friendly. This place is super laid back, a great place to sit and have a lazy lunch on a warm afternoon.
We started off with the salad nicoise, which was perfect. Perfect blend of ingredients, egg French green beans, and anchovies each a car on the flavor train towards my mouth. Next up was avocado soup, which I never had before. Rich, creamy and delicious, I would definitely recommend this one. Last was the Swiss cheese fondue, the waiter was super cool and kept giving us plates of bread until it was all gone. Really fun. Mixed with a good bottle of white, and this was definitely a meal to remember.