I love giving 5 star reviews but I just can’t with this tour. Here is our experience. We first met with our tour guide, Scott, at Hattie B’s in the Deep Ellum district. My first experience was using the restroom that was filthy. Unfortunately, that was a really bad first impression of a restaurant.
Anyhow, we had a nice basket of hot spicy (perfect amount of heat) fried chicken and waffles and a fountain drink. Presentation was nice. There was an option for a brave soul to try the hottest of the hot chicken but none of us were willing.
Scott shared some interesting information regarding the food and the different stops that we were going to on the tour. We would go to two more restaurants, walk thru an alley with many interesting murals as well as a shop to try popcorn with specialty oils. We would get in approximately 1.5 miles of walking in. (That is what I had read in the tour description). I enjoyed walking after each meal but I’m not sure if we actually got that amount of walking in.
After Hattie’s B’s we walked to see amazing colorful murals depicting the history of the Deep Ellum and music scene. You could hear music pretty much everywhere we walked. Some of it was annoying club music. We then went to an Italian restaurant and had their thin crust pizza. There was an option to purchase beer and wine. Water was free. The pizza was ok. The crust was soggy on the bottom.
Afterwards, we walked thru more of the Deep Ellum district to a Mexican restaurant where we were each served a mini street taco and a sopaipilla (fried dough with cinnamon sugar and syrup). Water was again provided and a friend ordered a frozen margarita that was served in a little kids cup. Couldn’t believe it wasn’t even in a margarita glass! It was expensive too. No chips and salsa either.
Scott kept reminding us that we could have more of the food items if we were still hungry. So, I can’t say we didn’t have enough to eat. I just don’t think we all enjoyed the food offered.
Afterwards, we were done with the tour. We all thanked Scott and gave good tips. Later we realized that we never visited any of shops or had the popcorn and specialty oils that was told to us at the beginning of the tour. We shouldn’t have had to remember that. Scott was super nice and a great tour guide but he should have remembered. He is a tour guide for other types of tours and shared some fascinating history with us and I know we all appreciated that. Maybe because our conversations were long, we ran out of time?
I just don’t think for the price, this tour was worth it. We came from out of state to try the different Dallas foods and we thought there would at least be a BBQ restaurant on this tour but sadly there wasn’t. Scott did say that there are other tours that they do where there is bbq. I’m not sure which ones.
I’ve been on many domestic and international food tours and I much prefer tours where you get, great food and drinks included.
The Deep Ellum is full of restaurants and bars. I heard it is safe during the day but at night, there is a lot of not so great activity going on. Definitely worth it during the day and maybe at dusk to see the neon lights!