Coyotes Southwestern Grill — Restaurant in Banff

I’ve kept my original review below for reference. I don’t know what’s happened for sure, but I reckon management has changed since our visit 5 years ago (and along with it, the food as well). Suffice it to say all five of us got indigestion after our dinner here (Aug. 2023). The ingredients were evidently not fresh. Two of us who ordered enchiladas were unable to finish them (and I normally NEVER leave food on the table)… The chicken in the enchiladas were super dry and the taste was just meh. (The chicken burgers were better, but nothing to write home about). The salads were just okay. Basic, bare salads with not-too-fresh ingredients. The only redeeming items were our drinks which were good and not watered down. The wine was great too. I look at my last review and I don’t even remember seeing any of the items we ordered last time. I’m almost certain the place has changed. Either that or I reviewed the wrong place last time. Note: We were the last customers of the night. That may have something to do with it, but it certainly does not excuse all of the above. Service was fine, but the person waiting our table seemed super tired.

Original review: If I could, I would give this restaurant 6 stars out of 5, even though that makes no sense!! Wow... Ok, where to start... Well, I guess I should start with the food! "Finger-licking good" doesn't begin to describe it! What we had: Corn Tortilla & Chicken Soup, Mediterranean Pasta with Sheep's Milk Feta, Penne with Smoked Chicken, Pan Roasted Chimayo Chile & Honey Glazed Salmon + red wine and dessert (cheesecake + something else). Every single item on that list just blew us away. Everything was made in-house with the freshest ingredients, and you wouldn't even need anyone to tell you that, it was evident from the quality of the food that was put in front of us. (I HIGHLY recommend my own dish, the Mediterranean pasta!) The ambience of the place was amazing. It was super lively, but not overwhelming or "noisy". Everyone (patrons and staff alike) seemed to be in a great mood and enjoying themselves. The open kitchen was the heart of the space and the energy was really flowing from there. You could tell the staff cared from the way they worked and carried themselves. The presentation of the food was amazing too. The lady who was waiting our table was probably the warmest, friendliest, most personable person we met on this entire 4-day trip. I wish I remembered her name. She was super helpful, too. The wine she suggested (after I told her what kind of wine I liked) was phenomenal. Her dessert recommendations were spot on as well (although I have a hard time imagining any dish being less than...

We had made reservations for 7:15PM and when we got there the hostess was very nice! However we were seated in a corner tucked away behind the entrance door. (Not her fault)

This is where things started to spiral...we waited 15 whole minutes to even get service at our table with some water or what we’d like to order. I understand it may be busy but the waiter was busy chit chatting away with other guests and completely overlooked us the entire time until he finally decided to bring us some water and menus.

By the time he had brought the menu we already made up our mind of what we wanted to eat since we just looked it up online as we for sure thought if it took this long to get service imagine how long the food will take......

Well we ordered the food (burger and pasta) 5 mins go by and the waiter comes by with some small dishes for our food and my partners dish has dry food stains on it...after being ignored by him we finally get his attention and show him the plate and he changed it promptly. When he brings the plate back he brings us some cold cornbread to snack on whilst we wait for our food. (Cornbread there is not good whatsoever, there was a chunky piece of flour in mine). We finished the other bread that came with it and waited for our food to come. It took about 30 minutes for our food to come to our table yet somehow other people after got their food before us.

The waiter paid no attention to us whatsoever to check in or even say how long the food would take or why there was a hold up. The food finally came after waiting 30 mins and that is the only this restaurant is getting two stars instead of one. The food was good, the burger was good along with the pasta, which we were surprised with given the service.

I would not recommend eating here as the service is not...

I actually LOVE this restaurant, the chicken tortilla soup is literally to die for. My partner and I discoverd this little place last summer and I've been obsessing for the last year to get back and have more of that soup. However I was very disappointed by the service when I finally got back to the restaurant. The waitress immediately told my friend upon ordering a drink that she's never made it before but that she "needed to learn" and if she was brave she could chance it. So she promptly decided against that. Then when we ordered the bread the waitress also thought it necessary to comment: "wow that's a lot of bread". Then we ordered the black bean burrito dish each as well as the soup. The soup was amazing, no surprise there. But my friend and I did not like the bean burritos, the flavour was incredibly off. We took one bite from each plate and left the rest. This typically would be when the waitress would ask if there was anything wrong with the food. But not our waitress. When she asked if we wanted boxes we respondeded with " definitely not" and still no questions on if we enjoyed our meals. Finally she proceeded to charge us for both of the entire dishes with a bite taken from each plate, I couldn't believe it. This is easily some of the worst service I think I've ever had. If you look at my past reviews they're all positive but today, a week after this experience - I still have the ick. Then after all of that she proceeded to ask for a tip. I will come back to this restaurant for the soup again but it will be on a...