Casa Catrina — Restaurant in Calgary

Given all the positive reviews, our excitement to have Mexican dinner at Casa Catrina, quickly dissipated, as service began.

We asked for Guacamole and chips, as a starter. First picture was the guacamole served. Confused as we’d never seen Guacamole in soup form, more importantly the colour was off ( I remember it was mentioned, it looked like someone had been sick on a plate).

The Horrible Starter: We asked the first server and he mentioned that, this is how they serve it normally. I asked if this is Mexican Guacamole, he without a doubt said No, indicating he was Mexican. A second server, who brought our drinks, was asked the same thing. While he was more responsive and said he’d see what can be done, he seemed to think avoiding payment was the reason 😩 we were complaining , as he proceeded to say he could get us another Guacamole, but he’d need to charge us for it. Heavily irritated at this point, we asked him to bring the better one. Which he did, 👀 see second picture. While there was some improvement ( I.e. no longer needed a 🥄, it still left a lot to be desired).

Main items ordered include: the Biriar Soup, which was bland; Tacos 🌮 were just ok. Both mains had no cheese or sour cream, no 🌶️ , no spice or salt. We were not fussy about the 🧀 as it isn’t traditional for Mexicans to use cheese in tacos. However, the absence of spices and 🧂, let the mains down.

Tap Water: We were not served any water, while the table next to us kept getting offered to top up their jug of water. On our table however, none. It was about the end of our meal, we beckoned on one of the servers asking if we could get drinking water).

Regarding condiments: The table did not have salt and pepper, it only had two dipping sauce bottles/salsa as they called it. You’d think that if the meals were intentionally made bland to cater to a wide variety of dinners, these simple condiments would be provided to help each person elevate the flavours as desired.

To the drinks, “coke and Tequila” was alright, but the “mint Margarita”, didn’t have any visible fresh mint, but had a dried lemon garnish (fresh lime isn’t tough to find in Calgary)🤷‍♀️ see pictures. It just looked like a blue cocktail. Alas we were curious if the reviews we had seen online were sponsored, unbiased or we were just treated poorly 🤔.

Though dissatisfied and disappointed, we still left them a 15% tip on the bill.

Response to owners reply: We never ordered drinks off a menu. We had asked the sever for your specials verbally. So it’s tagged mint margarita because the server called it “mint margarita” and described it to contain mint ( “syrup” was never mentioned). So there’s another opportunity for improvement. Staff should be aware/clear on what’s been served.

The objectivity question, we paid for our meals, didn’t know your business before that day and your response contain explanations/excuses why our experience was sub-par. Uncertain why the objectivity of my review was even a question??

They definitely agreed that No, that the first plate isn’t what Mexican Guacamole should look like.

These feedback is intended to inform yourself on opportunities for improvement. I hope you...

Unfortunately my large family and I had a bad experience here this past weekend and decided to write a review in hopes of showing this restaurant where they can grow. I never have had to write a bad review but felt it was necessary. I say this coming from a Latin Family, whom are all very well traveled within Mexico (not in resorts) and most Latin countries.

I'll start with the food. Our food came out at different times, no one's food was hot, I'd say it stayed under the warmer far too long, and the flavours were barely present. The tacos were extremely small portioned and below basic to say the least. Chicken was dry, and the Enchiladas were already soggy by the time they were served. The Carne asada (steak) was very thin, dry, and lacked so much flavour. Sadly, the price of the food only made the lack of authentic flavour even more apparent and left us feeling extremely unsatisfied.

In terms of service, the servers had no clue what they were doing and we had 4 different servers at different times. We sat there waiting to even be offered water and had to request it after sitting for a while. We were never offered more water again, however, one server did come up and fill up my sister's glass with another glass of water which was very questionable, strange, and unprofessional. Our main server did not know what was on the menu and she didn't understand what Carnitas Tacos were. We then were given the wrong dishes as they came out, and were passing dishes around to get them to the right person and when we asked the server what the dishes were, they had to go and ask as they did not know what they were serving. The menu was a mess and hard to read as they were inconsistent with other menus on the table and had different prices on them for the same dish. Ultimately, we decided not to stay for desert even though were celebrating a birthday as the whole experience left us wanting to leave. The birthday guest was extremely upset with the whole experience and we all felt the stress of the servers in the restaurant as they were very confused. Not one person at our table left happy, satisfied, or feeling like they would want to come back.

In the end we are truly sad to see a Mexican-owned restaurant not bring the flavours and service we are used to in Calgary. We hope this review can be taken as constructive feedback as the decor was really beautiful however, the food and service is far from being a great meal...

Was super excited to experience the new neighbourhood restaurant with our friends this evening (Friday, July 29). My husband and I grabbed our group of 4 a table at 6:00PM on the dot. The restaurant was at about 50% capacity at the time. Took us a while to even be able to order waters for the table. Our friends arrived and only two glasses of water were delivered. 25 minutes later my glass of iced tea arrived. 6:40ish, our food finally arrives. We underestimated our appetite, finished our plates and ordered more. During this period, we sat with empty plates & glasses on the table for an unreasonable amount of time. Finally, we track someone down to get more water. Upon which we are delivered used dirty glasses of water… which were not our own. A young lady comes by the table and we let her know about the glass and she gives us this awful look as if we were stupid and how dare we give back the glass of water. She doesn’t say a single word… not even a noise! Just stares at us, takes the glass, and walks away. At this point it’s 7:40PM and our second order hasn’t arrived, nor the glass of water… the group decided we were displeased with the service and wait times so we go to the bar to pay for our meals. The man whom helped us was apologetic. This entire duration of our stay we watch the staff huddle around the bar talking amongst themselves as the majority of the restaurant has empty drinks & plates on the table. While trying to figure out our bill, the man sitting at the bar finally says “I’ve been waiting for my food for 45 minutes!” Needless to say, we were not surprised. Unfortunately, I don’t think we will be returning. Extremely unfortunate because we did enjoy the food we ate! Especially at the super reasonable prices. We were really looking forward to eating here and came out extremely disappointed with the service. My recommendation would be to hire experienced staff… it was extremely obvious that...