Parque Monchis — Restaurant in Querétaro

TRAVELLERS BEWARE

Not all wait staff is honest.

I was staying across the street while giving a guest lecture at the university.

I was by myself and went to grab food across the street, after arriving from the airport. I was tired and hungry, it looked like a cool place, It was a slow Tuesday night and the servers sat me at the bar. I had minimal contact and was emailing through my phone, so you can’t really call me a rude customer.

I don’t speak Spanish, which is usually fine, I can get around with translating through my phone. I have travelled a lot for work in the past.

The server who was helping me had thick shoulder length black hair, thick eyeliner make up. If I had a photo, I’d post it. She spoke enough English that we didn’t need the phone to communicate. That was refreshing.

There were no signs of disrespect until it came time to pay the bill and leave. The food was ordered and delivered in a timely manor, it was good.

When it came time to finish up and pay it took the server a long time to bring the bill and then the machine.

She was noticing me, and also avoiding my eye contact. I was both getting her attention, but she was also avoiding me. I had finished my drink a while ago, I could have had another beer in the time it took to actually get out of there, and I’m a slow drinker. She was helping everyone around me, and nothing I was doing was getting her to notice I wanted out of there, the place was closing in less than 20 mins.

It was probably 45 mins of waiting. I even considered just starting to leave, assuming they would run after me… Which is not something I’m proud of.

When she finally brought the card machine, I had my card ready, she asked me if I wanted to tip her 10% and I did, because I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt that it wasn’t what I was thinking….

But she kept taking the machine out of my hands, and said it wasn’t processing. We’re talking about Visas here, visas work everywhere. I’ve never had an issue like this before and as I mentioned, I’ve had to travel a lot for work.

I tried again, and this time the amount was different than the first time. She had entered her own tip amount, which was greater than the 10% we initially said, and I actually had to ask her to cancel it and start over. At this point I was pretty tipped off that something was happening but I wasn’t quite sure what it was.

I had to pay a third time, and this time I used another card, which went through. I tipped again because I just wanted to get out of there safely as a solo woman traveller. A few bucks doesn’t hurt me, safety first.

Turns out, now that I’m home and checking my account, those charges were going through and I ended up paying for my meal 3x. I don’t know exactly how she did it, but I’m pretty sure she was interrupting the connection every time she took the machine out of my hands, which was right after I entered my pin.

Great service for a big group. I returned with a group of people on another night and had no issues.

But as a solo traveller I would be extra careful. It sucks to leave a review like this as the atmosphere and concept of the place...

This is one of those places that survives on the quality of their Instagram posts. The chilaquiles weren't bad, but they didn't have any flavor; not the totopos, the sauce, the cream, the cheese, nor the eggs.

On top of that there are flies everywhere thanks to the unwashed sheep they have in a filthy pen next to the children's play area. Thank goodness my kid didn't touch any of them because there's no hand sanitizer handy.

Service isn't bad but they're undisciplined. When we asked for the check our server did about 10 different things before returning with our check.

Still, it's got a great atmosphere and if it weren't for the bland food (breakfast, btw), unsanitary conditions (I'm looking at last night's dirty dishes), and slow service (where's my check?), this would be...

I certainly like the concept of the park. It was fun to check out all the different areas and menus, and they even have a one for dogs! However I found the food very average at best - and the service unfortunately was just terrible. I was waiting half an hour to get my drink, and many of the servers were just standing around the bar chatting amongst themselves. We had a very unpleasant situation with the supposed valet parking as well. When we arrived there were no attendants, and when we left there was no one to be found, so we had to park ourselves at back. However when we were leaving, the attendant magically appeared from nowhere and then demanded $40 pesos for the non existent valet parking. We had to pay, but we won’t be...