Mamacita — Restaurant in Hawke's Bay

Embarrassing.

Ordered margaritas for a friends birthday. After waiting 45 minutes and being assured multiple times the drinks were coming, they finally admitted they didn’t have tequila in store. Requested tap beers, which they were also out of. Why not just be upfront?

Meals arrived for all except the birthday person. After 20 minutes we asked if the last meal was coming. They had forgotten about it.

By this point they finally got tequila from somewhere and so a friend asked for a margarita. After 30 minutes we asked if the tequila was coming. They had forgotten about it.

Went to pay and asked for a discount as the night was a disaster. They offered us three drinks off because they said they couldn’t afford more than that. They then proceeded to take off the margaritas we had ordered at the start of the night but had never received. It was like they couldn’t get anything right.

Pretty easy to make a poor situation right by being upfront and offering some compensation without prompting but mamacita...

The lighting was poor and I could not read the menu. Glad I read it on my way there on my phone. The staff were great and very attentive to my need for gluten free food.

The food tasted okay, but the major problem was the small portions (even for the mains) and the large amount of cabbage in every meal. I ate three dishes and they all had piles of shredded raw cabbage. The nachos had very little meat (and cabbage), the prawn starter had a few prawns and a huge pile of cabbage on top. The taco was over half cabbage; more like a small sandwich than a meal (and was $15)

My partner's quesadilla had hardly any filling in half of it. I don't recommend it. The loaded chips looked small to me, but he said it was good.

I've eaten Mexican food before and it was nothing like this. No chilli, tostadas, layered dips or soup on the menu. This is a place for a light lunch, not dinner and chances are that you will leave hungry, as I did.

I won't...

This was our third time out, and will be our last. Every other time we had dinner, it seemed the overall experience got worse. This is by far a place you want to avoid!! The place is understaffed with inexperienced staff. Our waitress was merely a teenager who wasn’t being supervised. I had to clear our table and take the dishes to the kitchen!! Ended the evening feel robbed of what should have been a memorable experience for our daughter’s birthday. Save your money and sanity, you’ll get better service at McDonalds. The owners of this establishment were nowhere to been. The kitchen staff brought one meal out for the adults, and our poor kids had to wait over 30 mins for their food. We ordered the chicken burger which was dryer than the Saharan desert. If you’re the owner of this restaurant reading this, fire your staff or train them...