El Patio Rio — Restaurant in Albuquerque

My family truly loves El Patio and we do understand shorthanded service...however, this particular location was incredibly non-accommodating. Due to short staff, it was only outside seating. We had 5 guests (one of which was meeting us from 40+ mins away. They refused to allow us to combine any tables outside that are suited for 4. The waitress seating us was telling us we could do it but it's against the owner's policy. I requested to speak with the owner and she informed me they weren't there. Another waitress came up and refused to allow us to combine tables. I requested to speak to a manager and we were denied as no manager was working. I explained it would be incredibly crowded for 5 people in their 4 people table especially knowing what we all get when we do come here or the other location. She said, "5 people fit fine. It's the owner's policy and it's 5:30, rush hour and we only have 3 waitresses." The worst part in this situation is that when I mentioned our fifth was coming from his distance and that we do typically regular the El Patio downtown, she stated, "that location is still open, you can go there". I will absolutely continue to go to the El Patio downtown...that also have 3 wait staff or less and we're always understanding of any wait... But this one from the get-go with no managerial individual to even reason with, was rude (one waitress, not at all) and told me that the other location downtown was open (even though I explained the distance for our guest was in the opposite direction). I've never been so disappointed with this restaurant...and I'm still staring at many open tables... Of the service and attitude..and lack of management at this El Patio location. Didn't even need to wait to update .. the owner was called and showed up incredibly rude and assumed we did something that we didn't. He kept telling me to stop talking so he could tell me a side he didn't know at all...assuming we went directly to a table without stopping for wait staff. In the end, the food was still great and, as most times, the food was great and our direct waitress was fantastic. We were just incredibly disappointed in a waitress's treatment and the owner's treatment based off the incredibly rude and unaccommodating - unrelated staff. We know EVERYONE is short staffed! We would and do wait significantly due to this issue...and even though they needed to close the indoor portion of the restaurant, at no time of our stay were all...

So disappointing. My husband and I, and now our two kids, have been going to the original location for 25+ years. We discovered it while students at UNM. We were excited to find that they had opened a 2nd location much closer to our house. We have been back several times, trying to give another chance and hoping for improvement, but last night will likely be our last. My husband's management team was coming to Abq from DC and wanted a place to have dinner with the 2 local employees and their families. My husband recommended El Patio for local flavor. We chose the Rio Grande location for the space. There were 12 of us and while seated right away, we had to break up into two groups (9 and 3) because of fire code issues. We could join our tables, but had to wait until other patrons left and made the space available. The staff did take drink orders, but I guess were under the assumption that we didn't want to order until we were all seated together, so they just disappeared. It took over 45 minutes for the staff to take our food order. During this time our server never even came by to see if we were ready to order, if we needed refills, nothing. I had to get up to find him and ask him to come give us refills. He brought the water and made it half way through the table before he ran out. Took him another 10 minutes to come back and finish.

When the food finally came out, At least one order was wrong and had to be sent back. I found out my son's meal was also wrong, but he was so hungry he just ate it as is. One member of our group ordered fajitas and it took at least 10 more minutes for them to bring out the tortillas, salsa, cheese, etc. that goes with the meal. My husband asked for more red chile and that also took forever. Midway through the meal we did get another round of refills, but that was it. Well after we had finished the meal, we were given the most pathetic looking sopaipillas that I have ever seen. The waiter mumbled something about something being wrong with the flour.

I realize that the waitstaff in restaurants have a pretty thankless job. Maybe the team here is really working hard to cover multiple sections or what not. I thought long and hard about leaving this review, but with so many negative reviews about the waitstaff here, you'd think management would do something - hire more, retrain, something. We love supporting local businesses, but we are done at...

Management Needs an Overhaul This restaurant certainly has potential however, under the current ownership it will not be in business for much longer. We went on a Tuesday early evening to have dinner before an engagement we had. First, we waited at the patio entrance along with others for a very long time and no one ever came to seat anyone. So, we just walked in and sat at the Bar Top. Well, there we sat with no one attending the Bar and there were others seated there as well waiting for any service. Finally, after about 15 minutes of waiting we received our beverages but no food service. We waited again for another 20 minutes for any potential of asking to order. Meanwhile, several other people were coming up to the Bar asking to please be seated as there was no one around to do this. The workers are great however, the Owners do not care about them at all, and this is very evident of having very minimal staffing to do every job, it just does not work. Some other customers that were there mentioned that the Owners fired a very good crew of workers and purposely put the staff short to save money. People were actually walking out because the lack of service and we almost did as well as we ended up late to our engagement. I ordered 2, Al-La Carte Tacos and my Husband the Taco Platter which was supposed to come with beans and rice. Well, the beans came in this very small probably about a 2" solo cup with a lid and a tablespoon of potatoes. I have never seen a "platter" plated this way; this was totally ridiculous. This locations business opportunity is extremely limited and with so many unhappy customers unfortunately it will be no longer, unless the Owners decide to value their employees and help out themselves that is.... if they really want to maintain...