XO Waffle — Restaurant in Albuquerque

My husband & I recently went to The Sawmill Market for the first time to have dinner on a Friday night. We chose the place because it's close to the Natural History Museum where we were seeing the First Friday Fractal show, and we decided on XO Waffle mainly because it was the only place without a line to wait in to order. (A clue?)

The food court itself is kinda neat, at least in theory, but it's all built with stone, metal & glass so it's very loud due to sound echoing and amplification. Even though there's a ton of seating (especially outside) & only 2 of us, we still had a very difficult time finding anywhere to sit. It took quite a bit of wandering around, and then we sorta felt bad because the only table we could locate was a big one with 6 chairs.

The staff looked a little sketchy, covered in tats & piercings with sloppy clothes, but it was actually more concerning that there didn't appear to be anybody over the age of 20 there and they seemed a bit unsure of themselves. They did take our order and make our food pretty quickly though; they were all polite and the area looked clean. They give you a buzzer to let you know when you're food is ready, which is much more convenient than standing around or trying to guess if it's been long enough.

The drink selection is too limited and absent of most of the sort of stuff that you'd want to have with waffles, like coffee. We both had a Mexican Coca-Cola... they were $4 each, small glass bottles and not very cold. We initially thought that the menu prices were good, at least compared to the cost of the other spots. After we got our meals we felt like the amount of food that we received was not worth the price that we paid - it's IS overpriced considering the fact that you're expecting gourmet food due to the location and the website. But I have to admit that the meal was much more filling than we expected; we couldn't even eat it all and took our leftovers home.

I ordered the chicken and waffles with green onions and spicy maple syrup. I don't believe that I received spicy because it had absolutely no bite. There also wasn't enough syrup; the waffle was small, pretty tough and dry, and it didn't seem freshly made. The two chicken strips were tasty, but they looked like typical frozen chicken strips from the grocery store that were just warmed up in the microwave, rather than deep fried on site. My husband had a waffle with strawberry sauce and whipped cream; he was much more pleased with his meal because the toppings softened up his waffle more than mine.

Overall it's just okay, nothing special. I like the idea of a waffle based restaurant, but I was expecting big 'ole fluffy Belgian waffles straight off of the iron, served with freshly breaded & fried chicken. This was more like those hard, prepackaged waffles that you can eat in the car, not even as soft as an Eggo. I think that I'd give The Sawmill Market another shot, maybe during a quieter time, because I want to check out some of the other restaurants. But I don't think that I'd return to XO Waffle. Hopefully they can listen to their customers and make some improvements in order to stay...

This is a 3 star because the food was delicious. Also a 3 because I genuinely feel the staff on hand wanted to do a good job. I think Management has failed these employees. The girl on the register was brand new. She was unsure of every order. Thank goodness the kid from the back helping her out. I appreciated their effort and tipped 20%. However, it wasnt 5 minutes for our waffles as the cashier suggested, training here. Also how does the cook in the back know what toppings are added to the waffle without asking the cashier? Seems like a receipt needs to be printed. From experience in the business, unless these kids are thoroughly trained they will be left to there own decisions which are usually different than the SOP's. There are plenty of options in the Sawmill that are competing for my dollars. Also from an execution stand point, the brown paper on the tray tore as I cut through my waffle. Lee...

I was meeting up with some friends around 9:30am. Sawmill had some people but it wasn't a busy time. I looked at Xo waffles menu and picked what I would like. There was no one in line so I walked up to the register. There was one person cooking and a girl moseying around. She didn't make eye contact with me nor did she acknowledge that I was waiting in line and would be with me in a moment. I was more than willing to wait while she finished up whatever she was causally going about. But I waited for 5 minutes without anyone saying anything to me. They were not pumping out orders or anything! This was the worst customer service I have had! So instead of wasting any more of time with a company who doesn't want my business I went next door to a company who had a person tending their register.

Based on their customer service alone I...