Hotrods Old Vail — Restaurant in Arizona

I'm a car guy. When I found out about this place I was excited to try it. I'm also a food guy. I dine out 3-4 nights a week. I expected the food to be average...At LEAST average.

The atmosphere is great. I worked on cars for a living before moving to Arizona. The garage was legit. You can see the engine assembly room with engines in various states of assembly. You can also see the fabrication shop. Pretty well equipped shop with a Bridgeport along with all the other tools you would expect to see. You also see some vehicles in various states of assembly. Very cool concept.

But the food. My burger was blah. Everything tasted old. Just a gristly, greasy, low quality patty on a plain old bun with one slice of plain old soft lettuce The fries were plain, yellow fries and didn't taste fresh. From the freezer to the fryer. The soft drinks were a bit flat. The wife wouldn't finish her sandwich. Even the Mac & Cheese was unappealing to my 3 year old. Seriously, how bad is the Mac & Cheese that a 3 year old won't eat it? To put it in perspective, you would get a much better meal and pay much less for it at Denny's.

What would make a bad meal worse? Waiting an hour for it on a slow night. We watched a couple that came in after us eat and leave before we were served. That is unacceptable. When we were served, we realized that the Mayo we requested was missing and there was no catsup at the table. My wife had to get up and track down another employee because our server went outside to smoke and talk on the phone. The service in general wasn't great. The employees weren't rude but you got he sense that they were just going through the motions. They could probably care less if there were any customers there. It was somewhat erie, like in the movies when the out of towner walks into the small town dinner and everyone is just existing.

Another annoyance is the bathroom. They tried to cram so many stalls and urinals into a small space that it's not functional. I don't remember how many stalls, but there's stalls on one wall and urinals on the opposite wall with a narrow aisle between them. At the end of the aisle is the baby changing station. So I go in with my nearly potty trained toddler. A man walks in before us and proceeds to use the urinal on the end right next to the baby changing station, effectively blocking us from using it, and takes the longest piss, it must've been two minutes. That urinal is so close to the baby changing station that you can't even stand square in front of the urinal, you must cant your body to the right or stand to the left of center. Why in the hell would you choose that urinal? Why cram so many "facilities" into such a small room? There isn't going to be a line at the bathroom. The food quality has that taken care of.

Its too bad. There was definitely ALOT of money spent on this huge facility. It could accommodate alot of people. There's so much potential. I want it to be great, however, I have no...

We tried to give Hotrods one last shot after some positive reviews. We came here on a Sunday. At first we thought it might have gone out of business because of how overgrown the landscaping was. Weeds, new trees and bushes that aren't supposed to be there over grown side walks, trees haven't been trimmed in at least a few months. So already off to a bad start. We sat down in a mostly empty restaurant. Our waitress/the bartender was great. Menu is still terrible and calling sides spare parts is dumb. All the good options they used to have have been gotten rid of. They are now only open 12-8PM Thursday thru Sunday. Yet when we were there the bartender was coving the bar and the dining room. They had a teenage hostess and one more waitress, maybe 2. And a busboy/line cook? They may have had 7 employees for 50+ customers including a group of 40 bikers. Our appetizer was pretzel bites, but they were lukewarm and the cheese tasted weird. My Ruben was awful, the bread was way too toasted, the pastrami was like a few slices of shoe leather or beef jerky. Very little sauerkraut. The fries are just bottom of the barrel for quality. The Fish and chips was a quarter sized by 5 inches long ribbon of Cod covered in an inch of breading. I have always wanted Hot Rods to succeed because the concept is cool and the atmosphere could be great but it has been awful food every single time. They constantly say we have new management, new cooks, but every time I give it another chance it's terrible. I just don't understand this place. It always seems like someone comes up with a plan and then the owner goes hmmm naaaa I know we just will be open 8 hours 4 days a week that way we can hire the fewest employees possible. And we will stop doing landscaping to save money. I don't understand who they are hiring for the kitchen. I get better food at multiple low end national chains so I can't understand why the kitchen at Hotrods can't get anything remotely right ever. Not one thing at hotrods is even remotely difficult to make, it's all burgers and sandwiches and fried faire and they can't get any of it right. The picture shows the condition of the Ruben meat, I knew it was going to be bad the second I saw how dark it was. The fish looked good initially but one my buy bit into it he said it's all bread so we dissected one on the left side of the picture is how much fish was in there. Last time I ever go to Hotrods. Period. My buddy said the same. They do have a military discount of 10% so that's...

My family, friends and I have been to Hot Rods more times than I can count. We eat out a ton and when we want to stay close by this is the spot. I have read many of the reviews here and mainly chuckle. First off you can't please everyone, that's a given. Secondly its a hot rod bar then a restaurant. Before I get started eat the shrimp poppers, just do! I started working in the food industry at 14 and moved up to cooking in the finest restaurants in Tucson, most are closed now unfortunately. The food here isn't the greatest in Southern Arizona but it has a cool vibe and I have never had a terrible experience. Sometimes we get servers that you can tell are new to their job but that's no reason to complain, they all have to start out somewhere and from someone with a food service back ground I can understand, you just need to be a little more patient. I am no longer in the service industry because customers are too damn rude and just all around a pain in the a double snakes. As I said before I worked in some amazing restaurants and even there no matter how perfectly the food was prepared and presented people still found some reason to complain. Yeah sometimes employees have a off night, maybe lost a pet, a loved one, had a break up or just felt like crap and your dining experience wasn't perfect. Customers never even give that a second thought, its just about them. I will stop because I could go on forever. Just remember that this is a bar and they serve pretty decent food, if your food is over cooked or you don't like it let your server know nicely and you will be taken care of. Get a attitude and well good luck. I hope this place takes off like crazy and franchises start popping up, its super cool and laid back. As far as the mechanic shop side goes, I'm not sure many of the people posting here have even have service done here, nor have I. I do all of my own automotive work and also restore classic trucks and bikes so I have no need for their services but I have seen some sweet builds come out of the shop. Read the reviews, be a tad more human and give them a shot. I have been to some supposedly terrible places (according to pissed off complaints) and had a excellent meal and service. We all now the old saying "you can't judge a book by its cover", same goes for all the crappy...