The Jalapeno Tree — Restaurant in Athens

Overall a 3 for a few reasons. Ok, the food is great for the most part. It is all authentic, i had a few friends that work at a different location and i can say it is all hand or home made. There is literally nothing from a can. Everything from the chips to the salsa, the chilli, cheese sauces and queso, the rice, beans, all the meats, everything is cooked fresh daily. I mean there is nothing from cans or packages. With that said, as with anything there's going to be fluctuation from place to place because you have a cook that does it better here and a cook that doesn't care over there so you can't really judge every single visit by one visit. You may have 20 visits that are perfect and then have one that ruins everything. So be prepared to have a not-so-great experience but I can tell you your chances of a not-so-great experience are probably slim to none. I would say that out of 10 visits 9 of them are going to be good. I eat at Jalapeno Tree a lot and the reason I gave the three stars today it's because I'm not real impressed with the Athens location. Every visit has always been disappointing if you want my opinion the two best locations are the Gun Barrel City and the Canton location, although Canton has a red-headed waitress that is not pleasant at all so try not to get her, it's an older lady. But don't judge a book by its cover because there might be a very sweet redheaded girl that works there now and it wouldn't be fair to think that she's the one, but you will know if you get the one I'm talking about you'll know exactly she's the one. Okay now for my real complaint which is what earned them three stars. So the Athens location has never been impressive to me and I'm going to go ahead while I've got the small amount of stars and complain about something that's Jalapeno Tree wide their prices can be a bit steep but it's understandable because everything is handmade so I kind of just attribute it to that but the fact that they are charging $17 for an order of chips and salsa is absolutely insane I know what it takes to make chips and salsa and I know how they make their chips and salsa. There is zero justification for an order of chips and salsa to be $17. There is zero justification for an order of chips and salsa to be $10. If there was anything I could change about Jalapeno Tree is the ridiculous price of the chips and salsa. But on a positive note at least they are still one of the few places that give them out free when you sit down at the table I was at a couple of different places in San Antonio and Houston and apparently the Mexican restaurants in the big cities charge now for chips and salsa and I think that is absolutely ridiculous and if anybody is willing to go to one of those places and pay for chips and salsa and you are the problem because that has been a staple and a free staple of Mexican food dining since I can remember and there's no reason it needs to change except greed have a wonderful day! And yes for the most part Jalapeno Tree is a five-star but like I said every cook has a bad day or things can happen so go back a few times and if you still hate it then you can leave a bad review. I try not to review a place with less than 3 unless ive gone back atleast once and then i make sure i mention the first visit and why it was bad and what i found to be fact after the second...

Came to eat following a funeral service. Lots of friends and family members that attended the funeral came as this is one of the few places in Athens. We were all sat in the banquet room, although we were not all together. (there was 4-5 different parties.) Our party specifically had 8 people, and we each ordered on drink. Prior to leaving we wanted to do a toast for our friend, and asked our server if they had the ingredients to make little beer shots. She was unsure (and also busy attending to our other needs) so rather than having her run around for us more we opted to go ask the bartender if she could do little beer shots. Upon speaking with the bartender, the manager approached us and informed us that the entire banquet room was cut off. (Keep in mind, we did not know or come with the other tables in the banquet room) We then asked the manager for clarification on why our table was cut off as we had only had one drink each. He advised that everyone was "out of control" and there was no way to "track the consumption of alcohol at the tables." We then asked to speak with the regional manager, Debbie. Debbie gave us the same reasoning, and explained that the other table had ordered multiple drinks and rounds of shots. We informed Debbie that we only had one drink each, and that we did not come with the other parties in the banquet room nor did we know them. Debbie stated that it didn't matter, and she made a "management call" due to the alleged chaos the other table was making. I asked Debbie if two tables arrived at the same time, and one got rowdy and the other didn't if both would be cut off. She said no, then exclaimed that she has the right to refuse service to anyone. I then asked for corporates number, then was aggressively approached by a man named Walter. I asked him to write down his number, which he provided. There is a very apparent lack of proper management and communication between employees at this establishment. After speaking with management, when we returned to the banquet room the large table was all standing in a line by the POS waiting to receive their checks. We later discovered that the other waitress that was serving them did not bother to ask about how the tabs should be separated- this was 100% an error made by the server. Had she properly sorted the other tabs, they would have been able to track the amount of alcohol consumed by each person which would have prevented the entire room being cut off. I would also like to add that the other parties were not causing a disturbance, it was a little loud due to the 50+ people in the room but nobody appeared to be drunk or incoherent. Our server, Melissa and the bartender Evie both provided amazing service and were very kind to us and apologized for our poor experience. If this is the kind of management that exists at the other locations, its not surprising that Jalepeno Tree is going out of business so quickly. It is absolutely unacceptable and could be considered discrimination for a table to be cut off based off another parties actions/behavior, those individuals again, were people we did not know or come to dine with. The only similarity is that we had all attended the same funeral. We will absolutely not be returning based on the utter lack of customer service/professionalism displayed...

Geez, where to start. Came here the other day with some friends (party of 9). We tried to call ahead of time and get a reservation, but they said they weren't doing reservations. No big deal, so we went up there and we were told it would be about a 45 minute wait. Again, no huge deal, so we put our name down and went outside to wait. A few minutes into our wait, this large family shows up, and here's where the experience goes south. These kids were running rampant in the parking lot, and they were hitting all over my friend's car. When we asked them to stop, the family became very confrontational and started gathering around my friend's car and just stood there staring us down the whole time, all the while continuing to mess with my friend's car. Not only did management fail to do anything about it, but they seated these people before us. We waited a few minutes more, and at this point, an hour and a half had passed, so one of my friend's went inside to check on the status, where they THEN told us they had mistakenly seated that family before us, and it could be at least another hour before the table would be available for us. I am 7 months pregnant, so I was growing increasingly more uncomfortable the emptier my stomach got and the longer the wait went on. We finally threw in the towel and went next door to Applebee's where we were promptly seated and waited on. About another hour later, after we had already received and started eating our food at Applebee's, we got the call from Jalapeno Tree that our table was ready. Needless to say, we did not take it.

I used to be a waitress myself, so I totally understand that mistakes happen when things get busy. It's not the mistake itself that upsets me, it's the fact that nobody even tried to reach out to us and let us know about the significant delay in our waiting time that this mistake would cause. By the time we found out, pretty much everything else was closed and Applebee's was really our only choice (no regrets on that, though; food was great and service was impeccable). I don't eat at the Athens Jalapeno Tree very often because I'm not from the area, but my friends were telling me that this was apparently not the first time this had happened to them. Hopefully something changes, because the way everything was handled was very poorly done and needs...