DK Maria's Legendary Tex-Mex — Restaurant in Austin

The food is awesome, incredibly delicious. The front of house (service and bar) is horrendous. It's consistently been bad for years and they continue to hire people who seemingly have no restaurant experience. I don't think I've ever seen a dedicated hostess (okay, fine), haven't seen a dedicated bartender since an awesome one left 18-months ago, and don't see food runners or busers... Without dedicated staff they are asking waiters to play every role. And guess what? It doesn't work!

The few front of house staff flounders, leaves people waiting for long periods of time, gets orders wrong, brings dips with no chips, brings hot salsa with no water or napkins, and there are usually only 2 of them requiring them to pop behind the bar to make drinks without the knowledge and expertise, greet guests, run food, and bus tables... Yeesh, it must be exhausting.

The bar is just sad. We've taught one young man how to make a margarita with verbal instruction - he told us it was his first time making one - he was our waiter. This past visit, an order of a skinny margarita came back with a full centimeter of syrup at the bottom of the cup. I thought maybe it was the orange liquor sinking to the bottom, but nope, it was sweetener. It was the worse "margarita" I've seen / tasted.

Why, DK Maria's, why are you wasting such great food and a beautiful back story with poor front of house management? Invest in someone who can come in and train you how to manage waitstaff and customer service. Or better yet, turn over your front of house to a manager who does it well. The family who runs this place are failing their customers.

Only way I'd recommend going is with 3 hours of time and the patience of a Saint. After many years of giving them chances, hearing excuses about being short staffed (perpetually, for years), and giving them kind, verbal feedback met with tons of apologies, I really do wish the best for them! I hope their service finally...

Our family had been coming here quite often in the last year. The first couple times were great. I’m not sure what has happened. After tonight’s meal I’m sorry to say it will be our last. Here’s the list of events. First up the table had not been cleaned off. The host tried to take a cocktail napkin to it but just apologized for the mess and left it. We ordered a watermelon margarita w/salt and a Mexican martini. The margarita had no salt and a very light colored syrup at the bottom that unfortunately tasted like soap. We asked 3 times for chips. I ordered chicken flautas only to be told right before the other meals were brought out that they were completely out of them. I’m confused how can you be out of chicken meat and flour tortillas? Unless they are not made in house which is super sad. My daughter ordered enchiladas and was not asked what meat she wanted so they just assumed and brought her cheese enchiladas. The cheese was cold inside the enchiladas. We had ordered the queso flameado that came with no plates ( I had to grab more cocktail napkins to use to serve the queso. Our waiter seemed overwhelmed and was very busy cleaning other tables to even come pick up our payment. My enchiladas had burnt brisket in them. Needless to say we left most of our food on all the plates as well as the margarita. Honestly it was a huge disappointment all the Way around. Even if our waiter had taken a few minutes to say they were short staffed or that they ran out of stuff do to a holiday, it would have been a little more understandable. I hope that you take these complaints and use them to make changes so that you don’t loose...

Easily the best Tex-Mex in all of Austin Texas!

God bless they also need the business as very few people even know about them in town as they do very limited advertising and have had a massive decline in customers since covid.

For the record they do have inside and outside dining with plenty of room for social distancing.

They do homemade tortilla chips with phenomenal selections of salsas that are the best in town by far an authentic Mexican style you can taste.

The enchiladas with brisket are unbelievably good and easily my favorite dish there now highly recommend in addition to their award-winning margaritas.

Customer service is phenomenal with every visit being treated with upmost respect, timely check, and clean seats, tables, and food available to go.

a family favorite that when we continue to support and hope will continue to remain open through this time of social distancing and this pandemic with covid.

Also a family friendly environment they play authentic tejano music that's uplifting with a exceptionally clean environment each time that I visited.

highly recommend them next time you're looking for Tex-Mex with plenty of shared parking in the shopping lot where there is a planet fitness.

Also restrooms last time I visited men's restroom was exceptionally clean and did not smell of bleach like many other Mexican restaurants I visited over the years in Austin.

Also they are one of the few that does authentic Mexican style goat and quail dishes that are phenomenal if that is also in your pallet of food...