Paradiso Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Bismarck

Worst service I've ever had in a bar!

Update: April 3rd. I sent an email March 25th as Bismarck Paradiso suggested. No response! So since they don't care let's make it public. Below is what was sent. To Whom it my concern;

I am contacting you about your response to a Google review I had left in regards to my most recent visit to the Bar at Paradiso.

On March 20, 2021 around 6:30 PM a party of 3 of us arrived at Paradiso.  We expected around 10 to 15 individuals to arrive around 7:00 PM.

Our poor service started almost immediately.  We were at our table for what I felt was longer that normal before our server came to greet us.  We made the comment we would also like to order food after ordering our drinks.  She did bring menus but did not return to the table until after 7 PM.   Even when she returned we had to ask if we could order our food.  By this time other individuals in our party started to arrive.  The server would not greet or acknowledge them, she did not ask if they would like to order food, some did not even get offered a drink.

We had people continuous arrive for the next hour.  The same thing continued to happen.  I do realize this can be confusing to a server.  Fully understand if some people did not get immediately served but the establishment did not seem that busy and she did not even make an attempt to come to the table.  Some of the party just resorted to walking over to the bar to get their drinks.  No offers to refill waters or sodas for those that were not drinking alcoholic beverages.

I myself did not get a drink until well after the dinner plates were cleared.  Again when she was at the table, no offer to take drink orders.  If somebody would ask for a drink she would immediately leave the table to get the one drink order.  No asking if anybody else wanted something to drink.   When the drink was delivered she would sit it down and walk it away.  When she would walk by the table you could not make eye contact to get her attention.   I use to work in the Food and Beverage industry so know how disrespectful it is to wave or yell for a server so I did not want to resort to doing that.   When she did take my drink order, somebody from the other end of the table had to tell her I wanted a drink.  She then took my order, but did not ask anybody else on that end of the table if they would like a drink.

When it come time to separate the checks, she just walked over asked how to separate the checks, again no offer or asking if anybody wanted to order food or drinks.    When the checks arrived I don't think any of them were correct.  We just resorted to settling up amongst each other.  One of the guys, at this point still had not gotten a drink.  When she came to get the tab he said no I'm not ready to pay I want a beer.  He ordered his beer, others at the table wanted drinks but she walk away so quickly we didn't get to order.  Well we all decided we would just sit there and see how long it would take to be offered a drink.  Well we never did get offered another drink the lights got turned out first.  All during this time, which was probably about 45 minutes the server was sitting at a table close to the bar, with her back to us and was either eating or on her phone.

I  bet your establishment lost well over $100 of alcohol sales because of the poor service.  We had some members or our party that left early to go to someplace else that would serve them drinks.

I do want you to understand, I have been going to Paradiso for a number of years and have always enjoyed the food and atmosphere.  Yes, I've had some occasional bad service on a few rare occasions but nothing that even compares or comes close to what I experienced on March 20th.   I also use to work in the Food and Beverage industry and will tolerate a lot more than a lot of individuals and will give a bad server the benefit of the doubt but in this instance I can not do so.

If you would like to further discuss please...

Paradiso has always been one of my favorite places to eat on my birthday since I was a little girl. However I am sad to report that this is no longer true. Tonight I had the absolute worst restauraut experience here. Right off the bat our waitress was very cranky and rude to us. I had a few questions about some menu items as I have severe food allergies. She immediately switched from cranky to annoyed and started rolling her eyes at me. I asked if I could get something other than the spanish rice because I am allergic to carrots. She sourly explained I could have more beans or fruit. After we had all ordered she slumped off to put them all in. About 10 minutes later she returned and told me that the chicken that was in my meal has carrots and so does basically everything on the menu and that cross contamination would be a big issue. I said ok and I was about to order something different when she immediately walked away. I called after her and asked if I could order something I could eat, to which she rolled her eyes again and said sure. I asked what I would be able to have without getting my allergens and she sighed and said "Hold on." She then walked away to go talk to the cooks. About 10 minutes later she returns and says "All you can have is a chicken breast or a steak and I could do some beans and fruit." I told her I'd have that and she slumped off again. Eventually everyones food came and I was handed the plate in the photo of this review. I couldn't even cut the steak, it was so salty I had to spit it out, it was very tough and closely resembled stale jerky; simply inedible. We let her know our concerns and asked for something different. She said we could have the chicken breast so we ordered that. Lots of time passed to the point that everyone was already done eating and she finally comes back with the checks. I asked her if the chicken breast was coming and she said "I think so. I don't know the cooks said they were making it so..." and walked away again. I stopped her and asked her to put it in a box when it was done. When it finally came out it was dry, burnt, and small (see photo). Needless to say I was not impressed with this experience. Quite frankly it completely ruined my night and I do not think I will be returning. I felt completely disrespected and discriminated for my allergies, and I really just hope that girl has a better day tomorrow and doesn't take her bad ones out on her...

We go to Paradiso every year for my husbands birthday because he loves the Macho Nachos. We never have super high expectations because we know it isn't true Mexican food but its good enough food for us and the free birthday meal is nice. This year was a serious disappointment. I called ahead because we had a party of 12 so they would be prepared for us. I made the reservation for 7 and when we got there at 7 our table wasn't ready for us yet which was fine we didn't complain because not everyone in our group was there at 7. We ordered our drinks fairly quickly. Then it kind of went down hill from there. It took our waitress at least 20 minutes to get our order after we were ready to order. Then it took almost an hour to get our food. I would not have an issue with this had the restaurant been busy but it was half empty. By the time our food got there almost everyone was full from eating chips which is really our fault. My food was wrong, I ordered shredded beef enchiladas but got ground beef, but after waiting as long as we did for our food I choose not to say anything because I didn't want to have to wait longer. We finally at 8:30 pm got our tabs and I was given a tab for a table that was not mine and I didn't realize it right away. She took our cards back and rang everything up and then proceeded to give my card to a different table. Thankfully the gentleman who was at that table was honest and gave it back to her and stated that, that wasn't his card. She asked who was Melissa and I said I was and she took my card back and rang it up for another meal and did not void out my card for the meal that was not ours. So i had two charges for two different tables meals. Did not even received any sort of apology from the waitress. I pulled up my bank account and sure enough I had two charges, one for the other tables meal and one for my meal. At that point I did go get a manager to make sure that my card did not get charged for the other tables meal and I asked for proof that that charge was voided. The manager handled it quickly and did apologize. I didn't expect a full comp of anything but an offer would have been nice. Not sure if we will return to Paradiso again at this point. But we were there almost 2 hours and I am seriously disappointed and wish i would have taken my husband and our...