Fiesta Ranchera Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomington

Let me start by saying that I am a private chef, and have been a chef for 16 years. I have earned 3 best of city search awards as the executive chef of Prime Only Steak and Seafood in Raleigh, NC. I have been a Sous Chef at many award winning restaurants. That being said I can be critical of restaurants, but I also know very well what goes on behind the scenes. So I know that the experience I had here was pure neglect and incompetence.

First of all, when I go to a Mexican Restaurant I except homemade salsa and guacamole. This place served me pre-made versions with stale chips. This is unusual because it is actually cheaper to make it in store, and is really very easy. And the chips take literally a minute to fry fresh. All decent places make their own, so this was the first disappointment.

Second, the restaurant was half empty when we showed up so waiting 20 minutes to just get a drink order is unacceptable. To make it worse, the server took my drink order and then my wife's and then walked away without taking an order for my 3 daughters. NEVER at any point in the meal did he take an order for my kids despite the fact that we asked for 3 waters. I ordered the 64 ounce "Monster Margarita" that is nearly $15. There was not a drop of tequila in it, it was pure mix and ice, nothing more. They did not fix it.

One of the reasons we like going to Mexican food restaurants with our kids is that the food comes out quickly. The reason for this is that the bulk of the food is made in bulk and already made at the point it is ordered. So there is no reason to take 45 minutes. And it gets worse, my 6 year old and two year old did not get their chicken tender meal for almost 15 minutes after that. My meal was okay, just ok. Definitely not the best Mexican food I've ever had. But my wife's was gross. She ordered the carne asada, which is hard to mess up. Not only was it not marinated, but it had no seasoning at all, not even salt and pepper. On top of that it was very dry and chewy to the point she just couldn't eat it. When she told the server his response was to shrug his shoulders and I quote, "Oh, well" and walked away. He did NOT offer to fix it, or get a new one, or take it off the bill. You know, exercise basic customer service.

The nail in the coffin for Fiesta Ranchera is when we went to pay we talked to them about the abhorrent service and sub-par and food they told my wife, "come on it wasn't that bad" proceeded to tell her she was wrong about both the food and service. We thought about just not paying at all, the only reason we did is I did not want a legal hassle. We certainly did NOT get what we paid for. We did not leave a tip, and we will never return.

There is no excuse for this sort of incompetence. The management has no idea how to run a restaurant, train its people, or exercise customer service. This place is an...

We had a large group and the restaurant was a little busy. It took them awhile to get drink orders and were slow to get chips and salsa out. That did improve but was a slow start.

When I ordered I explained that I couldn't eat meat and asked if my food could be cooked on a clean grill or pan away from meat. Our server said yes that they could do that. Unfortunately, my vegetarian taco salad had a large piece of chicken in it and I did not eat eat it.

It was a waste of food. The taco salad looked good other then all the oil that ran out of it when I first cracked a piece off the side. That is also when I found the chicken. They did offer to remake and asked if there was anything they could do. I have no trust in the kitchen when this happens and I usually not eat. It's such a big waste of food and I hated to see them throw it in the bin.

Everyone liked their food. My wife really enjoyed her vegetarian chimichanga. She's not concerned as much about meat as I am. She would just pick it out if she found it. She did not have that issue though and said it was one of the best Mexican dishes she's had at a restaurant. My kids both got chicken on the beach and said it was okay.

Our server worked hard and you could tell he felt bad about the meat. They did a nice job with the large group after the slow start. We were able to make it back to the arena for the basketball game in plenty of time.

Vegan and vegetarians should know that their food is not cooked separately from mean. It's a shame because the have some nice vegetable options like broccoli, cauliflower, and zucchini. I would not recommend this place of you...

My husband and kids and I had dinner at this restaurant on Sunday, February 15th around 5 p.m. Everything was clean, and the waiter attended to us consistently, which was nice. My husband had the Texas Fajitas. I had the Ranchero Steak. The kids ate off the kids' menu. We took our dessert (fried ice cream) home as we were too stuffed to eat it there. My entree was so good that I wanted to have it again two days later, so my kids and I drove back over to the same restaurant to order it as take out. I didn't feel like getting out of the car, and I sent my son in to order the food and I gave him a $100 bill to pay for it with. The Ranchero steak was $9.99 before tax and my fried ice cream was $3.95 before tax. So, I figured with tax my order should have been around $16 or so. When the change came back to the car, I received only $81 back whereas my ticket said I should have gotten $84 and some change back. :-/ It was so cold and I wasn't feeling well enough to complain so I just took the loss of those few dollars. I drew the line though at home after eating my entree and then in the middle of eating my fried ice cream, there was a black mustache hair in my ice cream. It happened to be underneath the corn flakes my fried ice cream was rolled in. :( I was instantly grossed out and disgusted. I just threw the rest of it away. Even though I loved the entree, I don't think I'll be eating there again. I don't like thieves and I don't like hair in...