Pepe's Mexican Restaurant & Cantina — Restaurant in Canyon Lake

My club went to Pepe's for our Annual Meeting yesterday and what a disaster it was. I booked the restaurant 3 weeks prior and said we would have 60 attendees. I dealt directly with the manager (I believe his name was Kyle) so there would be no misinformation. I confirmed the reservation in person with the manager 3 days prior. He said everything was set to go.

To speed up the serving of the meals, I purposely requested an abbreviated menu of 6 entrees. We arrived at Pepe's at the appointed time to find 1 (ONE) waitress and one helper assigned to our group of 60. The waitress was responsible not only for taking orders and serving the food,. She also had to do bar service as well.

You can imagine how the lunch went. Some of our attendees had to wait for an hour and 45 minutes to get served, long after the first to be served had finished their meal. One "lucky" attendee never got his lunch at all but you can bet he was charged for it. Requests for drinks and condiments went unfulfilled.

Of course the manager was not on the premises at the time. I am chalking this disaster off to simple greed on the manager's part. He knew he scheduled only one waitress and he should have informed me in advance so I could make other arrangements, but he couldn't pass up the money he would get even though he knew the service would be horrible. I also understand there was some problem between the waitress and the cooks which also played a part in this fiasco.

I talked to the ranking employee at the restaurant who said nothing could be done. She assured me that the attendees who got late lunches would have their meals discounted. I talked to one such attendee later and found out that the discount amounted to $1.32. Big Deal!

What the manager did to our club for greed was nothing short...

Went there for dinner to celebrate Valentine's Day. We made reservations for 630pm. We walked in and there was 6 other people waiting in front of us for a table. We were seated right away which was nice. The restaurant was busy given it was Valentine's. Took a minutes before our waiter greeted us but we were given water right after he took our order. The Strawberry Margarita was delicious and worth the wait. Our food was another issue. I ordered Chicken Flautas with Rice and Black Beans. I received Beef and the beans were very salty. I'm not big on wasting food so we didn't mention it to our waiter till we were ready for our check. My husband's plate was ok except for being plated messy. When we told the waiter about my receiving the wrong food he didn't apologize he said yeah there was another order of Flautas I just grabbed the wrong plate. He kinda joked almost as said yeah so someone else is going to get Chicken Flautas instead of Beef. He didn't offer a discount or an apology for the error but he offer to give me another plate, I declined. Unfortunately I also noticed 2 other tables got their orders wrong as well. They were being waited on by the same female. One table waited patiently for a bit after they got their food corrected, to receive their utensils. The husband finally got up and took 3 sets off another booth. The other party just received the wrong order of fajitas. Everyone that worked at the restaurant looked really young.....Sorry guys I'm not picky but 3 errors in 1 evening? I've never seen that. Next time we'll go to the other Mexican...

Edit Sept.2023 Ate here a second time. Love the food! Steak enchiladas and taco. I will continue to eat here.

Pros: The food is as good as it gets. Authentic and freshly prepared. Good portions. Quality meats and sauces. This is a great place to eat at moderate prices ($15-$18 average for entrees). This is some of the best Mexican food I have ever had and I have tried it all, from Southern states tex-mex to east coast garbage, and Mexico's domestic offerings. No grease, no bad bits in the meat. Incredible rice and beans were light and flavorful. I could see myself going here and getting some stuff to go to enjoy at home in my own atmosphere with my own drinks. Everyone in our family loved their food. You can tell that they have some high standards or someone that really cares about the food they create. I truly can't think of the last time I was this with a restaurants food. It was extraordinary.

Cons: Soft drinks were watered down and tasted horrible because of some dirty foul ice.

The atmosphere is a bit rough with missing and burned out light bulbs making it impossible to read menus (we actually got out flashlights) and VERY loud grating music in the afternoon. The speakers above the tables is a poor choice as communication amongst your party consists of yelling and repeating every word. The only positive is it was like top 500 classic hits and not Mariachi music.

Really bad smell of rancid water, blocked drain / plumbing throughout the bar really needs to...