Monterrey Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Chapel Hill

Food was just okay (beef was tough and very chewy for fajitas - didn't taste like skirt meat cut), but other location in Carrboro was much better. Service at this location was lacking. It's the little things that make the experience at this location not great. I am not going back to this location again. They give you 3 small tortilla wraps for the fajitas, when we ran out and asked for more, they charged us for the wraps. They had no guacamole with the fajita, the Carrboro location did have that with the dish. We charged extra again. When we asked to have our drinks to go, we were told no. The Carrboro location never did any of these things. This just wasn't a great experience at this location, and I don't know if they are both under the same ownership. Also found it strange that they sell small packets of gum at the front desk for like 10 or 25 cents. Also sign about please only take one mint seems a bit rude, haven't seen that in a restaurant before...not that I even take those things...you never know how has touched them or how old they are. It's just those little thing don't make for a great experience when you are going out and spending your money. Too many other great places to choose from in my opinion. I do recommend the Monterrey location in Carrboro, only been their once, but it was a great time and the food and service was great!

UPDATED: Thank you for pointing out that both sites have the same ownership. I appreciate it that the ownership is willing to take the time to respond to reviews from customers. I guess the differences in dining experiences must have been due to the individual staff at each restaurant. I did not post that your menu stated it was skirt steak, I just assumed that it was. I guess I just expected better quality meat for the price. Again, the Carrboro location, had a better textured meat in the Fajita. I still stand by my opinion, Carrboro location meal tasted better. I will chalk up the difference to individual back-end cooking staff at each restaurant. Tortillas, I did not state there was any false advertising. I just have never been charged more for a couple tortillas when you run out & have leftover fajita mix. At the prices you charge & the inexpensive cost of those small tortillas, I don't understand the extra charge. The Carrboro site did not charge us extra for the tortillas. No one wants to feel like they are being nickle & dimed when they are out for dinner. While cost is not major, it just goes to the atmosphere & experience that you create for customers. Selling gum & the mint sign: Personally, it does not matter what kind of gum it is, it just seems strange to me that a restaurant is selling gum like a dime store in the first place…& your charging like 10 cents for it. If you sell 100 units per day, you’re going to gross (not net) $10? This feels like chasing pennies. I didn’t know it was Mexican gum; I would think just give it out as another option instead of a mint would be more appropriate. But it's your business, you should feel free to run it in any way you like. As for the sign about the mints, I still feel that is a little bit rude. I don't touch those things (my own personal reasons). This is just my opinion; it contributes to a less then optimal dining experience. Issue of drinks: I believe you assumed that drinks were alcohol. We don't drink alcohol, we ordered soda. I don't think your comments about the law had anything to do with my review of your drinks to go restaurant practice. Again, less than optimal dining experience in my opinion...which is what this post is anyway, just my opinion. I am very careful to give details that are factual & describe what happened during our experience when I write a review. I hope that it helps people decide if they want to spend their money in a place or at least gives them a chance to get a glimpse of what they may expect/experience.

In the end, I did not enjoy the dining experience at this restaurant location for all the reasons I stated above. The Owner's response has not...

My boyfriend and I have come here regularly since we moved to chapel hill a year ago. We have never had any issues and this was my favorite place and honestly the only place i would get mexican food in chapel hill until the last time we visited. We sat outside and asked about the drink specials as they were advertised on the chalkboard walking in but our server seemed to know nothing about them and told us our drinks would be full price regardless if they were on special or not, no big deal. But why advertise a special that’s not a special? We both still got drinks and ordered queso and a shrimp and rice to share. As we were eating the chips we noticed there was a hair but thought maybe it was from our dog we had brought along so we didn’t say anything. Until we got our meal and found an eyelash and a curly black hair in our shrimp and rice. We were pretty grossed out after finding 3 hairs in our food and let our server know. She literally said nothing when we told her about the hair in our food and continued to bring us the check. I went in to speak with someone about the issue for the server to tell the manager she had no clue about the issue. I do think there was a small language barrier but she definitely could have handled this in a better way. My boyfriend and I had split the check so he had already paid for his half of the meal. I figured in this case the would just remove the other half of the shrimp and rice from my bill to accommodate for finding disgusting hair in there. But the manager proceeded to only give us 20% off only my half of the shrimp and rice, which ended up being just $3 off. I have worked in restaurants for years and am appalled by the way they handled the situation. After a year of being a loyal customer of this place my boyfriend and i will not be returning. The management is extremely cheap and I cannot believe they did not try to do more to accommodate for something so stomach turning where we couldn’t even touch our food after seeing that. I am very sad to post a review like this for this place but also very sad at the unprofessional and unsanitary...

I came in yesterday with a group of friends, and although we had made a reservation online the week prior, we still called ahead to let them know a large group was coming and was told this was fine as long as we were willing to wait. Upon arrival I was told by the host that they did not have enough room to accommodate us and when I asked if I could wait until space opened up they told me no because they weren’t sure how long it would be until then (there were groups much larger being sat). Eventually another host came and brought me to a table, but I was yelled at to move by another worker because that table was “reserved”. Although, I informed them that I had made a reservation, I was still told to move to another table which they pulled away from another group who was eating (without cleaning it). We were also only given 5 chairs despite 9 people being in our group. So, we had to go to other tables and ask if we could use the empty chairs they had. After waiting for 30 minutes with no waiter. I stopped a man walking by to ask if we could get some chips, to which he responded (yelled) that I needed to be patient and wait. After waiting another 15-20 minutes we asked another lady who walked by and she helped us out and was super apologetic. We were completely understanding that they were slammed because of Cinco de Mayo but the attitudes of the workers were super off putting and made us feel like they did not want us there. This is very disappointing considering I’ve been a long time customer here. However, after last night, I will...