Armadillo — Restaurant in City of Kingston

Subject – Avoid this Restaurant!

We (me, my wife, and my 3.5 year-old) first visited Armadillos a year ago during our annual ski trip. The restaurant was quite busy and since it is relatively small, tables were limited and we had to wait for around an hour for a table. The hostess (who also seems to be the owner) had a frenetic energy as she ran around the restaurant trying to figure out where to seat people. At the time it seemed rather humorous and we didn't think too much of it. Because the bar area was so crowded, we put our son on a bar stool. The owner came over and made a comment that he may fall off so hold him carefully, then proceeded to add that she was legally responsible if anything happened to him. She had so much nervous energy that we felt we had to hold him while we waited. It seemed rather dramatic but I let it go. While eating dinner, the owner was often hovering around our table and micromanaging our waiter. We also heard the busboy mutter under his breath that the owner was driving him crazy. Once again this year, with a short-term memory, we visited this restaurant during our ski weekend. The restaurant was half-empty when we arrived and the owner (as nervous and frenetic as ever) could not seem to figure out where to place us. We had a party of five this time and the last two people were walking towards the restaurant. The hostess asked how far they were from the restaurant, how big they were, etc. Once again we put our son on the bar stool and this time I made sure to stay extremely close to him. Despite the fact that four people in our party had drinks and only my son was using a stool, the owner asked us to remove my son so another patron could use the stool to have a drink. We should have left after this request but we had already invested time in waiting and were very hungry. Once seated, the service didn't get any better. One person tried to order a salad and the waitress looked annoyed, then proceeded to place the order as a large dinner salad instead of the smaller salad that was ordered. She also asked us at least three times if we wanted more drinks, not as a gesture of good service but in an aggressive way that clearly showed she was not happy with the lack of drink ordering. Later, after taking my son to the bathroom, we walked back towards our seat and it took my son (who is 4) a moment to get situated. The ever-present owner came barging over frantically with these crazy hand motions to signal her frustration that our son was standing. I told her calm down and that everything will be ok. At this point I had enough and we quickly paid and left the establishment for the last time. On a side note, the food is your average tex-mex at best and the fish is anything but fresh. Avoid this restaurant unless you want the worst...

So we came tonight for my mother’s birthday and although we had heard things declined here due to new ownership we had heard that recently things had made a turn around for the better. NOT. So we come and there’s supposed to be a host outside and no one was there and honestly I thought they were closed. After communicating through the window of the door we are sat and I will say our waitress was very nice. The drinks were all delicious and then we get to the food…we ordered a dish of shrimp stuffed jalapeño poppers as an app and I will say they were good although I remember them being better before but I did think they were tasty. Then entrees come, my boyfriend and my parents all ordered off the regular menu and I ordered a special. I got red snapper on a pineapple boat with pineapple salsa. It looked great on the plate but I did notice the first few bites were not warm at all and I noticed that sometimes the fish was slightly hard to cut. Finally I get to the point where I’m ready to really cut into this fish and won’t you know it was 100% RAW. I politely told the waitress and asked if there was any way they could cook it more or make me another and she apologized and immediately took it back. I fully expected a new dish due to the fact when food comes back it should never go back on the grill after being eaten from. That’s disgusting not to mention I work in the field and it’s a health code violation to prepare food that’s partially eaten again especially around other food or on the same grill. Well my same peice of fish came right back out on a new plate scorched and smothered in extra salsa. It was my moms birthday so I shut up and thanked the waitress and tried to eat the fish again which may I say was still BARELY COOKED. How disappointing. So then the check comes and no compensation I mean I guess I didn’t ask for it off but I don’t know at the restaurant I work at that would have been a given especially being I didn’t even get a new peice of fish. Overall this was extremely disappointing and I’m very upset with my experience. Not to mention it was extremely expensive as well with those prices I should have for sure received a new piece of fish or had that plate removed from my bill. The food is to expensive to be that sad and nasty! I really don’t know how this place gets such rave reviews because it’s really just not up to par with places I’ve eaten for...

Worst experience I have ever had at a restaurant. There were four of us, plus my friend's baby. We were sat at a table in the bar area and ordered drinks. We asked to see a dessert menu because we weren't sure if we were going to just order an appetizer to share or just have desserts. The waitress gave us the nastiest look, rolled her eyes and said in an incredibly rude manner "you are just ordering dessert?!" And we replied "yeah probably" and she yanked the regular menu from two of our hands and stormed off. The hostess (possibly owner or manager, I have no idea) came over and was just as rude and told us we were not allowed to just order dessert. I asked how we would have known about this "policy" and she replied "it has been our policy but I will allow you to get dessert because I know I can get that out quick and get YOU out quick." I was shocked that we were told we were basically unwelcome and to get out as quickly as possible. We would have left then, but wanted to at least finish our margaritas. I'd like to note here that there were two empty tables on either side of us that were empty our entire time there. The terrible service continued with the rudest waitress I have ever had and the hostess kept hawking over us. At one point, she told my friend not to feed her child their tortilla chips! How rude and insulting can one person be?!

We felt harassed the entire time we were there. It was unbelievable. I can't believe they run a restaurant and can treat people like that. Zero people skills. We were in and out around 30 minutes. It's unfortunate because they still made over $50 off us and we would have ordered more drinks- where most places make the most money. I think the policy is stupid, but if they had handled it nicer, I would have just ordered food so I could actually talk to my friends instead of shoveling our dessert and drinks down so we...