Rey Azteca — Restaurant in College Township

Just got back from a rather surreal night out for dinner.

To avoid burying the lede-- the food was alright, not as good as Plaza Azteca but acceptable. However, the service and drinks were absolutely abominable.

We ordered two frozen margaritas, one mango and one "unflavored". Our server was confused about what I meant by an unflavored margarita, but when he called over his manager his manager calmly said, "oh yeah, we have that," so I assumed we were in the clear.

We were not in the clear. When our drinks arrived, my margarita was surprisingly translucent. On first taste, I only got notes of ice. Drinking down toward the bottom, I finally tasted a sliver of tequila. There were no lime or triple sec notes-- I'm not really sure what my drink was, but the best way I can describe it to you is "slushy ice over tequila", which although is quite literally unflavored, it is not what any reasonable person would think is an "unflavored margarita".

It didn't help that my date's margarita had the opposite problem, where her drink was overly sweet and she could barely taste anything besides sugar.

The service was surprisingly worse than the drinks. Our server was absent for most of the night. When we told the runner bringing our food from the kitchen (granted, not our server) that we didn't want out drinks, he simply said, "oh, okay" and walked away, leaving our drinks. When our server eventually came to check on us, he hurriedly placed our waters (minutes after our food) and also plastic take away cups whose purpose I can only surmise was in case we wanted to take our left over margaritas to go. Clear now that the runner did not communicate with our server, we manage to catch him and let him know we didn't want our drinks. He pouted, said nothing, and slunk away. It wasn't clear if we would still be charged for these monstrosities or not-- he just vanished.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, we managed to flag him down and ask for our check and a box. He brought our check over and placed it on the table without saying a word, then slunk away again. Mercifully, he did comp the frozen margaritas.

I get that ESL servers have a hard job, and I want to be clear that I'm not misinterpreting a language barrier as bad service. It was just very strange, and he didn't make any attempt to use pleasantries, smile, or reassure us that things were under control. Very unsettling and uncomfortable.

We won't be coming back. Plaza Azteca blows this place out of the water for a small...

It was my first time coming here, I usually go to plaza mexican. I regret coming here instead because as soon as we were seated, we we're asked what we wanted to drink and we both said frozen margarita and water. A few minutes later a man returned with just the margaritas. We ordered our food and after we took a sip. They were the worst margaritas I've ever had, so sweet and flavorless at the same time. When a different waiter returned with our food, I let him know I didn't want my drink, he did not take it away, he just walked away saying nothing. At this point, we've received our food and margaritas but no water. The org. Waiter appears and drops off water and to go cups and hurriedly walks away without saying a thing. I can only assume the to go cups were for our margaritas? At this point, I just want to leave, but no one is returning with a check. We see the waiter pass by and try to get his attention to get a check, so we can get out of there. We finally go to the front to pay for our bill and they asked if everything was okay and I said it was alright and he asked me to explain and I let him know the drinks were not good and he just said oh, nothing else.

It was a overall very awkward experience. The food was decent but the service was so uncomfortable and awkward. I'm not sure if that was because I complained about our drinks or if that's just how it is there. I've never really ever had to complain about anything at a restaurant before, maybe once. I would have thought they'd take the drinks away or at least respond lol. To be fair, the drinks were comped off my bill, but I did not even know till I checked out because again, no one...

I’ve given Rey Azteca many chances. The margarita tower is great to share with friends for the price, and the food is always spot on. However, I’ve eaten here about six times now, and only once from our server, Kyle (several visits ago) did we actually receive good service and attentiveness. Yes, the food is excellent every time (the only reason we’ve given them so many chances) but in the several times I’ve eaten there the service is extremely poor. On a Monday evening we were nearly done with our food before our server ever came to check on how everything was. This has happened several times before where the server doesn’t notice that complimentary chips and salsa were empty and we had to ask for more versus being offered more. As someone who has worked in food service, it is not the responsibility of the customer to have to ask for refills of anything (even drinks, which on a number of occasions has happened). Many times I’ve eaten here the servers are extremely “short” with you and do not offer any hospitality towards their patrons other than taking orders and delivering drinks at the beginning of the service. Again, the food is amazing, but the service from certain employees after giving many chances to this business is extremely disappointing. Long story short: food is great, but good luck on the service you receive. I will be calling ahead to see if certain servers are there in the near future, or I won’t be returning. It’s just a hit-or-miss place recently for my...