Esmeralda's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Coon Rapids

My friend and i stopped here for a drink and some apps. It started out great, we were the only people in the bar. The bartender came over right away, suggested we get the trio of pico, queso and guac and we ordered spicy skinny margaritas. The chips and dips were great! The margarita's however were extremely bitter, and I don't fault the bartender for that, i do think maybe the limes were bad. We told him we did not care for the drinks and told him he could take them. He offered to make a different kind of our choosing, but we said we were fine with our waters. He stared at us in disbelief, almost like he was insulted. He took the drinks and walked them to the other end of the bar and started telling a female staff member (in Español) that we didn't like them. We couldn't make out what else he said but he walked out of the bar and we didn't see him again. The female waitress (I believe she may have been a manager) came over to us apologizing and said she makes the drinks different then him and could make new ones. Again, we said we were fine with water and expressed we were uncomfortable and wanted to cancel the taco salad order and pay for what we had already been eating. She apologized again and said she understood. A different male waiter came over with the taco salad, we said we had canceled that and just wanted our bill so we could leave. He turned around, started walking away, and in Español told all of the staff not to give us anything.

Either non of them were aware my latino friend speaks Español, or they simply did not care we knew what they were saying. The female waitress came over again and apologized profusely, we told her we could understand what they were saying and that we just wanted to pay and leave as it was very uncomfortable. She comped our meal and said the bartender is not very good with people and that the next time we come in we should ask for her.

I do appreciate her being so apologetic and trying to make things right. However, her comment about the bartender not being a people person clearly indicates that this is not the first time he has had an issue while serving customers. That was the first and last time I will ever be at this...

We were super excited to try Esmeralda’s. We went on Cinco De Mayo and maybe that was the issue. I never ate here when it was Acapulco but my wife said the decor hasn’t change. It was nice and clean. It was a short wait which was what we expected. We were seated. We were brought chips and salsa and the servers thumb was a full knuckle deep in our salsa so I wasn’t trying it. Wife said it was good with a little spice. We started off with cheese dip with jalapeños. It came quickly but no chips. So it sat for a long time. The server came to our table and asked if we liked it. I had to tell him we didn’t get any chips. He took it back and awhile later a new cheese with chips came out. We also ordered the elote corn. I had to ask for this 3 times and it made it to our table the same time the check came. We shared the La Banderita enchiladas. This is 3 enchiladas, chicken with green sauce, beef with red sauce and cheese with cheese sauce. They were goodish. Nothing really different than any other Mexican restaurant. The sides were your standard beans and rice. We wanted to try something fun so we got the Torta. This is a Mexican sandwich with refried beans, lettuce, onion, tomato, avocado, mayonnaise, cheese and your choice meat which were chorizo, ham, el pastor, steak, carnitas or tongue. We ordered it with chorizo no onion. It came out piled high with onions. When the server made it back I showed him all the onion. He had no problem getting us a new one. The chorizo lacked flavor. The concept of the sandwich is great but that bun could not hold up at all, soggy the moment it got to the table. And I didn’t taste any mayonnaise. The fries were cold and soggy. Tasted like yesterdays fries tossed in the microwave. Extremely disappointing but we...

Our experience was an absolute nightmare. We were so excited to try Esmeralda’s because it was new and we were highly disappointed. By the time we were seated it took over 15 minutes for a server to come take our drink order. We ordered the table side guac and queso to start. Our waters came out quickly, but after waiting for 20 minutes one person at our table went to the bar to look for our drinks and they were just sitting on a serving tray at the bar… once they were brought to our table it was actually comical what we received: margaritas in plastic cups, 3/4 full, no salt or sugar, and no lime… what kind of margarita is that??? Our servers response was “that’s how margaritas come.” Our server didn’t even ask if we were ready to order our dinner nor did she ask if we needed more water or anything, she just walked away. An hour in, we still had no dinner order placed. The table next to us were unhappy with their service and the waitress started going at it with them, yelling, and giving them an attitude when they requested to speak to the manager, she literally said there was not manager lol. We got a really bad taste after that. By the time the waitress got back around to us we had been sitting there for almost an hour and a half, we had a little one to get home and to bed so we said we weren’t ordering food and the waitress got offended. We got our check and left. The worst service we’ve ever received at a restaurant and an overall horrible experience, especially with the amount of people that...