Palenque Kitchen by Mezcal, Costa Mesa — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

This place was recommended to me by a neighbor, Oscar, who's also the VIP Host at Palenque. As such, I have recommended this place to some friends as a location for them to celebrate their special occasions. Earlier this month, I recommended Palenque to a friend as a place to celebrate her birthday party there. Normally, Palenque hires its own DJ on Saturday night, but she had already made arrangements to bring her own DJ, which also saved Palenque several hundred dollars, so it didn't have to hire its house DJ for that night.

Because I was joining the birthday girl and her large entourage later that night, I proceeded to make a reservation for a table with friends that I was arriving with. Oscar assured me that he would let his GM, Daniel, know. No reservation was found by the hostess when we arrived. Daniel had neglected to make the reservation that he was asked to make by Oscar. Evidence of this was provided later. I asked the hostess to speak to Daniel. After waiting for some time, I followed up with her and asked her to point him out to me since I knew she was busy. At that point, she pointed him out and went up to him to speak to him, and he came over to me and said he'd speak to me outside.

I figured that he was doing that because the place was very loud due to the noise of the music, the large group that my friend who was celebrating her birthday party had brought, and others in the restaurant.

I waited a few more minutes, and he finally led me outside, and proceeded to speak to me in a VERY hostile manner. Apparently, the hostess (the shortest one there) had slandered me by saying that she felt "threatened" by me, simply because I followed up with her after waiting for her for like 10 minutes to get back to me, which she never did. Daniel talked to me like I was some thug that was threatening his staff, was dismissive when I told him that Oscar had contacted him earlier to reserve a table, and was very unprofessional and severely lacking in his role as a "General Manager". I would have left immediately because I don't need to deal with people that exhibit a lack of professionalism and basic common sense of social graces. However, my friends, many of whom are women and certainly have never felt threatened by me at all, pleaded for me to stay and not allow reality-impaired staff to get the best of me. I reluctantly stayed, and eventually, Daniel got us a table. I later received a screenshot of the reservation request that Oscar had sent Daniel on my behalf. Daniel never apologized for the oversight on his end, for his lack of professionalism as "General Manager", and for immediately verbally attacking me based on instead of seeking for clarification on feedback he had received from his delusional hostess.

All that interaction by Daniel and his poor excuse of a hostess was unnecessary, uncalled for, and unprofessional. They complicated an otherwise celebratory night senselessly and needlessly by their antagonizing drama theatrics. Later that night, women complained to me that the ladies' room was a mess, dirty, and had run out of toilet paper early on that night.

Perhaps if staff such as Daniel and his drama queen of a hostess focused on doing their jobs properly, as opposed to entertaining non-existent, unrealistic imaginations, the place would be functioning much better.

I had wanted to continue to recommend Palenque to others for their celebrations because of the disappointing, unpleasant customer service experience, I realize that there are much better options for entertainment in Orange County with much more...

Understaffed and overpriced. My wife and I came here for my sister birthday. And the best way to describe this restaurant is “Instagram bar.”

It’s marketed towards a younger female customer base. Our group was one of several larger parties, all of which were also for birthdays.

On a Saturday night, the place was severely understaffed. We waited nearly two hours for our food after ordering. The poor lady behind the bar was the only bartender I could see, but she was still making delicious drinks. That is the only thing I would say the restaurant delivers on. I can’t know much about the food.

It’s your typical “modern Mexican” cantina: loud dance and Latino music are playing over the speakers. But the food leaves a lot to be imagined—overpriced, mediocre, and hardly authentic Mexican food. You've been to this one and have already been to them all. They seem to be all over Southern California. Again, the demographic appears to be young millennial woman who wanna show up to take pictures of their fancy drinks and post them on Instagram. Again, I’ll compliment the bartender for making consistently delicious and visually appealing drinks, but that’s about it. Don’t come here if you’re expecting authentic Mexican cuisine or even good food, for that matter. I would probably recommend this place for a happy hour with one or two of your friends, Max, as it seems that they are still having a staffing crisis, and I feel like groups of eight or more would just put too much...

This place just recently opened and they have a long way to go. We sat down and the table next to us had been waiting for about 20 min to get their leftover food boxes. They were told the boxes were “in storage” We waited for about 15 minutes for one of the wait staff just to acknowledge we were sat. The menu is limited and even though they have tacos on the menu, you can’t get them until “late night or Taco Tuesday” the waiter did apologize and said they should have indicated that on the menu. The tables are somewhat squeezed into the space. I understand maximizing profit, however some tables were uncomfortably close to one another. We ordered the Mole and the Birria. The mole came out drenched in sauce, it was like someone dumped a #10 can of hot fudge over chicken. The chicken it self was salty and inedible. The birria came out and it appeared to be burned. Upon tasting it, the broth and the meat had a strong burned taste, it was so bad we couldn’t eat it. The tortilla’s that are served came out like little rubber disk. You had to bite and pull the rest of the tortilla away from you mouth to get a piece. The staff was disorganized and seemed to be scrambling throughout the restaurant. It took another 15 min just for the manager to come get feedback on our food. I thought this was strange as I saw more “managers” then I did staff. This is a very competitive food market, and if this place doesn’t get its act together it...