Rita's Cantina — Restaurant in Des Moines

One of the worst dining experiences we have had. This was our first time coming here and will be our last. We literally just left tonight. Our waitress was the girl with black hair and an orange/yellow money piece in the front. Started off fine like normal. Ordered the queso flight and two entrees. We asked for napkins and never got them then another waitress brought out our queso flight. We waited for our waitress to see if we could get those napkins. The other waitress then also brought us our food. We waited for 20 min and our waitress then came and asked if we needed anything so we asked for napkins and more chips to be able to finish our queso flight because we didn’t have much chips when it came. We now finished our meal and tried to use the small broken chips to finish what we could of the queso flight. Another long wait and the waitress came and asked if we needed anything else and I said we needed the check. This is the first time we did not leave a tip in our entire dining out experiences ever and if the long red headed waitress were to come by us we would of left her the tip. She was busy and still was able to tend to us which we weren’t even her table. The other waitresses we saw were constantly moving and working pretty hard for the little amount of people there dining in. All we saw was our waitress chatting at the host booth and with the bartender standing around here and there. We both could not wait to leave this place. The food was pretty average and did not come out hot but room temperature instead. There was one good tasting queso on the queso flight (had corn) and my sprite was great and ice cold. We expected better service and better food given the downtown location and because it wasn’t that busy. If you want to get drunk and have hours to wait for things this is your place. I rather go to La Hacienda and that’s saying something. Props to the two other waitresses working though, would of loved to have had either of...

The margarita flights are acceptable, our blueberry was evidently the lime with not enough syrup. Was thankful that turn around for drinks was better today. Last time my friend was comped with a queso flight because she waited an hour with her friends before being served a drink. The food is nothing to write home about, you're better off just coming here for the drinks and getting an Uber eats from another Mexican restaurant. The food just missed on every avenue the consistency of the chips that accommodate the salsa are room temperature and occasionally you'll get a stale one, it's a treasure hunt with your mouth to find the good one. It's disheartening because full court owns a variety of other establishments that all have great food. Truman's next door has pizza that always slaps but I'm hoping they get someone in the kitchen with knowledge. We ordered guac and for $6 you're better off buying 3 avacados and making it at the table yourself. The serving size of it was the cutest little portion. The wait staff all seemed like they were selected by someone waiting outside of the local high school they are not solid at recalling requests but eventually they will discover that target is now paying a minimum wage of $15. They did succeed with the birthday cake taco so they earned a 2. Throughout our dinner and drinks the manager hovered around his wife and she even slipped him a deodorant stick which is rather odd to do at an eatery, the cream on top was her adamant complaints about the same waitress we had. Hoping to give them another shot down the road but if you're seeking the food it's probably best you...

A very solid all around experience. Good Margaritas, the flavored ones get pretty sweet. Peach was our favorite. They have black and pinto refried beans which we didn't know until the food arrived, but nice to have options. Queso flight was pretty disappointing, the blanco with chorizo was clearly the best. The shrimp in the tacos were cooked perfectly, definitely ordering those again. Enchiladas were all good. But the barbacoa tacos were FANTASTIC! My son loved the dessert raco, but the churro tower will bring me back again and again.

Now lets talk venue and service. The parking lot is tiny and street parking is kind of sketchy, we ended up parking at Truman's KC Pizza Pub who had zero guests. I normally wouldn't do this, but they are the same ownership group. There is a good amount of bike racks. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table at 2 pm on a Saturday. No big deal, grabbed some margaritas from inside and waited in the shade.

Once seated our server droppped off waters and chips & salsa immediately. We didn't place our drink order for another 15 minutes at least. To be honest I just think they were shorthanded. I know it's tough to hire service staff right now. Unfortunately when she was at the table it wasn't much better. The other servers around us seemed more engaging and informative, so I wouldn't throw the whole service team under a bus.

If you want to sit outside late afternoon will get you some great shade.

1x Marg Flight 5x Corona Marg 1x Queso Flight 5x Entrees 2x...