Burrito Union — Restaurant in Duluth

Let me preface this review with the fact that our meal was comped at the end of this nightmare experience, and I'm still angry enough to write this detailed review so others can find a better dining experience. I have never had a more awful dining experience ever...We have been to Burrioto Union before and loved the food, but have noticed a decline in service...today has amplified that fact to the point that we will not be setting foot here ever again. We arrived around 11:15am on a Saturday looking for breakfast. We had a group of 7 people and arrived to be quickly seated. The restaurant was busy but by no means full. Perhaps they were understaffed or poorly trained, but the minute we got to our table, our awful experience started. We had a scattered waiter who messed up on orders and disappeared for huge stretches of time. We had to flag him down to fix and/or even be able to place orders. After we had all finished our drinks, without any refills or offers for refills, he finally reappeared to take our orders. We placed food orders and made requests for refills since that had not happened in the long period of time we had already been seated.... We ended up waiting for over an hour to get our food and only saw our waiter once when he dropped off our first and only refill of drinks for the day. We flagged a different waitress at one point to try and get a status-update on food and some refills or to send our waiter to the table...since it was now getting to a point of absurdity when we just wanted to tap out and leave (this waitress seemed disinterested in helping).

Our food eventually arrived...and the disaster only intensified. One breakfast order was missing Ingredients, another order of chips and salsa was just a basket of chips, and another order was set on an empty table several tables over from us. When we pointed out the problems, the waiter blamed the problems on a coworker... We asked for the missing items, to which the waiter said he'd get...and then he disappeared. We eventually went and picked our missing item up off the empty table, and ate our food with missing ingredients and no beverages. We all finished our entire meal without a single check-in, refill, or correction of materials. One person finished a basket of chips as his meal. When the waiter finally brought out the salsa, he set it on the empty tray without so much as an apology before disappearing again!!! Our now irritated group decided to cut our losses, pay, and leave.

We sat at our tables after everyone had long finished eating. We had no beverages and nobody in sight to help us out. We waited so long, several members of our group combined tabs so others could leave and go for a walk. We handed the waiter 4 black folios with payments enclosed and then we sat and waited.

We waited and waited and waited. One person in our party went to check and see what was taking so long and was told they were working on wrapping up the payments. Finally, a waitress and our waiter came to our table with all of the bills in one hand (no longer sorted in the black folios) and she asked how we wanted to figure out the bills... we all looked at her confused as we had sent our payments with the waiter earlier in black folios....3 cards to cover 6 bills, and cash to cover the 7th. It was a complicated payment and it was clearly organized earlier...

Suddenly, the waitress replied to the group, "can you stop just staring at me and help me out here..."

At this point we pointed out how incredibly rude she was being and how completely awful our experience had been from start to finish and how we were confused we were even paying for this in the first place. They made the decision at that point to comp the meal.

Burrito Union, we understand things get busy and we can overlook some inconsistencies, but this was a joke. If don't have the capacity to serve your customers, just tell us up front so you can save face and we can go elsewhere. This was embarrassing service. We...

Wow. We went in during a non-peak time when the staff to customer ratio was very much in their favor, so stress isn't an excuse. My husband has celiac disease, so we selected something proudly labeled "GF" on the menu. Just to be sure, we told our server that my husband has celiac and as such the meal--while already listed as gluten free--really needed to be so.

A while later, our food arrived, and someone dropped it off and ran. My husband picked up his taco and immediately realized they were on wheat tortillas. We flagged down a different server, and after we pointed this out, she took the dish away and a short time later a third server showed up with a new plate. No apologies or explanations this whole time.

Finally, our original server came with our bill. She was extremely deer-in-the-headlights throughout the meal, and at this point, I asked her point blank where the disconnect was, given that we'd ordered something labelled GF on the menu, AND had notified her that we had a food allergy and the order NEEDED to be gluten free. She had a very flat affect and offered zero explanation or apology. I gave her one last chance, telling her that I'd rather tell her about this rather than the whole internet, in order to avoid this happening again and asked how this could be prevented in the future. She looked me deadpan in the face and said that the people in the kitchen don't know what gluten is and in order to prevent it we should have specified that my husband can't have wheat tortillas--on a dish that's frankly listed with corn tortillas.

I told her that food servers and kitchen managers and restaurant owners are all responsible for knowing what common food allergens are, and for knowing what foods they're in and communicating that to the customer and the kitchen when an allergy is indicated. And, this is a restaurant that proudly maintains they HAVE a gluten-free menu--it isn't like I went into Taco Bell and asked for gluten-free. She basically said it was our fault, and that they're all allowed to be ignorant while making and serving our food.

The food itself was very average. My enchiladas were very dry. The refried beans were very dried out, and the sprinkling of cheese on them was less queso fresco and more Kraft canned parmesan.

To the business owner and the server, celiac is life or death. Since you seem to be currently making a career out of serving beer and tacos, I recommend you Google it. Burrito Union was haphazard, with cheap beer and tacos, and I only recommend it if you are in the market for cheap beer and tacos. Seekers of a more robust Mexican dining experience could check out...

Burrito Union used to be an excellent place to visit on a trip to the North Shore, practically a pilgrimage for many of my friends. Recently, however, I have noticed a decline in quality and value.

In previous years, I was able to order a burrito in a small or large size; The price for the large was around $16, and while that price has remained, the portion is now only the small size. Another problem is that these prices are no longer advertised on the main websites menu, which made for a frustrating surprise when we arrived.

As an aside, I should say our server was fantastic, the staff overall seem to be doing a great job. She was very accommodating and friendly. The quality of food remains good as well, which was the primary reason that we enjoyed visiting Burrito Union.

However, when the check arrived, it was a qr code pointing to a Toast site. This site initially implied I would need to download an app to be able to pay my bill, and even after getting past that page, it forced me to provide an email for my receipt, which normally is fine, but it also made clear it would start sending me marketing emails, and I had no way to opt out or not provide an email. Lastly, Toast charged me an additional fee: I would really prefer to not pay a third party a fee on top of credit card processing fees. To be clear, this system does not make it easier for the customer, and adds a layer of annoyances that really lower my appreciation for the business. I do hope it improves efficiency on the restaurant's end, because otherwise this feels like a downgrade in quality.

Burrito Union is a totally alright restaurant, but it's quality and value continues to decline, and will no longer be a permanent stop on my trips to Duluth and the...