Red Mesa Grill-Traverse City — Restaurant in East Bay Township

I wasn’t expecting much from dinner tonight, but what I did get was well below my expectations. The food was bad, but our server was worse. Ordered drinks first, IPA, was good, Cadillac margarita, was mostly sour mix, which according to the menu is made fresh - definitely not true. I couldn’t finish it because it gave me heartburn. We ordered an appetizer to start - “freshly” made guacamole and decided on the taco plate, which you can order 1, 2, or 3 from a list of several variations. We settled on 1 beef, and 2 chicken (Tingy), which comes with beans and rice. I was anxious for the guacamole, so pretty eager to dig in once dropped off. That quickly changed from excitement to disappointment. There is absolutely no way it was freshly made. It came in a small bowl with a bit of cheese, tomato, and maybe lettuce - can’t remember because at this point I was grossed out. The stuff was watery and indescribable in taste. The texture was odd, seemed like there were chucks of avocado, but when you try to pick it up, it wasn’t solid. I’ll say no more, as the person who dropped off our tacos, was nice enough to take it back. Without even asking she said she’d take it off the bill. I have a great deal of respect for good customer service. This woman didn’t make it, so I cannot be upset with her. Next… the tacos…. The chicken was editable, but cool, and watery. The beef taco was salty and tasteless. I was hungry, so spooned off much of the beef and added salsa, which wasn’t bad, so I could eat it. The beans and rice were a complete joke. Beans and rice are one the cheapest and easiest foods to make, but not here. The beans looked like they were scooped out with an ice cream scooper, same with the what they called rice. I was instantly grossed out because it’s clear the beans were dug out of the bottom of whatever container it came from. I know what beans looks like when they’ve been sitting out too long or scraped from the bottom of the pan - DRY and CRUSTY (see pic). As for the server, Katie H. granted she was insincere when she asked how everything was, but I decided I would be honest vs saying everything is good and leaving mad for not giving honest feedback. I started telling her the beef was salty and she quickly turned her back to me and walked away giving me a sarcastic, long drawn out “okay….”. Personally I would have fired her on the spot, because that is no way to talk to customers. I let it go, knowing, I would provide feedback by leaving a review since she didn’t take me seriously. I was not looking for anything to be taken off the bill, in fact it was the server who stated she would take the guacamole off. I just wanted to be heard. Now everyone can hear, because Katie has poor customer service skills. I do not recommend this this place to anyone. Looking at the receipt, I see they listed the guac as a “discount”, which is code for when places don’t want headquarters to know they...

Arrived on what appeared to be a very busy night. We saw a long line, with 3 host/hostesses. We stood at the end of the line and prepared to wait. After about 10 mins, someone, arriving after us, went to the host and had their name put on the wait list. There was no indication this needed to be done, the sign says "Wait to be Seated", but we approached the hostess and asked. She said it wasn't necessary to take our names, but she would and that they would text us when a table was ready. We stayed in line. After watching the line slowly get seated, I noticed that people were approaching the hostess stand to say "My time is up." That is when I said to keep an eye on the phone because they weren't calling out names, they were waiting to be approached. It appeared that there were 3 hostesses, but only one person bussing tables, which seemed inefficient to me, as we could see tables emptying, but not being bussed. Regardless, we were patient. After 35 mins, our timer counted down to zero and we approached and were seated. (How would we have been seated if we had never given our names and #?) We each ordered one drink and received them within 10 minutes. They were very tasty. It was another 30 minutes before our food arrived. Again, we were patient. We didn't care, but it is notable. We ordered the Armadillo balls, which had the strangest texture, but were actually very yummy. I had the Cod Tacos. The cod was so overcooked and dry and hard, I couldn't get my teeth through a lot of it. I left about half on my plate. My fries were coated in seasoning, of which 90% was salt. There were literal piles on top. It looked like they were battered in salt. I'm a salt fiend, so I just shook some off and thought they were pretty tasty with the other elements of the seasoning. But when I see photos of fries of other patrons, mine had a significant amount more salt than what is shown in photos. I ate about 75% of them. My husband had a Chimichanga. He said it was about average with other places in town. He's a bit hard to impress sometimes, so it might have been great. We both took a piece of Key Lime Pie home, and I would say that was the winner of the night. It was so good. Staff were friendly, and it was very busy, so I could chalk up our subpar experience to that or the fact that I ordered something a little less popular that the chef wasn't...

I was here with my Wife about a year ago and we had a truly magnificent time! Our wedding anniversary was yesterday, and my Wife suggested Red Mesa. I said sure, why not? I pulled up their menu on line and I remembered that the next time we went, I wanted the Brazilian Steak! Was even thinking about dessert being the occasion that it was. So yeah, we were anticipating a great time! The decor is wonderful! Loved it the last time too. We were seated and our server took our drink order. There were two people behind the bar. One was clearly in training as she was reading from a drink recipe book. And she was getting no help. The other guy thought filling ice bins and getting drink orders was more important. He left her to struggle. She was clearly getting backed up. See Our drinks arrived fifteen minutes later, and we placed our food order. Our server apologized repeatedly for the delay in the drinks The food arrived about a half hour later. I tried the mashed potatoes and they were great! I then tried the steak and vegetables and found them room temperature. I tried one more bite of steak but it didn't get any better. Very substandard for a $30 plate My wife ordered three tacos with beans and rice. These featured "flash-fried shrimp". What she found instead was breaded clams! Tough and tasteless, her taco was too tough to chew. Our server tried to make things right by offering to replace with new food, but we lost our appetites by then. She went to approach her manager for a refund of the food. He was ok refunding my wife but not me. This whole episode took over half an hour to resolve. I asked to speak with him. He came out and explained that I had eaten too much for a refund. I said what, half the mashed potatoes and two bites of steak? He agreed to charge me only half. When we got the adjusted bill, he had only knocked $4 off my meal. I tipped our server explaining that it wasn't her fault. She was doing her job! We saw more micro management than actual teamwork. I don't know what happened in the last year, but it really took a dive! We drove away dissatisfied. Don't think we'll be back anytime...