Santa Fe Cattle Company — Restaurant in Enterprise

Well it is Father's Day and we decided Santa Fe was where we would get lunch. We arrived just after 11:15 and I told the hostess we were a party of six with two children. They asked if we wanted a high table. Who asks that with small children? They told us to hang on while I was looking right at a table, with six chairs, that was empty and clean. They seated a group of three immediately after they came in. They were working with a group of 16 who came in after us. They looked over and as if it were an afterthought, asked if we were the group of six. They seated us in the corner by the bathroom, which is a booth.

The designers of this restaurant need to go back to school, because you should never have tables close enough to the restroom that the patrons can smell the air freshener, toilet mints, and bodily excrement with their meal.

The waitress was at first pleasant enough. She took out drink orders and returned with drinks and rolls. She was asked about plates for the rolls which is standard when you get rolls at your table here. She said she would have to check and came out moments later with the plates.

She took our order and came back to the table several times to ask if we needed anything. She refilled our drinks and brought out more rolls. When my wife finally asked when the food would be arriving, the waitress told her twenty minutes. My wife made the statement that we had been there twenty minutes and I corrected it to 35 minutes since ordering. The waitress snipped at my wife, "The kitchen is busy" and she left.

I then got up to walk the floor. There were other tables with patrons who were seated after us, and they were already eating their main courses. A table in our same area had been seated after us and had their food.

My wife told the waitress that we didn't have time to eat in the restaurant since it had been over an hour since ordering our food. The waitress said she would make it a ToGo order? No apologies or anything. I told my wife I was going to talk to the manager.

I told the manager of the issues including the waitress being snippy. I told him that I had managed a restaurant when I was a young man and found it incredible that they were having issues. He told me he had been at the restaurant for three days and had inherited the problems. I informed him that they should have staffed up for Father's Day since they were the only steak house in town.

He offered no discount or anything to make it right. I let him know we would not be back and left the restaurant. My daughter told me my wife was still in the restaurant. I told her to tell my wife to leave the food and come outside, as we were not paying for the food to take it home. They came out of the restaurant with the bags. I asked if they paid and was told no and that they gave it to them.

I later found out that my wife was walking out and put the bags on the counter. They asked what she was doing and she said she would pay for the drinks we had consumed but we weren't paying for the food. They said they could only discount $25 off the price. She said we weren't going to take the food or pay to which they told her to just take it with her.

Getting home the order packed in the bags was not as ordered.

I also found out this is a recurring issue at this Santa Fe. Good luck to the new manager. My recommendation is to over hire, train new staff and then get rid of...

I will lead with the good. Interior design is very nice. Loved the brick walls and country/western wall art displays. Unfortunately, sticky comes to mind to say next. From the handles on the main entrance doors down to the tables, everything was sticky. This was our first time going to this place, and decided going on my husbands birthday would be a good time to try it out. The server was new, and it showed. Ordered a beer in a bottle and it came back as a draft. Margarita was served in a water glass. That was extremely tart, pretty sure they forgot to add Tequila to it. My husband ordered a New York Strip to be medium well. Our daughter ordered same steak to be well. I ordered Haddock - questioned where it came from being I am from N.H. and never seen Haddock on any menu in the south. The Server said another customer asked that and her boss told her to say it came from "America"! They get it delivered frozen from someplace. I asked the server if it could be a sandwich, she said if it could, they would put it on the same philly roll they make po'boys from. I said that would be fine, just only the haddock and lettuce, if they can't do that - I will go with the haddock dinner - no rice. I have a very limited diet due to digestive health, which I explained. I also asked if the fries had skins on it. Server said they were pealed fully - no skin. So, I went with fries. Son in law and grandkids ordered burgers and chicken tenders. Food arrives. Husbands steak was medium well on one side and well on the other. A definite line - like the cook forgot to flip it - tough as all get out. Slapped some sauteed onions on one half of the steak and mushrooms on the other. Typically sauteed onion and mushrooms are done together. Daughters steak was still mooing. Each steak was to be 14 oz. Husbands was maybe 1/2 in. thick and hers was close to 2 in. thick. The mashed potatoes that came with it, they said were the worst. No flavor and tasted watered down, no other way to describe it other than saying, "just not good at all". I ended up getting nothing that was discussed. Sent it all back. Fries do have skin on them, which I only know from my grandsons plate because I didn't get them. I got a full blown po'boy sandwich with Santee Fe sauce and onions and lettuce, not sure if haddock was on that or not because it was smothered. Three meals went back, and the three of us left hungry. I won't ever recommend this place to anyone, unless they want chicken tenders or a good burger. The server and Manager were both apologetic and we let them know that the cooks were pretty much the problem, not server - outside of my order. Server felt horrible. This review is more for the owner to know that care should be taken in ensuring your cooks really know how to do just that. If you own a steak restaurant, you better hope those you hire to cook it - are superb at it. The cooks here proved they can cook a good burger and the...

I don’t understand how this place has 4 stars. First, we walk in, tell the guy how many and that we need a high chair. He goes to check for a table and a highchair. Comes back, sorry, we have no high hairs available right now. Mind you, this place ain’t packed, had it been packed I would understand. We get seated and they give us a booster (that does not have straps). My son is not even 2 yet… however, we sat him in the booster anyway and attempted to see how he would do. Next the hostess says there are no more kid menus, so my husband and I figure out other ways to keep my son happy. After about 20 min our waitress comes to our table. She gets our drink order and goes ahead and puts in my sons order. She brings back our drinks and some bread. By this point, our son has almost slipped out of his booster twice (and yes we were watching him and caught him both times), so I ask if there are any high chairs. She brings us one back and realizes we need to stack it because of how high the table is. We put in our orders and then we wait, despite the lack of staff, the wait wasn’t as bad as we expected it to be. The only things that happened with our order was our starter wasn’t correct (the waitress was prompt in fixing that) and my husbands side salad wasn’t never brought to him. Our waitress was doing the best she could, she was very polite. That being said, the food however, was not the greatest. The chips had a weird flavor for tortilla chips. The guacamole was gross and too tangy. The salsa tasted like pure Tomato juice. The queso was the only decent dip. I ordered a taco salad, it was okay. The best part about that salad was the shell itself. The catfish my two kids ordered were great, so I’d you want to go somewhere for some fried catfish, this place is it. However, If you want mashed potatoes, this place ain’t it. My oldest daughter took two bites and said she wasn’t eating anymore of it. I asked why, and she tells me it tastes like soap. Almost like they didn’t rinse the bowl after washing. We get home, and my daughter gets sick, she winds up vomiting. The rest of us are fine, but my daughter is sick now. So I can only put two and two together, which would be, something was definitely up with the mashed potatoes. This place is like an off brand of Texas Roadhouse. If you want delicious food and great service, Texas Roadhouse is it… I mean, why pay Texas Roadhouse prices at Santa Fe when you can have the real deal over in Dothan. Not to mention, at Texas Roadhouse when they don’t have a highchair, they have boosters THAT BUCKLE THE CHILD IN. And considering how packed they stay and keep their high hairs and kids menus stacked, there is literally no excuse as to why Santa Fe...