Turquoise Trail — Restaurant in Espanola

My family and I came here on Thursday evening. It was probably around 6ish. We were a party of 6 (4 adults and 2 kids). The place was not busy at all. When we sat, our waitress came to get our drink order and brought them out in a decent time. She also took our food order when she brought our drinks. The menu isn’t very big, and there are no kids menus so it didn’t take us long to figure out what we wanted. When we were placing our order, we informed the waitress that one of the adults in the party has a sever peanut allergy, and one of the kids has a severe tree-nut allergy. She said she would check on it and let us know in a bit. After a while, someone had brought our food, but our waitress was no where to be seen. I asked the guy who brought our food if they knew of the food we ordered was safe for the allergies. He said oh yeah, the peanuts are safe. I said oh good, and the tree-nuts too? He said, with an attitude, I don’t know and quickly walked away before I could follow up with a response. Honestly the way he responded came off was so rude, as if he were annoyed I asked, or as if we were an inconvenience. It was his demeanor, his facial expression and tone that made it came off so bad; also the way he dashed off before I could even get another word out of my mouth. So we waited to see if the child could safely eat the food before giving it to her. A long time goes by without even seeing our waitress, we were starting to get impatient. Even the table next to us was starting to become grumpy at the lack of service to their table as well. So when finally after maybe 10 minutes, I decided to get up to go ask the bartender to please call our waitress because at this point, we hadn’t seen any other workers. Again, it was slow, so there wasn’t a whole lot of staff walking around. While I was walking to the bar, I see the host, and I asked him to please get our waitress. He looked over at the kitchen entrance, I looked as well, and seen someone standing there, then he looked at me and said, she’s coming, she’s just busy. Which didn’t make sense because they really weren’t busy at all! So I sit back down, and maybe a few minutes after that she finally shows up. Mind you, at this point, we had only seen her when she took our drink order and when she dropped them off. I said, we wanted to know about the tree nuts, if was safe for my daughter to eat them. She responded with oh yeah, it’s fine, if I didn’t come back it’s because it’s fine. At this point I was irritated reminded her that’s how what she said, she said she let us know, but thanks anyway. Then at this point we finally started to eat my food as well. I didn’t want to eat yet until the child was able to eat as well. I ordered the chicken sandwich and it was GROSS!!!!!!! I mean the taste was just so gross!!!! I though my maybe if I try if from a different side, maybe it was over seasoned on that side. Nope, the whole chicken was nasty!!!! The mix of them lime chicken and chipotle sauce did not go!!!! I couldn’t finish it. I gave it a good solid 3 bites, but realized after the 3rd, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I just ended up eating a couple of my fries. When we got our bill, it was almost $200!!! Which I get is pretty average for a party of 6 in Santa Fe, but to pay that much for such mediocre food (well mediocre food to from what the rest of my party said of their food, but disgusting to me). I truly felt like I was just robbed. I 1000% would have rather gone to a Dennys, and I don’t like Dennys, but at least those prices match their food and service. This was WAY OVER PRICED for such crappy food and HORRIBLE service. Honestly, the only reason we stopped there was because we were in a pinch. But Santa Fe has such amazing food, please don’t waste your money here! Go...

I was looking around for restaurants on the evening of 7 Oct 2024, and since the deli (I think it's called Pueblo Deli) were out of items and there were limited restaurants within a 1-mile radius of this property, I decided to eat here. Apparently, a lot of other people had the same idea because there was a 25 min wait time, which I thought was rather ridiculous since there was hardly anyone in the dining area. I suspected that the restaurant was short-staffed causing the long wait time, but I just wanted to sit somewhere and watch the Monday Night Football (MNF) game that was televised. Given the fact that the town had limited options during that time of night (I arrived at the restaurant 8 pm), I was rather annoyed that I had no other choice but to wait it out. Most restaurants seem to close around 9 or 10 pm in the immediate area and surrounding cities/towns...which I'm not used to living in Las Vegas (Nevada). After about 1.5 min of standing there, I noticed a few seats open at the bar, so I asked if I could sit there - the host allowed me which was great since I literally wiped away an additional 23.5 min of wait time.

I was able to quickly order my drink and food...and watch the MNF game so I was content. I ordered a Cup of New Mexico Green Chile Stew and the Grilled Salmon. I was a bit disappointed with the "stew" because the consistency seemed more like a soup rather than a stew. Also, the "stew" was pretty spicy so if you have a low tolerance of spicy food, then use caution with this entrée - whereas, I enjoyed the heat level. The Grilled Salmon was a major disappointment because it was extremely overcooked. I was bummed out because I was looking forward to having something healthier and with limited restaurants opened within the vicinity, I thought I was going to get a steal. Needless to say, my feelings are the thing that got stolen from this place. Of noteworthy mention, I did try Turquoise Trail in Oct 2023 when I stayed on property and got the Full Order of Chicken Wings (Buffalo and Garlic Parm flavors) and Santa Fe Chicken Sandwich. To my recollection, those entrées were great which also contributed to my return (Oct 2024) visit to this business.

I don't have any feedback on the service that's provided in the dining area since both of my visits were always in the bar area. Considering this, along with the host/hostess I've witnessed, the service is adequate at this place. The price-to-quantity/quality ratio is just ok - I am thankful that I didn't have to spend an arm and a leg for the less than adequate meal I had during my recent visit. Would I recommend this place to others that have never been here? Sure...but, treat this place as just a place to get a quick drink and relax with some average "bar" food. Don't expect this place to WOW you with their "culinary prowess," but instead provide an ok-to-questionable meal in the event you become lazy and don't want to drive into Santa Fe while staying...

Update 1/21... I'm updating to 3 stars after speaking to management. They were very open to feedback and what took place. They are working on improvements to staff and food. They also refunded my order. ..... I will update review on our next visit.

review from 1/19/20 If I could give zero stars this place would be a rare first. We were staying in Buffalo Thunder and saw the menu on main Buffalo Thunder website offering something for the whole family. We call the number to the location. I open with Hi we are staying in the hotel do you do Togo orders. Women replies with yes what do you want, but not in a friendly way what so ever. One of our items that we wanted was chicken tenders... However I was advised quickly and rudely with "We don't have those anymore", ok what about spaghetti? No longer either. Again in very unfriendly tone. We settle getting tacos, chicken club and Green Chile stew. I go down to get the order, and see about 11 people standing in line to be seated, it was good 5 mins before someone came to get people to be seated. Thankfully while in line waiting to get to hostess my Togo order is brought up, offered to someone else but I intercept. Again, staff is not friendly at counter. Get food back to room, green chili stew was very good and very spicy. Taco plate was good... However the chicken club after we have several bites we encounter a 6 inch piece of thread that was cooked into our sandwich. We took pictures. I call the restaurant and am offered zero offer options to correct. Instead I was again greeted with rude staff. In short this place is the worst part of the hotel and casino. Staff has zero...