La Familia Tex-Mex — Restaurant in Eureka Springs

We actually just walked in the door and I am watching every server stand behind a register at the bar and stare at us like we are idiots as we wait for a seat, none of them approach, only blank stares as if somebody just stomped a puppy and they can't believe their eyes.

5 minutes have gone by and 2 guest parties just sat theirselves down outside on the patio.... there are no signs stating to "seat yourself" so this visit has started off bad and with 1 star! I will update this visit after the dinner is over.

.... Continued, I actually thought to myself "there is no way it could get worse after the terrible start to this dining experience Well... We sat ourselves down outside on the patio (again... no signs anywhere stating "seat yourself") and I was surprised to have a waitress come up almost instantly. There was one menu on the table already and she asked us what we wanted to drink and what we will be having for dinner, lol. We were literally sitting as she came up (talk about self awareness issues) We ordered our drinks, and said couple mins on order and she took off (to be fair they seemed busy but I'm going to step out on this limb and say it's probably due to the poor productivity of the staff.)

Roughly 5 min later we had drinks and she took our order.... All seemed well at this point as we watched wait staff streak by our table since we were seated next to their entryway from inside to outside.

15 min go by... My drink is now empty, we are seated outside in 90* heat and the wifes and sons are close behind mine. Wait staff has walked past us a dozen times or more and I generally like to give them a chance to do their job before I tell them how to do it, personal Hangup of mine I guess.

My Drink has now been empty 10 minutes and it's been 25 since waitress has even acknowledged us since taking order, she literally brushes our chairs when going by but no look at us or the table. Wife caught on quick and is rationing her water and my sons is empty but we are still eating on the ice. Oh finally... She stops! " I'm sorry" she says "we are just soooooo busy" then she walks off. ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! I wanted to shake her till the change fell out of her pockets. It's like I'm on some candid camera show... I finally hail another server who offers to bring out a pitcher (Yeah!) as soon as he leaves our waitress stops because she sees other waiter talking to us. I tell her he's getting us drinks but she takes all of our glasses to go refill and scurries off again in a mad rush.

It's been roughly 5-10 minutes now with not one beverage on the table... Now we don't even have the ice! She must be punishing us for hailing another server.

This whole charade goes on for the entire visit, 1h45m into the dinner we finally get our check, the only good thing about dinner was it was hot when we got it but it's hard to give a fair food evaluation when I'm already irritated about the service so I won't go there, and we never received another refill after the first one.

UPDATE..... The remnants of the visit weren't so bad for me, I was just stuck in the bathroom for about 30min as my body disagreed with the dinner.

My wife on the other hand.... It's now 6:55 am and I'm listening to her throw up in this little hotel bathroom, she's been in and out complaining of stomach cramps all morning.... I see a hospital visit in our near future if this doesn't subside quickly.

DO NOT EAT HERE! It's easily the worst place to eat in Eureka Springs unless you are a firm believer in contracting Dysentery and/or Projectile Vomiting!

Later, I better go help my...

Sat down and ordered a Margarita, Enchiladas and my wife ordered Cheese Chili Releno. Had chips and salsa. Both very good and things are going great. The Enchiladas came and the Cheese Chili Releno came out. Enchiladas were decent, but my wife took a bite of the Releno and it was so hot she couldn't eat it. The Chef didn't remove the seeds. My wife started deconstruction of it removing seeds trying to save her meal. There were 100s of them and she gave up. When the waitress came out with the check my wife asked if she could remove the Releno from the check and we'd pay for the rice and beans, taco that came with it. The waitress abruptly said she couldn't do that and my wife asked to talk to the Manager. The young Hispanic man behind the bar came out, looked at the plate and accused my wife of eating more than one bite and that was the first thing he said. Literally calling her a liar. I couldn't believe it. He argued in front of the whole restaurant with her about it. We have no problem paying for food or anything else in life. But at that moment we were so embarrassed we just couldn't believe it. Then they left and came back with the Chili Releno taken off the Check. Ugh, the damage was already done with my wife called a liar in front of 20 something people. So the bottom line is that they really don't know that your supposed to remove the seeds before stuffing the Releno and Really don't know how to treat their clientele. We will never go back and that's probably the reasons this restaurant has...

Food was good. Portion size has gone down. Bathrooms were pretty gross. Flies all over the place and food. Employees used to be phenomenal too. As a local, I expect more out of this place that used to be my favorite restaurant in town! I truly hope our tourists are not being treated this poorly and with these attitudes. Eureka is better than this. We will absolutely not be recommending this establishment to anymore tourists. There are other restaurants that will be more than happy and appreciative to have the business. We had a party of 5 adults, 2 kids, and a baby. Refills for drinks were hard to come by. Got our food and waited for about 10 minutes to get any silverware so our food was cool by the time we even got to eat it. Automatic gratuity of 18%. Asked politely if that was the case even with small kids. We were told yes because "they usually make huge messes". After I said ok and walked back to the table, my husband was confronted with a snobby "Well we have families and kids to feed too so tough". He didn't even have time to say anything else before being basically told to leave and the lady walked off. My standard for tipping is 20% even for subpar service. So the 18% wasn't even my issue. We simply asked because that's the first I've seen it apply with children. The rudeness was my issue and very uncalled for....