Señor Tequila's — Restaurant in Fairfax

Years ago during Assistant Manager training in the retail industry, I was told to "always begin a performance evaluation with something positive, even if it's as simple as 'employee does not have objectionable body odor.'" So I'll start with the good:

The decor is spectacular. Seriously. It's almost worth going just to see it. Somebody spent a lot of money on the chairs, booths, painted Día de los Muertos masks on the walls, murals, light fixtures, pinatas... but at 6:30 on a Saturday night the place was half-empty so if they've managed to pay off the interior decorator it must be on account of their drink sales. If Netflix and Amazon Prime dramas have taught me anything, this place must be laundering money for a mobster in South America.

(if this review is updated or edited and given additional stars, I will include the word “sopapilla” to let you know that this was done under duress & please evacuate my family to Alaska or into Witness Protection ASAP)

Unfortunately, the décor is the only good thing about the place, and it's not good enough to risk encouraging them by spending money. Please don’t go here.

Fairfax City proper desperately needs a decent Mexican place (Coyote Grill is fair to good but too small to reliably count on a table + not especially kid-friendly... we need something in between Qdoba and hiking out to Fairfax Corner for Uncle Julio's). Senor Tequila's isn't it.

If you're from Nebraska or some Scandinavian country and Cool Ranch Doritos are the high end of your tolerance for spice, Senior Tequila’s might be the Mexican restaurant for you. The salsa tastes like it came from the mildest supermarket-brand jar available in Omaha and if my nachos ever saw a jalapeno it was only a bad crayon caricature of the mascot from Chili's.

We wanted to love this place. We gave it two chances but that's one and a half more than it deserves. On our first visit my wife sent back her tortilla soup – apparently it was worse than the stuff on the hot bar at Shopper’s – and I had chicken fajitas that were, I’m sorry to say, completely unremarkable. And let’s face it, fajitas are a Mexican place’s signature dish – they should attract the attention of everyone in the restaurant, not hiss weakly like a 15-year-old blind cat arguing with the ottoman again.

Our second visit started with the aforementioned salsa, a bowl of white queso dip ($8) that I'm 99% sure was just a melted loaf of generic Velveeta, and a cheese quesadilla ($5.99) for our son. The wife elected to drink her dinner (our son is two and a half, don’t judge) & got a perfectly unobjectionable house margarita ($8.75).

I ordered beef nachos supreme ($11), easy on the lettuce & guac on the side (I did appreciate how they rang it in: "GUACONSIDE, POCALECHUGA"). The best thing about the nachos was the tortilla chips. If they even used salt to season the beef I'd be shocked. The plate had about a quarter inch of grease because apparently draining beef after you brown it is a thing only gringos do at home. (see pic)

sO wHy DiD yOu eAT tHe wHoLe PlAtE?

Well, (1) I was hungry, (b) even 70/30 beef (don’t let them tell you it was leaner than 30% fat, it wasn’t) has decent protein macros, and third, I'm fully capable of eating horrifying amounts of bad food for any number of stupid reasons (up to and including "my social anxiety doesn’t let me send food back even at horrible restaurants I don't intend to ever visit again").

To sum up: if this place lasts six more months somebody needs to call the FBI and crack open their books. I do have an ulterior motive for this review: I’m not in the habit of posting bad reviews (there is plenty of negativity in the world already), but if a decent tenant took over this space I could literally walk over for dinner and/or to pick up some take-out. Not that I would, mind you, but at least the DoorDash driver would have a nice short trip. So help me (and Fairfax) out and take your Mexican night-out spend up the road a...

I have frequented this restaurant three times. The service and food quality are vastly inconsistent each time. First visit was mediocre, second visit was excellent and most recent visit was the worst dining experience my husband and I have ever had. It took 15min of being seated for a waitress to come over and it would have been longer if I didn’t wave someone down. The waitress insisted that she was not our server and walked away however the manager then directed her to serve our table as we were indeed in her section. It only got worse from there, despite getting id’d and wristbanded at the door the waitress refused to serve us until we showed our ids again and laughed in our faces ha nice try when we showed our wristbands. She then refused to serve my husband believing his id was fake until a manager came over and told her it was an acceptable id. We were in a hurry and asked to do drinks and food orders together and the waitress said that was not something she could do. She took our drink orders and left not coming back to take our food order for another 20min. We never got the waters we asked for and it took an hour and a half for our food to come which managed to come before the silverware got brought to the table. My cousin said that the enchiladas he ordered were below average quality and my husbands 16 dollar chicken entree came out with no sides and was in his words the worst chicken he has ever had. I tried a bite out of curiosity and had to spit it out it was so horrible. You couldn’t even taste the ck and the dressing it was doused in was horrendous. While the manager took 20 off our bill for the poor experience those are three hours of my life I won’t get back. Needless to say we won’t be coming back. FYI yelps reviews of this place more accurately reflects...

first, let me just say this has NOTHING to do with the staff or service. after the ordeal, my server was very nice and offered to bring me something else & took my food off of the bill. she did everything she could given the circumstance.

NOW…i ordered the mole con pollo. i have had mole before & never had any issues. i also have a peanut allergy. there was NO INDICATION that the house-made mole poblano sauce contains peanuts.

yes, it was MY fault for not asking/notifying the staff that i have an allergy. and it’s my fault for not being educated on what mole poblano sauce is. but mexican restaurants have been 100% safe for me in the past—i even worked in a mexican restaurant and we didn’t even have any nuts in the kitchen. all this to say, i began eating and within 5 minutes knew something was wrong. it was only after i googled “mole poblano recipe” that i realized it is typically made with nuts. my friend who was dining with me ran across the street to grab me benadryl, and luckily that stopped the reaction and i did not have to use my epi pen.

all this to say, i think there should be some sort of asterisk or warning on meals containing this sauce that they contain nuts. as someone who has had a nut allergy for their whole life, a savory sauce is usually safe. my suggestion to prevent this from happening again is putting something as simple as (contains peanuts) after the description...