Mole Cantina Mexicana — Restaurant in Florida

Today my wife and I stopped in for a happy hour snack and cocktail. Let me tell you I am biased because I manage a very popular restaurant in downtown West Palm Beach, but I know if anyone not in the business was to experience what I did today they would also complain… We arrived at the restaurant at 3:30 PM and only two other guests were at the bar. As we walked in everyone sitting down rolling silverware and talking at the end of their shift looked annoyed we walked in. We shook it off and sat anyways. When we sat we were greeted by an AM bartender and she made my drink as my wife wasn’t ready to order. After receiving my drink the bartender left the bar even though my wife was ready to order her drink. The PM bartender completely ignored us and asked the AM bartender if she was serving us or him and she responded he was. He continued ignoring us. He proceeded restocking one or two beers in the cooler and walked around doing dishes. It was not until my wife said “Hi I’m ready to order” that he looked at us from the tv remote he was using to change tv stations. Which he responded sorry the am bartenders pawned you guys off on me and I don’t usually start my shift until 4 pm so I’m zoned out until that time. She ordered her drink and an app for us to share as I bit my tongue after waiting 8 minutes for her to be able to order. After she ordered he started complaining about the “mess” the am staff left behind in front of us and complained the am bartender did not take care of us…. RIGHT IN FRONT OF US. He then took on his job of continuing to restock everything clean everything and did everything other than make her drink she ordered. Our app came out 6 minutes later and he was just starting to make her drink…. For those not in the industry there’s a 30, 60, 30 rule… 30 seconds to greet someone 60 seconds to make a drink, and 30 seconds to drop it off and put it in the POS. I am very lenient on this if it’s busy but only one other gentleman was sitting who already had a drink… He didn’t care and disappeared the next 45 minutes while we ate and drank our one drink. A server who was off shift dropped our app off and dropped our check as he had just disappeared. She was even the one to ask if we wanted another drink from a table not near the bar. She is not a bartender. He did not care about us at all. Even after 4 o’clock his “usual start time” he just did not care. We chose not to complain at the establishment as there seemed to not be a manager on shift. Since I manage a restaurant I know all they do is offer you stuff for free instead of fixing your problem. I did not want anything for free since we drank and ate everything we ordered. All I ask is if you manage your restaurant and if you don’t start to you will end up like everything else in that...

A large group of us went here after work on Friday 5/10. We had a long table outside reserved and a prepaid package deal which included 2 drink tickets and appetizers. The gathering started out okay but I quickly noticed that the servers were getting overwhelmed with the size of our reservation. At one point when I saw that everyone had received their drink and I was still waiting I politely mentioned to the server that I did not receive mine and she said “well someone took your drink “ As you can imagine with a large group that is gathering and talking with each other it’s easy to not focus on the time. As we were ordering our drinks we were told they were no longer honoring them as our reservation had expired. I was able to go and order drinks myself paid and tipped and returned to the table to serve our own drinks. I was unaware at this time that we were given 15 minutes to finish the drinks. A hostess Celene and manager Thomas came to the table and engaged with us in such an unprofessional manner. They told us we needed to leave, threw away our favors, decorations and drink tickets from our table and very early on even removed a table from our reservation. They became so hostile it was quite upsetting. The manager said at one point that we didn’t pay enough money to stay! It should be noted that there were open tables inside for dining as well as outside there were 8 open!

I would like to offer a few suggestions to this business for taking large reservations.

*properly staff for a large event *print the select menu of drinks included and place them on the table *communicate exactly what the terms of the reservation will be *have bussers remove empty plates and drink cups throughout the event *also place the regular menu on the table to upsell or give customers an option after the scheduled time. 40 minutes before the end of the event do a last call and prep the table that the reservation is coming to a close to allow them to order the drinks that have been prepaid *collect and refund the tickets if you aren’t allowing them to be redeemed *always offer your guests/customers an option of another table especially when you see that the size of the party has reduced *lastly exercise great customer service

I hope this information is helpful to others. With this economy and businesses struggling to stay afloat I advise you to take heed to some of the suggestion above. I hope you improve your business for future customers.

We were able to finish our gathering at Chili’s where we were greeted, served and accommodated with...

I give it a thumbs up but not a big thumbs up. We are the taco touring trio. Once a month we try a few new taco places to find the best of the best. First of all, you have to pay for chips and salsa. It’s not free. And it’s not good. Don’t order it. The salsa isn’t salsa it’s sauce. Like a mild version of franks hot sauce. The chips had been cooked in over-used grease making the chips taste burned and stale. Just skip the chips and salsa.

I ordered shrimp tacos. They come in 2 corn tortillas with grilled or fried shrimp, onion, tomato, avacado and lettuce as well as 2 sauces. One sauce is hotter and one is a bit on the sweet and smooth side. 3 tacos, no sides =$27. That seemed steep to me. That being said, they were filled much fuller than the $3.50 taco I’d tried earlier that day. I could have easily taken the 2 tortillas and I stacked them and split the filling and still had more than the other place, making this a 6 tacos for $27 ($4.50 each) deal. That’s not as bad, especially if you share them.

The first taco was perfect in every way. When I bit into my second taco I got a mouth full of salt. Either this one shrimp fell into the salt or was the victim of an over pour. It wasn’t the whole taco, just that one pitiful shrimp. But, the corn tortillas of that second taco were thick and rubbery. They were actually challenging to bite through. My companions watched as I worked to rip it off with my teeth. The last taco matched the first. Perfect. So 2 out of 3 were on point. Not bad, but at $27 for 3 tacos they should have all been amazing.

84.53 (before tip) will buy you: Chips and salsa (not free here) A burrito bowl with water 3 Alpastor tacos & refried beans with water 3 grilled shrimp tacos with cheese on the side and an un-sweet tea.

Service was fine. No one refilled our water and I did have to flag down the waiter to get my check, but they had checked on us twice after being served. We weren’t neglected. The place was pretty packed.

I don’t know if we will go back. Probably not. We can get tacos just as good for less, so I don’t see it on our favorites rotation, but I wouldn’t recommend against them. This isn’t a bad taco place, and we’ve found LOtS of bad taco places. It’s just pricier than I think it should be. (I’m sure rent is...