Vallarta's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Florida

Let's get this out of the way first: my rating has nothing to do with the quality of the food or the service, both of which were excellent. Normally, I would be looking forward to my next visit. But this is dining in the age of COVID, and in light of my experience, I cannot recommend this establishment, nor will I be patronizing it again.

Our visit started off well: a sign on the front door indicated that masks were required, and both the hostess and the server who took our order were properly wearing their masks. I requested a table as far away as possible from other diners, and we were given an isolated table in the center of the restaurant. So far, so good, right? And then things started to fall apart. A rush of diners occurred about ten minutes after we sat down, and the tables around us started to fill up quickly with large parties, most of whom were not wearing masks when they stepped through the front door. These tables were never closer than six feet to us, so although I was getting a bit uneasy, I chose to stay. When our server showed up with the food, his mask was down below his lips, but he left before I could ask him to put it on correctly. I also noticed that a number of servers and bussers were not wearing their masks correctly, or at all. Now I was really starting to feel uncomfortable, but since we were still separated from everyone, we decided to finish our food.

And then came the mariachis.

When we first came in, we saw them off to the side of the dining room, in a recessed area about 10-15 feet away from the tables, and figured they'd perform from that spot. Wrong. As we started to eat, they strolled out into the dining room, all seven of them, and stopped about a foot away from each table along the perimeter of the room to perform a number. The music was great, certainly. All of them were singing lustily, and two alternated on trumpet. And none of them wore masks. Not one. Before they could get close to us, we bolted down our meals and headed for the door.

A business needs to take precautions against the spread of COVID, and this one failed at every turn. It was bad enough that too many customers without masks were allowed to come in, they were seating customers in a way that potentially limited social distancing, and not all of the staff were masking correctly. But allowing seven unmasked performers, all of whom were no doubt spreading droplets of fluid while they sang, to mingle in close proximity with unmasked diners is grossly negligent, to say the least. The fact that the management either doesn't realize the risk the situation posed, or perhaps didn't care, is...

Here's another shorty review...meaning, I'm gonna cut through the sugar-coating and get right to the problems I have with this restaurant...location, Odessa. The words you are about to read are in reference to tonight's take-out order from Vallarta's. Here we go: When you order side-orders of cheese, salsa and/or guac, they NEVER arrive full. You pay the exorbitant price for these sides and every time you pull them out of the bag, they're either 3/4 full or 1/2 full. Their salsa is thin as water. Seeds and tiny flecks of cilantro mixed into a bowl of canned tomatoes puree...that's Vallarta's salsa. Guac is pretty much flavorless and forgettable. Bland. Yuck! Vallarta's cheese sauce is flavorless as well. No heat, no flavor, no good! My fajita salad was a soaked, bad tasting, flour shell mostly full of sweated onions and peppers. That's right...sweated onions and multi-colored peppers that had not been seared or caramelized but sweated. Same with the white chicken pieces...no flavor, no sear marks, no smokiness...nothing but white strips of chicken with some redish coloring to make them look like they had been made the way chicken fajita meat is supposed to be made. Fake. Disgusting. Unacceptable. Actual fajitas made the same nasty way with dried-out rice and the most disgusting refried beans I've ever seen or tasted. The vegetables placed in with the rice & refried beans were VERY wet which caused the rice and refried beans to go swimming. Nasty! The Mexican pizza was gross. Thick, flavorless cheese on top of some sort of flat bread...really couldn't tell as it was just gross. Nasty chips! Nobody ate the chips and salsa after tasting the yucky flavor of the chips.

The food from Vallarta's was Unappetizing overall. I wouldn't eat here again if it was the last restaurant on earth. I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone. So so different from the experience we had eating within this Vallarta's location about 6-12 months ago. We threw most of the food away then I immediately sat down to write this review. Save yourself some money, disappointment and a bad experience...stay away from this restaurant at all costs. If you want good Mexican food that's prepared quickly and well, try San Jose Mexican Restaurant in Lutz.

The ONLY nice thing this family ate tonight was the flan...which is the reason this restaurant...

We had dinner here 3 years ago and hated it even the chips and no flavor salsa, the service was terrible too. We decided since it had been 3 years maybe things had changed or were better. We ordered take-out and I didn't know what door was the front door so I picked one and went in. I guess it didn't matter what door you came in hence the counter person didn't know what to do since customers were coming at her from all directions. So disorganized it seemed like it was amateur night. Customers were getting mad because they wanted to pay their bills and she ignored them or waved them off. I was told that my food would be ready in 20 min. I got there 25 mins later to make sure my food would be ready.After waiting for someone to acknowledge me they asked me what I ordered. All this could have been avoided if they would have asked me my name before hanging up on me. I had 4 people ask me what I ordered but only one went into the kitchen to check on my order. He came out and said 5 more min. At that point it had been 35 min already, the other 3 people never made it back to the kitchen so after 45 min I just left. Were they busy? For them I would say yes but it was about 60 % full. Far from being packed but they were overwhelmed to say the least. A little advice, have one entrance, have a hostess that seats customers and have the wait staff take bills and cash them out. The was no clear direction so they we all running around like chickens with their heads cut off! We had to go to another Mexican restaurant for our dinner. We will never return, just not worth it plus there are too many other places to go out to eat . Get your act together folks. I can't imaging if we had taken friends there. Many customers we complaining about the slow service and wrong...