Santa Fe Cattle Company — Restaurant in Fort Payne

This Santa Fe Cattle Co is located near Interstate 59 at exit 218 in Fort Payne, AL. It's in a small shopping center area with many other restaurants in there as well. Our original plan was to stop for fast food, but decided to try this place out instead since it's not a place we find at home. We got there around 1:30 pm, but was more like 2:30 pm for us since we're used to the Eastern Time Zone. The date of this visit was August 3, 2018.

The exterior of the restaurant was fine, and did have a southwestern theme to it, which would be expected given the name of the place. Hours are listed on the door, but it is a bit faded, likely due to lots of exposure to sunshine.

Inside, the place wasn't too busy, but was steady. However, when we came in, there was no hostess at the counter for seating. We waited about 5-10 minutes and we were just about to walk out when a hostess finally came over (with no apology for the wait either). Plenty of tables were available, so the wait had nothing to do with the place being at capacity. Other servers were out there, but never came over for seating. This is the main reason why I dropped my review from four stars to three stars. The overall look and feel inside was southwestern themed, as expected. One thing you'll notice right away going to the tables are the peanut shells all over the floor.

After finally getting seated, our server came by right away stating that she would be right back after taking care of another table. Within a minute or two, our server Mona was at the table. We ordered our drinks and then looked over the menu. She also brought out some dinner rolls with butter. Since we changed time zones, we got to take advantage of the lunch menu. After our drinks were brought out, we asked for a few minutes to decide on what we wanted to order. In a little bit, she did come back and we were ready to order. I ended up going with the Grilled Shrimp lunch entree with fries. My mom went with the Lunch Quesadilla with beef. After about 8-10 minutes, the entrees were brought to the table. The food came out as ordered and was nice and hot. The shrimp were really good, along with the fries. My mom also liked the beef quesadilla. In the end, the food was very good. Our server was really good about drink refills as well.

Except for the wait to be seated, the overall experience here was very good. The food was good, service at the table was good, and the overall experience in the end was good. If your travels take you this way, this place is worth checking out. I think it helped that we were there during lunch. I'm sure it would be busier at...

First and last visit. I hate to leave bad reviews for anywhere, but the service was just that bad at 4:15 in the afternoon. We had high hopes with the atmosphere and initial friendliness of the waitress, but went downhill fast. 10 minutes after putting our appetizer in, server came back to say they were out of it. Put in queso dip. At the table for 30 minutes before app came out. For $10, you barely get a literal cup of queso and huge plate of chips. We had a mound of chips left with no cheese. We ordered the Tbone and shrimp/steak combo, both medium rare. Both steaks overcooked to medium well. Our waitress disappeared several times and came by the table almost 20 minutes after each item dropped off. She forgot my husbands salad and another server brought it after someone else took the overcooked steaks. We watched every table around us send their food back as well. They took the steaks back to recook, wanting to leave our sides and the shrimp on the table, as if we didn’t want our full meals at once? I had to ask to please bring fresh hot sides with new steaks. Duh. 2nd steaks came out another 20 minutes later. Still not medium rare, but by this time my husband was starving so ate his anyways. My shrimp was cold by the time the server finally brought the dipping sauce out after asking twice. I’ve been a server before. After food is delivered to the table, getting what’s needed for the customer to eat, should always come before taking other tables orders and refilling other people’s drinks. Especially since our glasses were empty for the majority of the 2 hours we were there, just chalked it up to not so great service. We had to ask her to take the appetizer plates and then the empty meal plates off the table, after we stacked them and pushed to the end thinking she’d get the hint to clear them after coming by and leaving them twice. The manager came over and said she took just my steak off the bill, and I’d only be billed for the shrimp. Like that was something to be happy about? Not that we were looking for it, but if it were me, the whole meal would’ve been comped due to a total disaster of a dining experience. At this point, we were just ready to leave after waiting another 15 minutes for her to come get the credit card. Shame because it probably could be a great restaurant if the staff were properly trained and full. We definitely won’t...

I’m not really picky person and don’t leave reviews very often at all, but tonight, I have made an exception. This is how bad my experience was tonight. First thing I had just came from church to go and here with a party of 14 (4 of which were 3 years or younger). We told them a split party was fine as long as we were in the same section. I will admit we did arrive at 7:50 pm on a Wednesday night, so I expected service to not be great. After waiting around till about 8:25 we finally got seated (they weren’t even busy for a wait that long), we waited till 8:35-8:45 before we got our drink orders taken. We waited forever on our food till after 9:30 and only then we got our food. The food itself was good but waiting that long on food with children is not awesome but whatever. Once we finally all got up and got ready to leave it was 9:50-10:00 and I, along my mother my 5 month old and a 1 year old. I told my to take the kids the car and I will pay, because they were very tired at this point and crying. Once I grabbed our stuff to leave I went to get into the vehicle and an intoxicated man approached me in the parking lot right as I was getting into my vehicle. He came to ask if I could help him find his keys because he was to drunk to drive home(props to him for that) we looked and could find his keys and I have had a very long day at this point so I ask him if he needs a ride instead. He says he does and while I’m calling him a something he says “nvm I have a ride”. I just want to say this moment speaks volumes to the bartending staff and managers on duty to allow customers to get so drunk they can’t drive, and to let them leave. I place I have ever worked or been to has ever allowed this and I almost positive this a big no no to the Alabama ABC board or even to the police for this matter. Overall I just think that these people are highly irresponsible and need to be reeducated on alcohol policies before some dies in a drunk...