Pepper's Taqueria and Cantina — Restaurant in Fort Walton Beach

So, I don't get the one star reviews for "take out." Ignore those. You cannot give a bad review just because when you arrived to pick your food up, it wasn't hot or something was missing. You just address these concerns and from my experience here for the first time, I'm sure they would honor making things right. Ok, for my review. If you can't get to Mexico, this is the next best thing. These guys are serious about their authentic food as well as staff. Handmade corn tortillas. C'mon now. The chef here knows flavor and seasoning. Props to him for that. We came in around noon on a weekday and it was steady but not so busy that there was a wait. We were taken care of right away from the seating, to the drink order, to the order and to the food arriving. This place is a bit pricey but what place isn't? The difference here is they don't raise their prices and skimp on portion. You get what you get when you paid half of what you used to pay. That's not the case with most other restaurants. I do have to say that it's a little much to be charging $3.49 for an iced tea that they didn't even come to ask to refill. Almost $4 for an iced tea? How can this be justified? It can't. Another gripe that I have is that our waitress didn't deliver the food, which is fine, but she didn't even come to our table to make sure that everything was ok while we were eating or as she delivered the bill. We never saw her again after placing the order. I would have asked for sour cream but whatever. It didn't ruin my meal, it just would have been nice not to have flagged down another server to get that, which I opted not to do. The one pet peeve I have is a waiter coming to your table with the bill telling you that they're leaving because they're shift is over. Oh, stay as long as you want, you don't have to tap out however, after our server left, nobody serviced our table. We were still eating when she did told us she was leaving. Our empty plates remained on our table until we left. No server that walked by and there were many, opted to take the dishes or ask if we wanted more water, etc., so we sat there with all of this stuff in front of us. I can't stand that. NO server should leave or even tell their table that they're leaving until that table is gone. Then the shift is over but not before. When a bill is almost $40 bucks, you respect that table. It's not like it used to be where you can do a lunch for $15 bucks. Anyway, enough said. I hope management reads these valuable comments by their customers in order to better their operation. I sure would. It would be a conversation at the next team meeting. That being said, I would have...

This was our first time to this Peppers on Mary Esther Cutoff (we’re locals) and go to the Shalimar and Niceville Peppers quite frequently. We have always had superb service at every visit…however, this first visit to the Mary Esther location was an awful experience. First we get there and they sit us in the first corner booth, that has no light and is super dark you can’t see anything. Then the waitress comes to take our drink order and I try to order a mojito and she comes back saying they’re out of ‘mint’…and asked if I want another drink instead. So I looked at their cocktail signature drinks, thinking, ‘okay I’ll just get one of these knowing it’ll be easy and they’ll have it’… I was wrong. I order a Mai Tai and it took forever… at this point I didn’t even want it anymore. The waitress apologized and told me she was waiting for the bartender. Then after awhile she comes back and says they don’t have the ingredients to make a Mai Tai. So, at this point, I’m thinking, “okay what do you have?”… I just make it simple and just then order wine. Surely they have that.. they did (surprisingly). After all that, I look down under our booth and notice it was not cleaned. Had food, dirty fork, queso lid, napkins… I’m thinking, “did they even clean this before they seated us?”… I asked some random guy if he could get someone to clean it. They were decent with people in the restaurant but not that busy! Finally, the food arrived and I always get the taco salad fajita with chicken. It’s my go to every time at Peppers. Love it. However, first bite into this one at this location and IMMEDIATELY my mouth and lips are on FIRE. It was sooo spicy, I couldn’t even eat it… it was so spicy filled with jalapeños. It also had no taste either, very bland no fajita seasoning. My lips are still burning from it… I hope I don’t break out in hives from this!! I can’t do spicy. Also the salsa was super spicy too. Couldn’t even eat that. Only thing I could eat was the queso. I’ve never in my life had this experience with the other locations with the taco salad fajita… but this location, wow. The waitress asked to make me another but that this point it was getting late, we had a baby and I just wanted to get out of there. She didn’t even ask for money back… I will never ever eat at this location. Horrible food, horrible service, horrible sanitation conditions. Just all in all horrible. You won’t ever catch me going to this location again. I really hope they reconsider a new cook because us locals in this area talk and if y’all don’t fix this asap, y’all will be shutting down on Mary...

Food was honestly generically prepared and underwhelming. There seemed to be more alcoholic beverage choices (6 margarita mixers) than what to eat. My husband and I for 2 drinks (beer and a margarita), an app, and 2 mains was $55! I got the burrito peppers or peppers burrito. It was dry, like they microwaved the heck out of it- the inside was a very dry shredded chicken with Mexican rice and wrapped in a stale flour tortilla or cold and flaky corn tortilla (I never could tell). It also came with a small side of sour cream and guacamole with bagged lettuce (carrots). My husband had their grilled sandwich and fries with pulled pork. His sandwich was literally the best thing all day. Even with the overloaded jalapeños stuffed everywhere it seemed. Our app was the carne asada fries (closest thing to nachos). It was decent and way better than my main dish, but if I wanted loaded fries I would not have come to a Mexican restaurant. Not a slam or shady, - when you hear certain things you expect certain things- Mexican restaurant is burrito supreme and nachos and fajita. None of this was available! For the same price, better service, and better quality I’d hop across the street and go to ElPaso. Usually my husband and I can go their with our granddaughter and spend $50 on food for 3. Speaking of it’s almost 3am now and that’s because I’m still awake from the heartburn!

After receiving the owners response let me say this: the options and variations that you’ve described such as the salsa bar and such wasn’t given to us as options. We didn’t have choices or explanations outside our protein. I understand the street food theme that goes with taquerias and they’re the most authentic and flavorful things we can get both cheap and amazingly prepared. I’m simply saying that our experience didn’t match this. Our waitress didn’t try to up-sale, explain our options, or describe anything you have. Thank you for taking the time and I’m looking forward to truly giving you my family’s...