Red Pepper — Restaurant in Grand Forks

I have a special place for RP in my heart and have eaten here for years. Only reason I'm leaving a 3 star review is because there is room for improvement here. Even though it is slightly negative review , all reviews and feedback are good, how else would we know where we need to improve?

This past year I developed an autoimmune condition so I have a sensitivity to gluten and certain spices. I can still have some in small amounts however it's risky. That being said if you have a gluten sensitivity or celiacs etc you may want to avoid this place unless you are getting the soup. If you have a sensitivity to seasonings or peppers avoid the soup and hot sauce completely.

I got a few hard shell tacos very lite hotsauce and chips and sauce. When I got home the tacos were soggy drenched with hot sauce and the chip sauce did not taste right and wasn't very chunky, it looked as though it had not been mixed well and was the bottom of the batch very watery and missing the sweetness . Basicly tomato water.

I understand food will not be perfect every time and who makes the food can very so I understand and tried to eat it anyways and got very sick. When I called the store to tell them my order was not any good the manager was very short with me and took my experience personally. " your taste buds must be off i make the sauce myself " okay..... well my boyfriend and I both tried it and it was not the quality that we normally received, and no one is perfect occasionaly when making things it is not always going to be perfect no matter how skilled you are. My taste buds or who made the item doesn't matter, what matters is I had a negative experience with the food I recieved and would like a little empathy or compassion when expressing myself. Snapping at a customer and giving them a credit for the food they ordered while acting like its the most annoying thing to do and a inconvenience to you is extremely negative experience.

The food quality and prices and staff is usually very good/ fun experience but I do believe the management and employees should brush up on appropriate human behavior in a customer service setting. Just because your having a bad day or you feel like the customers experience is a personal attack on you is no excuse to treat another human being with disrespect and invalidate their feelings or experiences.

Just wanted to add it was also my birthday and already a hard week for me, we are all struggling a bit right now. So please just be kind to others, giving someone a little kindness could go a long way these days.

Thanks...

Called in a to go order at 12:10 for a 1:00 pick up. Got here, waited in line, and when I get to the counter they tell me they haven't even made it yet, because they have been busy. That's why I called an hour ahead!! Now it's 1:30 and I'm standing here waiting for this garbage food that my sister asked me to bring back to her! This place absolutely sucks. 2 people working during lunch shift!! No sense of urgency, and I would have left immediately but I already paid for it. For 38 years I have stood behind the fact that the food here is terrible. It speaks volumes about the level of taste that people have in the Midwest. And my sister just paid $60 to get diarrhea delivered 6 hours away. GROSS and terrible service!

Reply to Owner: Ah, I see you appreciate an explanation. But you could have prevented this whole experience by explaining customer service and company protocols to your team in the first place. So please, let me explain to you how customer service works: When a to-go order is called in, be clear about the service protocol - this is business 101. Which your team is in need of a training on. And when a customer arrives to find out an order isn't ready after 50 min, you don't just stare at them and say... "We were busy" 👿 with no action. You say "Sorry, our policy is to complete in store orders first. I'll get started on that now."... especially when Google live does not support those 'facts'. I understand that no one wants one star reviews, But sometimes employees fumble and businesses just don't deliver. The staff was rude, uncaring, and lacked any sense of urgency. If you don't care enough to coach them, then why should anyone feel compelled to hide their experience? *In addition, My sister was upset at the $65 price tag on the to go kit. And when I asked her if she followed up on the price, she said no; and that she knew the food was terrible and admitted that her household was hit by diarrhea...

Below I'm going to describe to you how they make the enchiladas as I was there to observe the entire process.

Step 1. Brown mystery meat is smeared like a paste onto a cold dollar-store tortilla.

Step 2: The damp, meat-laden tortillas are wrapped, placed on a flimsy paper plate, and smothered in approximately one pint of red sauce that resembles ketchup more than any kind of mole or actual mexican food sauce.

Step 3. This abomination is then covered in shredded bag cheese before being microwaved for an arbitrary amount of time.

(this was a first for me, watching the food I just ordered be microwaved right in front of me in the restaurant)

Step 4. Cover with a border of wilted lettuce and serve lukewarm.

The fact that this restaurant has been open for decades, with such decent reviews is either an amazingly elaborate prank or an indictment of the people of Grand Forks, North Dakota, The United States, and possibly.. humanity itself. That anyone would consider this passable food in any context at any price is deeply troubling.

I would eat day-old taco johns that sat in the passenger seat of my car on a 100 degree day before I ate here again. Because at least the food would be warm. There is higher quality food than this in any gas station.

I normally wouldn't go so hard on a local business, but looking at their history of overconfidence and snarky responses to basic feedback, I couldn't help myself. Go literally anywhere else. Or recommend it to your friends as a...