Grande Mexico Restaurant and Cantina — Restaurant in Haverhill

I really hate to leave a place like this a bad review, ESPECIALLY because its entirely because of one person, our server. In short, the atmosphere is great, food looks and tastes GREAT, prices are reasonable, and the bartender was very nice... however our waitress completely destroyed our experience.

Long story. We came here on the very high recommendation from a co-worker of my fiance. We walk in at 12:10 and are asked to stand by for a moment while the worker (who was also our waitress) tended to another customer. We waited about 5 min but were then brought in to a booth, we requested a table and the waitress begrudgingly sat us at a table after the bartender(the saving grace our visit) told us we could sit wherever we liked. Waitress then seats an older couple and then takes our order. My fiance requests a diet coke, is asked if diet pepsi is fine and I asked for a Sprite and asked if Seirra Mist was ok. I The whole time she's taking the order you could tell she was mad but we both figured it was because she was the only one on serving now 5 tables and let it go. We then order our food, chimi de puerco and carné asada burrito and a small queso. Waitress now sits a pair of women about 10 minutes later. Takes their drink order, then a couple minutes later their food order, cashes out 2 tables and brings out the food of the older couple that was behind us. Some time goes by and she's sitting customers and the bartender is bringing chips and salsa to the new tables. At 12:45 the bartender brings out queso for the pair of women which raises an eyebrow. At 12:50 I call over to the waitress who's now standing at the hostess station and get the hold on finger lol. She comes to our table a couple minutes later and I ask about our queso, and to see how long the food will be too which the girl storms off to the kitchen mumbling under get breath with a huge f*ing attitude. (I'm still blown away by it, its never happened to me before, but wait it gets better!) I walk over to the kitchen and shes putting together our order and I ask her to cancel the queso and make the order to go because we have to get back to work, MORE attitude, and continues to bring out our food on plates, I stop her and tell her no, we need it to go, turns around huffing and puffing with even more attitude. I've had it now, this is uncalled for abd walk over to the bar and request the manager, the bartender informs me the manager isn't in, so I give her the break down what's been happening and she apologizes and goes out back to see what's going on. You can hear the waitress getting loud with the bartender. Bartender comes back out apologizing and says she'll see what she can do with our bill and rushes back out back to more attitude(there's other words for how the bartender was being talked to but I'll let you use your imagination.). At this point I'm at the hostess station waiting to pay our bill and the waitress comes out empty handed... o_O ... and goes to another table. Here's the kicker, as I'm walking over to the waitress to find out what's going on she with the worse look and points to the bartender who's now coming out with our food and we check out(she took care of a good portion of our bill), again apologizing and I believe was a sincere attempt to give us another try and that our service will be reported to their manager. An hour later the food is cold but really good, and I am eating while I'm working. I'd recommend take out rather...

I gave two stars because when it was hot it was probably good. You could see that care was taken by the cook when preparing and plating our food. Unfortunately by the time our server brought it to us it was no longer hot. When we arrived we were thinking that the main dining room might not be open. We were about to leave when one of the regular customers who was sitting in the bar brought us to dining room to a table and got us menus. Our server had only one other table. She was so slow. She kept disappearing. I was beginning to think that I should ask the customer that brought us to our table if he could go to the kitchen to get our food. When we did get our food it was no longer hot because she took so slow bringing it to us. I asked our server for napkins and she said she would get them but disappeared. After waiting 10-15 minutes, I asked the bartender/server who passed by with her hands full carrying tray of dirty dishes from bar (the bar was busy) if she could ask our server for napkins She reminded our server that we didn’t have napkins and after another 5 minutes or so she came walking out of the kitchen and brought us napkins. She never checked on us. She didn’t ask if we wanted another drink, didn’t ask if we liked our food, she didn’t remove dirty dishes from appetizer that we stacked at end of table for her to take. We finished eating and had to wait close to half an hour for the server to come out of hiding so we could ask for the bill. I joked with my friend suggesting that we tip the customer from the bar that helped us instead of tipping our waitress who led us to believe this was a self-service restaurant. If you decide to have lunch here make sure clear your schedule for the entire afternoon. We arrived at 12:30. The customer from bar sat us at our table around 12:45. He let our server know that we would like to chips and salsa and two sodas. She dropped chips and sodas off around 1:15 but disappeared without taking our order. By the time she took our order the lunch specials were about to end. At least we had chips and salsa to eat while we waited. By the time we left it was after 4 pm. We planned on grabbing a quick lunch. Our “quick” lunch took all afternoon. My friend that suggested we meet here kept apologizing. She told me that it used to be a good restaurant with good food and good service. She said she would never recommend coming here after the horrible service...

This is my first experience , I will most likely give it another try.

The service was amazing. Our waitress was smiley, pleasant , patient , and attentive to us but at the same time gave us space. She was perfect. There was a situation with a customer that seemed like they had too much to drink, she and another waitress handled it peacefully and with a smile.

I got the boneless porch chops with rice and beans. The food was a 3 only because many things we ate were a little bland. The rice tasted good , but the beans had no flavor. The pork chops were huge chunks of pork, had a nice char on the outside and pulled apart easily. It was under seasoned and was a little dry.

My partner got a steak burrito. It was hands down the biggest burrito I have ever seen and it was loaded with steak. The steak was extremely soft and flavorful. The beans were very bland and the rice was nearly bland.

We purchased the tacos because some of the reviews were great. The beef and the chicken in the taco had no seasoning. It was very disappointing.

The alcoholic beverages were AMAZING! I had a Coco Loco with sugar around the rim. It was delicious and pretty strong.

For desert , I had cinnamon and sugar dusted chips with caramel and chocolate drizzle on it. I paid an extra 2 dollars for the scoop of ice cream and did not regret it. So delicious ! My partner has the flan and it was not great. It had the texture of a very wet sponge. It was very rubbery also.

The atmosphere was amazing. The establishment was nice and clean , I loved the mexico feel , the colors and the decor. It's a really great vibe , with amazing Spanish music and a cute little bar separate from the restaurant.

I will definitely be back ! There are so many things to try. Huge menu, lots of variety and the prices are great. We ordered two entrees , two alcoholic beverages , two apps and two deserts and it cost 86 dollars...