Mezcalito Henderson — Restaurant in Henderson

If I could 20 stars, I would. I have never had such a great takeout experience in Henderson NC. No other establishment has ever provided the level of service that I received here. 95 % of restaurants in Henderson are not carryout friendly. They do accept takeout orders but when you get the food - its cold, its thrown together and looks nothing like it would if you were to sit down inside. THAT IS NOT THE CASE HERE - extra care was taken to ensure we received the same food experience, just as if we were sitting down.

A friend actually told us about Mezcalito, "the new place in town" but I will admit, we were quite skeptical. My husband and I both thought - oh its just another Torreros type Mexican restaurant, faked out and bland... HOWEVER - we were completely fooled.

We ordered online on Saturday, 4/23/22 at 5:15ish for a pickup time of 5:45PM. I got there a few minutes early and went into the restaurant right around 5:41PM. There was a large party waiting but there was no line... The Host, a fabulous host (I wish I would have asked your name, many apologies, sir) asked my name and I relayed that I had placed an order online for carryout and lo and behold to my surprise, dinner for for was packed and ready with all the condiments and plates that were ordered. Mr. Host even stopped me to double check if we need plastic utensils, which was an amazing gesture of customer service, a level of customer service that I haven't been able to find, even in the OuterBanks Dining scene.

When I peeked into the bag to check for everything, the first thing I noticed were amazing grill marks on our meats. We ordered the Mezcalito fajitas for 2, upgraded to an ultimate, kids taco, side soft taco and spicy taco. Mezcalito fajitas did not disappoint, everything was beautifully cooked and the meat was the most tender meat I have EVER eaten at a Tex-Mex/Mexican food place (most places wayyyyyyyy over cook steak and I often avoid for this reason). Salsa was handmade, with lots of flavor and the cheese dip was very rich and delicious. The spicy taco is very spicy, eat with care - I was so Amazed by this place. It is a little more expensive than most places in town, but WELL WORTH EVERY PENNY!

FYI - leave a tip when you order online. You get the service...

My bf and I order DoorDash from here all the time. We had come in person once around the time they first opened years back and I felt the service was poor, but I thought we could try again for a belated Valentine's date, since that incident had been so long ago. When we get there, one of the hostesses claimed it was a 15 minute wait, despite there being no one else inside waiting. Barely 5 minutes later she literally yells my name for us to get our table. I felt like she lied in an attempt to get us to leave. Then she sat us in a booth directly in the way of where the air from the front door was blowing, put the menus not directly across from each other and walked off without another word. My bf ended up having to move over to get out of the way of the cold. The whole time the staff were being very attentive to him and talking directly to him, but not so much me. He placed his order but I needed another minute to look over the menu. It wasn't too much longer afterwards that I gave my order and ordered a drink as well. He got both his food and drink in no time and they even offered to give him a different glass, yet we had to specifically ask for my drink after he had almost finished his food and I hadn't even gotten my drink yet. My food came out so late that he had already finished his meal and almost all of his first drink before I had even gotten my food and it was barely warm by that point. Then I felt pressured to finish my food and drink, despite having just gotten it because our waiter asked me if I wanted a togo box despite having a majority of my drink left to drink. It seemed like because my bf had finished his meal, that was what was important. Honestly I felt like a lot of the wait staff, mostly the female staff, didn't like that a white woman was with a Hispanic man and were showing their disapproval in a passive aggressive way. I might keep ordering us food through DoorDash, but I don't think I'll want to go in...

Mixed bag here. On one hand, this is one of the better restaurants in Henderson. On the other hand, that is a very, very low bar.

The menu is good and the food is usually pretty good. Let's call it "good for Henderson" The prices are fair'ish - with the exception of alcohol. The booze drinks are prohibitively pricey - on par with a hotel bar in a large city.

The service needs a lot of work.

I'll give two examples:

On multiple visits, the server came asking for drink orders as soon as we sat down. When we asked for a minute to read the menu, they seemed confused. They came back almost immediately. We asked for a minute. They seemed very concerned. They stood off to the side watching and waiting, and didn't bring water or chips until we had ordered other drinks. The whole vibe made feel very uncomfortable - not like guests at all.

The one time I ordered takeout, I asked when ordering: "This will come with plenty of chips and salsa, right?" Oh of course of course. When we got our food ($70 worth of food) it had two tiny bags of chips and 3 tiny containers of salsa. Not enough for 2 people, much less the 5 being fed by our food. I asked for more and the server very cheerfully said, "Sure. I'll be right back." Then they came back with 2 other employees who very awkwardly explained that I can't have more chips and salsa unless I order it separately and pay for it. This is just the policy.

I think this comes down to bad management / bad training.

The servers seem to be inexperienced and have been taught to aggressively push (overpriced) drinks.

And they managers don't understand that losing a high-paying takeout customer over a few cents' worth of chips is just...