La Tienda Mexicana Las Isabelas — Restaurant in Hickory

So many things about this place are wrong I could go on and on. For starters.. you have to scan a QR code with your phone to view a menu, they don't give you one. Left my phone in the car, luckily my friend brought hers. So you tell the cashier what you want before you are seated and it asks you to tip before you sign. My friend tipped ten dollars.. for two of us.. Big mistake! After we ordered our options were to wait for a seat outside, no AC and lots of flys . Or sit in this little room next to the kitchen.. no AC and lots of flys. We chose inside since we were hungry and didn't want to wait. The room had a big TV on the wall playing some childrens movie to entertain the two tables of kids that were in there with us. But not only did we get to listen to the crying children and the big screen TV.. but the cooks had music blasting right there next to us in the open kitchen. No free chips and salsa here.. $5.99 for a small bowl of oily, broken pieces.. and the salsa was bland and flavorless.. no cilantro in it.. just canned tomatoes with a few tiny pieces of chopped jalapeno, slammed down in a hurry by a kid that was probably 15 if that.. he was doing all the food running for the entire restaurant. Brought us our waters in plastic cups with lids, no straws.. had to flag him down for that.. had to pretty much do sign language with him because he didn't speak English. There were two other children no older than 11 busing tables and stocking drinks. When our $12.99 margaritas arrived, we barely took one sip and our food was brought out. No one checked on us to see if everything was ok or if we needed anything else.. when we were done the girl that rang us up walked by and said how was everything.. I told her it was OK and pointed to the full bowl of broken bits and pieces of chips and asked her if we could get a refund on those. She said let me see.. and went and asked the cook/owner whoever he was.. he came to the table with a styrofoam box full of chips and said he couldn't give us a refund but we could have more chips.. he apologized and said sometimes they get the bottom of the barrel where all the broken pieces are. I said OK, well can I get some more salsa as well..he went and got me some. It was not a good experience at all. Noisy, Rushed, and Poor Service.. definitely not worth the $76 we spent. They might as well put in a drive thru and close the inside. One star..and that's being generous. What a waste of a good...

Let me start off by saying that this is a PARTIAL review, as I did not sample the food here. Now I will proceed to just give you my experience, which is why I did not dine here. For starters the parking lot is ridiculously small. If you're not in a smart car you will have trouble parking. After parking, went inside and thought we were in the wrong place. It was a tiny, cramped store. I know some think it's cute...me...not so much. Approached the hostess area and was greeted by a very nice and friendly young lady that instructed us to scan a QR code for the menu....Strike Two....The nice young lady advised that when we decided what we wanted, to come back to the hostess stand and place our order....Strike 3...One out! As we looked around out on the patio, most of the chairs looked like authentic Mexican....from the revolution....next batter, strike one!....My friend was checking out the menu as we were being seated and said that chips and salsa were $4.50. What? Fly ball to center....double play...that did it....I suspect that the food would have been delicious, but I'll never know, I guess. So to be fair, that's just my experience...many reviews on here are not put off by any of my complaints. So be it. I gave one star for service, as you had to return to the hostess stand to order. I gave atmosphere one star for the condition of the furniture. Returned to the tiny parking lot and went up the street to another Mexican restaurant, less than 1/2 mile away. Ample parking! Menus! Servers! Free chips and salsa! Modern looking furniture! And the food was great, but that's...

This place would always charge us more than the menu says. Just to give an example of how this has happened to us is one time my husband ordered a coffee with his food, and I got an horchata. Well the menu said drinks cost: $2.99 and the man owner put on our bill $4.00 for his coffee and $4.00 for my drink. And they brought us NO REFILLS. The woman owner in the store section of the restaurant has also overcharged us. Once when we took the bill to pay with the total on it, she computed her own bill and tried to charge us a different amount which was of course more. My husband pointed it out and told her "why does the bill he gave me say one amount and you are charging me another amount which is more?" She fixed it but they still did it over and over again. Sometimes we wouldnt even complain even if we noticed just to not hold up the line. But they are so dishonest and they started getting rude when we started pointing out the sketchy overcharges. The last time we went we paid $45 for a torta, 3 tacos, a small side of beans and two drinks because they charge for the chips they bring to your table, if you add a small scoop of watery guac to them the total is $6.50 plus all the overcharges the man added to our bill such as charging $4.00(with NO REFILLS) for each drink instead of $2.99 like the menu said. I would rather pay $45.00 at any other mexican restaurant where the chips are free, they bring you refills, and the prices are not sneakily changed. We just...