Salsa's Mexican Restaurant & Cantina — Restaurant in Hot Springs

The restaurant was nice, roomy, and beautifully decorated. It was late. About 50 minutes before closing but the host staff was nice enough when we arrived, although they did rush us to the table, which was up a fairly long ramp. My sister and I are slow due to age and/or health issues, and the young woman left us way behind her. And I do mean way behind her. But where most of the trouble was experienced was with the waiter. First, his dimonor was put off (possibly by our late arrival), and we were rushed to make our dinner selections with the excuse that the kitchen was closing in 10 min, which was understandable. But more than 10 minutes later, they accepted a new party of at least 5 people and sat them right behind us. I guess the kitchen wasn't closed after all. The food was okay. It was not the best and not the worst, and was a little higher priced than my favorite restaurants like Cantina Cinco de Mayo and La Hacienda. The portion size was just right for the price, not abundant but not lacking either. Here is the problem. Our server was not friendly. He did his job well enough but acted like he had some kind of issue with us. I can only speculate what the reason may have been. But it was enough to make me and my sister feel uncomfortable while trying to enjoy our meal. I think we could have overlooked the situation if this was the only time it had happened. But this is not the first of even the second time we have had this same attitude from this same server. We didn't feel welcome and we have decided not to...

My goodness, where do I start? We walked in, was acknowledged, we asked if we could sit at the bar, was told yes, we walk up a ramp and sit down, the hostess is following us with menus, all fine - We sit there, with 2 gentleman behind the bar, they see us and then leave, we got very close to leaving after a good 10-15min wait, then comes a younger Woman that we hadn't even seen yet, come and ask us for our drink order, and chips and salsa come - Chips, extremely stale, salsa had water added, Husband's beer was lukewarm, my margarita was nothing but sweet n sour - We let it go, we are VERY easy to please and give a LOT of slack on mess ups that can happen in the restaurant industry .. We order our meals, Husband's tacos were ok, mine though, I always get sour cream sauce on my enchiladas, this was just room temp sour cream, rice tasted like a box of minute rice, no authentic flavor what so ever, red sauce literally just tasted like a opened can of Hunts, was not checked on until our glasses was dry and we were looking for someone to hand us our check - Not sure if it was close to closing and that had something to do with it, nonetheless, our date nights are always on Saturdays, for which we can rack up a pretty good bar tab, along with taking care of our waitress/bartender .. Floors in the area needs some pretty hefty attention as well - We paid our bill, still took care of the bartender and left,...

We were passing through, not local. The reviews seemed hit and miss but we gave it a try.

Food: was fine. Nothing special. Very black pepper heavy? Which we thought was a little odd. They must have ran out of salsa verde, as they left it off both my wife and I's dish and didnt mention it. The beans and rice were bland and had the texture like they had been under a heat lamp for a good while (dry). My wife's tamales tasted like something was rancid or on the way out. Everything needed more seasoning.

Service: our waiter was sooo nice. He honestly saved the star rating. Some of the back of house staff seemed miserable.

Atmosphere: the fountain was cool and it looks unique in the main dining section. However, the place had tons of tables clearly open and for some reason we were taken to this back corner where the entire sections lights are blinking constantly. If you're having electrical issues please don't seat ppl in that section. We moved after requesting it and just went outside. Id say that was fine but the bathroom for the patio had no tp or moreso paper towel and employees were using it somehow washing their hands while we ate.

Overall, if youre hard up for somewhere to eat, i guess it was ok. Maybe it was an off night, but we won't plan on coming back soon. Oh, and for 4 people it was 120$ with one dish per person and no alc drinks. So do with that...