Tony's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Houston

Not sure what has happened over the years but Tony's was a favorite spot of ours for Mexican food. This past experience was a not coming back turn for us. Going in, we were greeted and maseros were nice. We had a party of 5. Just slightly larger than most tables already seated and it was still lunch. When our full party arrived, we placed our orders. I was the only one at our table who ordered something seafood, the Mariscos Ixtapa. It had fish topped with shrimp in a creamy sauce. Well after waiting about 30 minutes, our order finally comes out. As the server walks towards us with our orders, I could immediately smell the dirty seafood. He places mine in front of me and the smell of the dirty seafood smacks my husband and I in the face. I cut off a little piece of the fish, nothing's wrong. I try the cream, nothing. Cut off a shrimp, and the shrimp had a disgusting taste & smell. My husband flagged down the masero and told him and his attitude changed. He took the plate to the manager to smell and manager even agreed it stunk. So they made another plate, brought it back out 30 minutes later and after everyone at our table finished. Masero said they opened up a new case, that it was fresh. Once again, I cut off a little piece of everything. Shrimp was good, but this time fish was undercooked. (I say undercooked because it was like a gooey, mushy texture.) I couldn't eat it at all. Didn't raise their attention this time, because it should've been done right since the first time. So they bring our check out, and my mother in law brought to their attention that because it was a messup on their end, my plate should have been discounted. It didn't have to be comped, because I did get the plate. So they gave a 25% discount off my plate.

We've gone to Tony's for years before COVID struck but it seems like everytime we went after the first couple of times, the service and food quality went down. But don't let our experience stop you from going, every chef cooks differently even though they have the recipe for you to follow. Just in our experience, we may not...

We've been here plenty of times, and the food is always spot on. Today is Halloween, and my wife and I decided that we wanted Mexican food. We chose Tony's, and to avoid the Halloween madness we ate early around 5:30. When being sat by the hostess, we walked past two perfectly clean and empty booths as she walked us to the very back corner of the restaurant to seat us at a table directly under a vent. Before I could even ask the hostess if we could have a booth, my wife said that it was quite cold there. I then asked the hostess if we could have one of the booths up front that we walked past. The hostess looked me dead in the eye and said,"We go by servers." I responded by telling her that I knew how rotation works, because I'm a restaurant manager. She seemed to have no care about the situation as if we were just going to need to deal with. Keep in mind that I have worked in the restaurant industry for 25 years since I was 16 years old with 10+ of those years being in management. I understand that there is a rotation for sections/servers, but when a guest asks for a booth that is available you seat them at the booth. This happens all of the time in every restaurant that I have ever worked in. It is unfortunate for the server that doesn't get sat a table, but usually the better sections with booths are given to the better servers from my experience. There is a reason some servers have better sections than others. We will be back, and hopefully we will have a better experience. I would simply advise training the hosts better considering they are the first impression to guests dining in. Also, our server completely forgot our appetizer. He did make it up with great service afterwards. I understand these things happen. Our check...

3/2024 update: tried them again after 2 years. Same story. Basically the same price as el tiempo and lupe tortilla but the quality and flavor isn't there. Also they are probably the only Mexican restaurant in houston that charges for extra tortillas. Probably going to wait until they go out of business next time before I try this location again. If you really want a cheaper Mexican meal try Teotihuacan.

9/2021 update: used to be 5 stars. This place constantly changes the way they do business to wring money out of their customers. I'm so tired of the inconsistent pricing and portion size. A small fajita and two margs was $60, (used to be ~$45) last night, no more receipts only electronic payment, no time to question. I'm no longer suprised, read my below reviews, it's clear making an extra dime or two is more important than giving local customers a consistent and positive experience.

2020 update: Used to have 5 stars, I live locally and go here often. They have recently started nickle and diming customers for items that should be included or without disclosing properly the up charges. For example, charging for extra tortillas (true Houstonians know this is frowned upon...), different margarita flavors being significantly more than others, and when covid started and when there have been boil water notices they scalp for bottled water and charge you 10x what they paid for it. If you aren't making ends meet increase prices, don't nickle and dime, its not transparent and I have two other Mexican restaurants within walking distance that don't...