Torchy's Tacos — Restaurant in Houston

Terrible service at the bar - bartenders are unfriendly, slow, and act like they hate their jobs.

I hate to give a negative review but I have been to Torchy's so many times and had a bad experience, it is time. I have tried to shrug off my previous bad experiences to a one-time thing, but after many in a row, I realize now it is just a problem at this location.

My husband and I like to sit at the bar, have a drink, sometimes to watch the game and order tacos, and sometimes just to run in and grab a quick bite. Yesterday we went to sit at the bar and grab lunch after church. I sat down and waited approximately 5 minutes to be acknowledged by the bartenders. A male bartender finally approached me and I asked for 2 waters and chips and queso as he was walking away. I got my waters and the chips and queso came pretty fast.

This is when the bartenders did a shift change and the male bartender who got me waters left, and a female bartender with long brown hair and about 5 hoop earrings in each ear took his place. She ignored us for about 10 minutes and I finally caught her attention and asked for water refill and chip refill. She said, 'Yeah but I have to get everyone's drinks first." So she proceeded to start at one end of the bar and took everyone's alcoholic drink orders before refilling our waters or ordering us a chip refill. She then refilled our water.

A manager then came out and they began going thru an inventory order for the bar at 2PM on a Sunday, with a full bar and football on all the TVs. We waited and waited to put in our taco order.

I finally got her attention and asked if we could order tacos from her. She said yes but then proceeded back to the far end of the bar and took everyone's taco order all the way around to us before entering any of the orders. She treated the entire bar like they were ONE party on ONE check. Not to mention she was RUDE and kept her back turned to the bar, walked slowly, had no hustle, and seemed generally irritated to have to serve her customers.

The tacos took forever to come out and were cold when they arrived. Overall I give two stars only because the food is decent, however the service and staff this location has employed are ruining this business. We will not be back because this has happened...

The one star is for the bar service or lack there of per Crystal. I went into the Kingwood location around 1:40PM (business was slow) after a great work out at the gym. I arrived and naturally I walked through the line to order a couple tacos. I then realized I wanted to sit at the bar and asked the cashier if I should order there or at the bar since I would be ordering an adult drink. The cashier said it did not matter and the kitchen would bring my food to the bar. Great! I sat down and waited patiently while Crystal the bartender on shift attended to the guys a few seats down. I the observed her refilling beers for a couple guys across the bar. By this time my food has come out and i mentioned to the lady server that “I must be invisible, since she has not greeted me nor asked if I needed anything.”. I am sitting at the bar with no water, or any other drink for that matter. The server apologized and ask if I needed anything I said no, at this time I have changed my mind about ordering from Crystal. Then a male customer walks in a sits a few seats down and I noticed she walked right up to him with a menu and asked if she could help him. At this point I can see the cashier observing and I request that he come speak with me. I explained that Crystal has not said two words to me, she had not greeted me nor asked if I needed anything. Crystal over hears and inserts herself and said sarcastically “oh because you ordered from the line so I did not help you”. I then began to explain my point of view that when someone sits at your bar you greet them at the minimum, but she continued talking over me. I told her I would not be combative and stopped speaking to her, I then continued to speak with the cashier and also mentioned how combative she is. The cashier asked if he could get me a drink and I decline as I am going to eat my tacos and leave. Which is what I did. Unfortunate, since I had taken the day off from work to enjoy some time to myself and indulge a little. Not to mention the Astros were playing. Great...

It’s such a hit or miss with this place. We used to come here once a week if not more. Lately, we’d rather pass and go somewhere else.

The last three experiences: There were two cashiers and only one taking orders while the other one played on her phone, avoided eye contact with the guests in line, and did “busy” work. Then as the line died down, which ended up being our party, she took our order. She seemed so annoyed. Why work somewhere you act like you hate? No one is forcing you to stay... My family came here again, we live like 10 minutes away, and service was super aloof and slow. Manager on cash register, fine. Chips and queso (a must!), came out fine. But then... It took 30 minutes with only 4 tables in the whole place to figure out why our tacos were taking so long. We had to ask the lovely busser lady (you’ll know which one if you pay attention - she usually always here) to help us find a server or food runner or someone with an ETA of our food. Food finally came and it was just super sloppy. Like thrown all together. Meh - we ignored it and dared to come back another time. I get why they have a calling system to direct people to place to go orders online. But guess what? Sometimes we’re driving and can’t place online orders. So you call and wait and wait and wait only to be disconnected from the call - TWICE. So you think, ok maybe they’re slammed. I’ll go in and place the order.... THERE WAS NO LINE! The girl behind the register (blue hair) was literally just standing there wiping trays. No line. Ummm ok?? And although she wished me a fair well, she literally greeted me like this: “for here or to go”? Hello to you too.

Overall customer service and level of care has gone down drastically over the past few months. Not sure what changed - but it wasn’t for the better. I have worked in customer service level jobs for years and I may hold others to a high level of expectations but being courteous to customers should always be a...