El Frison Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Jefferson City

El Frison is a recently opened Mexican restaurant in Jefferson City, MO (used to be Mel's) on Industrial Dr on the west end of town. I was introduced to this place because my mom actually wanted to try this restaurant out and we were wanting to celebrate a birthday and a high school graduation. As this used to be Mel's in the day, the outside looks more like a Midwestern restaurant than the typical façade of a Mexican restaurant. However on the inside, it is very much a Mexican restaurant with very tasteful use of decor and some very nice tables and booths. The lighting is also just right for a Mexican restaurant. They have booth and table seating and a small bar, but I don't recall seeing any seats at the counter. Speaking of bars, El Frison has a salsa bar where they have a variety of different salsas and condiments. Yes, if you want sour cream on the side, there is no charge here. Or guacamole. And do be careful if you try the lemon salsa as it packs quite a punch, which my nephew found out the hard way. I don't know if they rotate salsas but it would be interesting to see if they do seasonal salsas on that bar. The service we had was good with our server able to manage our relatively large party in keeping our drinks filled and ensuring we had our orders done right. They were also very approachable and happily answered questions my family had on the menu. And for the menu. I am glad to report that I think this is the first Mexican restaurant in JCMO that has dishes from Jalisco. That includes quesabirria which I think is a first for the area. And the quesabirria is very good - if you never had birria, definitely try it. The consommé was the weakest part as I wish it had just a touch more flavor to it but that is more of a nitpick for me. The birria was really tasty and favorable. I enjoyed the cheese used with the birria tacos and the beans and rice were some of the best I had with some very good flavors on the rice. As a suggestion, I would love to see the menu add straight up birria street tacos as well. I also enjoyed the various salsas they had as well as the agua de jamaica (hibiscus tea). Glad to see they also serve horchata as well though I would love to see them add pina (pineapple) and fresa (strawberry) agua fresca. Overall a very strong first impression from me and if I was back in the area I would definitely stop here for some good Mexican food. I would recommend the same if you're having a craving for...

After seeing all the 5 star ratings my wife and I decided to visit, it'd been on our list for a while actually. We weren't met with any "welcomes" or smiles and they looked perturbed that we came in at 8:00 on a Saturday night. My tacos pastor were bland and served without the usual pastor style hot sauce that you get literally everywhere else. My wifes dinner plate was supposed to come with beans but didn't. When she asked about her side the waiter begrudgingly brought it, then charged extra for. At no point were we asked if everything was okay or does the food taste good. There was no offer for second beers until I asked and no lime slice in either of my two beers, which is common with this beer brand. Maybe it was an off night and everyone was in a mood but overall its a "no" for us. I hate leaving bad reviews so we'll try...

When are server finally made it to our table initially he took a very long time bringing me water. He had to be flagged down and asked for table settings and napkins. He did not check to see if there was anything else we needed or anything else he could do. He never showed up until we had to flag him down for the check. Very inattentive and was not trying his best, clearly. Food offered lots of choices but server Only offered my partner another drink while he was paying for the check. We don't go out very often and this was not good. Keep your...