Mojave Cantina - South Lyon — Restaurant in Lyon Charter Township

My mother and I decided to pick up lunch for carry-out today at this brand-new, cool-looking Mexican restaurant that just opened down the road from us in South Lyon—Mojave Cantina—and I can say without a doubt it’s one of the best meals in town! I only wish I had thought to ask for the names of the employees we interacted with, so that I could give them a proper shout-out in this review!

As soon as you park and get out of your car, you will begin to smell the aromas of the delicious food being prepared inside. And speaking of parking, the Mojave Cantina parking lot, which goes around the side of and behind the restaurant, is plenty large and easy to navigate…something I’ve found to be a rare occurrence for businesses here in South Lyon, haha.

Despite how busy the restaurant was for lunch, my mom and I had our orders taken very quickly and easily by the hostess. Unfortunately I don’t remember her name, but she was really friendly and efficient! She told us our order would be ready in 15-20 minutes.

We left to run another errand, and came back 15 minutes later, when we were invited to take a seat at the bar to pay and receive our order. We only had to wait probably 5 more minutes at the most for our food. The woman at the bar, who I think was a manager, was also really friendly and chatted with my mom about the Christmas decorations she had put up around the restaurant. The decor really was lovely!

When I got our food from a polite young man who read back to me my order to confirm, everything was packaged securely and it was nice and hot! All in all, it could not have been longer then 20 minutes time elapsed between placing the order and walking out the door with our meals. Even though it was busy!

Now that we’ve gotten back home and eaten our lunches, my mom and I have already made multiple plans to come back again with more people!

Really, this was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in the area. My enchiladas were fantastic (the shredded beef is to DIE for), my mom’s burrito was HUGE and stuffed with SO much chicken, and even the cilantro-lime rice was perfect. The queso dip we ordered came with house-made tortilla chips which were also obviously just made fresh to order!

If you’re still reading—go up to Mojave Cantina now and find out for yourself just how good...

Tonight was my 4th time at this location. Food is good but service was AWFUL tonight. I showed up with my family at 4:30pm on a Tuesday. They had about 7 tables filled and 4 servers with another 2-3 runners/bartenders and the manager.

We got chips/salsa from one server almost immediately after we sat down. We waited for a high chair for a few mins as another server was busy, no biggie. A new server comes up to us to get our drinks and served us at 4:37pm. This is where it goes downhill.

We sat at the table until 5:02pm and never got our order taken. 25 mins to get an order in… REALLLY? During that time, our server waited on other two tables, wiped down 2 tables, and took care of a carryout meal, and walking past us everytime as we sat next to the kitchen door never saying a word. After almost 30mins of sitting to get our order and the manager standing around the bar, we left. We had two couples come in after us and get there orders and even food before we left.

I could understand if the restaurant was busy, but they only had to take care of the 7 tables. We packed up and I addressed the manager about the situation and before I even got her attention at the bar, they were already cleaning our table clear. At that point, I told the manager we sat there for over 20mins to get our order taken and were leaving. She clearly didnt care because she was behind the bar and said she said “Oh, sorry about that.” and that was it. No who was your server so I can train them or addressing on how to help resolve the matter and it make it right. She saw us sitting at our table the entire time and never even seemed to notice we had our menus that long to come over and see if there was a problem. Meanwhile, my 4 and 1yr old were already over being there because they didnt want to eat just chips and salsa.

I know this place is newer and is working out the kinks, but management is clearly lost and inexperienced. We were so excited of this new place as we loved the clawson location and visit there often when we lived in that area. I hope ownership gets things straighten out because I get better service at most fast food chains than we...

Disappointment.

I am having a hard time giving an honest review of our long awaited, beloved South Lyon Mexican restaurant to reopen after a tragic fire several years ago. It was with much anticipation followed by disappointment when we ate here.

A friend showed us a video from your kitchen they took end of December. They tried to keep us from going here, but we decided to try it for ourselves, despite the unsanitary and gross actions we watched on the video in the kitchen. After this video was shown to the manager, it was surprisingly funny that the door in which this video was taken at is now blackened out with garage bags. Hmmm….

We came on a Tuesday at 3pm, we were 1 of 2 tables. There was a hostess, a bartender and 3 servers walking around. We had one server and the other table another. We wanted over 5 minutes after sitting down for a waitress. No chips and salsa delivered but the waitress kept saying she’d bring them. We waited longer for drinks to come and then again she said she’d bring chips. She did but at the same time as our soup, immediately followed by our meals. She never checked back once the food came. We finished and waited for the bill. She came and asked how everything was and we asked for the bill and waited about 10 minutes for it. She arrives with it where we immediately hand her a gift card and payment. It took her another 10 minutes to process the card and couldn’t do the gift card so had to ask for help. Our 3pm early dinner took over an hour in a restaurant filled with TWO families. I cannot imagine the wait when it is busy.

I ordered chicken enchiladas. Not much flavor. Pretty bland. Honestly tasted better at home the next day with a little help from homemade salsa.

I really hope Mojave takes their reviews seriously and changes whatever it is that needs to happen to make it clean environment to eat at and...