Pastime Gardens — Restaurant in Mason City

This place used to be better. It was never fast, but it was something you accepted, because the food was good. It’s a local bar with quirky food that has a lot of character. But tonight left me feeling extremely disappointed. We came in right at open, our waitress was excellent, but we left after an hour and a half, without getting the main part of our order.

It’s one thing to wait a while; they don’t have a huge staff, this isn’t a major city. If you like this place, you know the deal. But we watched as two tables who had their orders taken after us had their food brought to them. Our waitress, who have no reason to doubt, she was very attentive, assured us she put our order in ahead of a large group that had been seated after us, and comped what we had ordered before we left. We’ve been coming here or getting food to go for years, we won’t be going back and definitely can’t...

DO NOT EAT HERE. This was incredibly bad. We waited almost an hour for our food. That is not an exaggeration. It was more than 45 minutes. The food we got was small, expensive, and did not have an authentic mexican food flavor. There were 4 of us, and 2 of us received food that we didn't order. We didn't say anything, because we didn't want to wait another 45 minutes to get it corrected. The drinks came in cans, did not have refills, the chips were not complimentary, the servers were dismissive, and the atmosphere was cliched. This is not a restaurant. This is a dive bar that serves some "mexican...

I used to love coming here as a kid, but it is not the same as it used to be.

The service is really slow, takes close to an hour to get your food. It’s not traditional Mexican food, definitely a really Americanized version. The chips and dip are pretty good, and the thing I like to get from here. The menu is smaller than it used to be. Drinks are served in a can, no refills. The overall price is pretty low compared to what I am used to in larger cities.

Things are not the same since the old manager/waitress Karen left.

Don’t really plan to visit this place anymore when I am...