Backyard Taco - Mesa South — Restaurant in Mesa

First off the food is always amazing, we love it so much that when out of town friends requested good tacos, we order 2 family meals for their first Arizona meal. The reason we are giving 1 star is because the service this time was incredible terrible. We placed the order online an hour and half prior to pick up time. When we arrived we went through the drive thru and was asked nicely to park in front of the store with our hazards on and they would bring it right out. We waited patiently knowing we had a big order but after 35 mins we thought it was time to call and make sure we where parked in the right stop. After explaning to the lady that answered the phone what was going on she rudly tells me the reason we didn't have out food was because we needed to come inside and get it ourselves.... Once in the store she continued to be bothered by us because I asked why did they just let our food sit there for 30 mins knowing they instructed us to oull to the front of the store and put our hazards on while they brang the food out. She acted so bothered I felt the need to asked her if I was making her mad by asking her questions, she replayed no I just told him to come talk to you. The man working the drive thru who caused the mix up quickly walked over with no apology just a quick lie that they were busy ( 3 total table tops in the whole place) he just shrugged his shoulders and said a quick my bad as he turned his back and walked away. Still makes no sense why you would have customers sitting outside per your instructions for that long. How was I supposed to know they changed their minds and didn't inform us. Long story short is a simple I am sorry would have gone a long way in this situation, I was not rude to them I don't understand why they chose to be rude to us. Now we would be returning to this location. The customer service severely...

Granted I am not an aficionado of Mexican cuisine, but my wife is, and much of what is written is directly from her. With that said, my wife chose the venue as a 'date lunch' because she had heard great reviews and was frustrated that our only previous visit resulted in failure in the drive - thru lane as we had waited so long our movie was going to start (that's another story)

Ordering was easy enough, but the menu lacked descriptions and when we asked about portion size, we were given graphic descriptions via the use of the hand (maybe they were fishermen at heart, because the size that arrived did not match what they had described).

I can understand messing up the order when there is a large party / family...but when there are just two people, it would seem that a tostada that could be held inthe palm of a hand wouldn't feed two adults. Suffice to say, they grudgingly pulled out a slab of play-dough that they called flan out of a fridge, while they muttered in Spanish about making a quesadilla. Suffice to say that the tostada was as cold as the Palleta (popsicles) which were available.

The outside seating was pleasant and that's why the rating got 1 star - also because you can't give 0.

Back to the food...it was cold, dry chicken in both 'apetizer' sized entres and even I could have got the filling warm. Portions were very small and tasteless.

Maybe I just got an unlucky day, where the staff were either all beginners or waiting for the next shut-down, the level of customer service and 'caring' in general from the staff wasn't even ground level... When, even the sweet tea (was not sweet) and Cherry Coke (just running out of syrup and never changed) can't be got right, then what hope is there.

Maybe Covid does need to come again and put this family run disaster out...

I rolled up to the drive thru at about 11:50 am. The guy at the drive thru greeted me with an attitude as if I had the audacity to show up in the drive thru. I was greeted with "Backyard Taco". That's it. No "Welcome to Backyard Taco, what can I get for you?"...Nothing that would even remotely be close to a customer service oriented greeting. I then said something along the lines of "Sorry, but I need a second to look at the menu" and he responded with what sounded like an audbile sigh followed by a very fast "let me know when you're ready" as if I was somehow offending him because I didn't know the menu. I looked at the menu for about a minute, and said "I do have a question about the burritos". No response. I let about 15 seconds go by because maybe he was busy. I asked again "Hello, I have a question about the burritos." in which he finally responded with "What is it" in a tone that was, yet again, as if I some how annoyed him, again. At this point I just responded with "nevermind you have a crappy attitude" and I drove off.

I won't be returning to this location. The customer service I received is in fact NOT customer service. The managers at this location need to train their employees to have a better attitude. I worked customer service jobs for many years. The one thing you NEVER do is let your frustration reach the customer ESPECIALLY if that frustration was never their fault in the first place. The drive thru person's attitude was horrendous and it cost you a customer. Do better.

I went to Filibertos instead. They actually have decent...