Serrano's Mexican Food Restaurants — Restaurant in Mesa

My husband and I love Mexican food and it's rare that we don't like a Mexican restaurant but I'm sorry to say that Serrano's on Power Road in Mesa is the worst we've ever eaten at.

We were seated at a bar table and weren't even greeted. A girl came by and put some chips, salsa and bean dip on our table. She didn't say hello, didn't say a word, just plunked them down. The chips and bean dip were ok, the salsa was thick, like tomato paste and not very flavorful. I saw that they had shrimp cocktail on the menu so I was eager to try that because I love shrimp cocktail. Finally the bartender, a woman who was very obviously over worked, tending bar and waiting on tables in the bar area, came over and asked what we wanted to drink and I also told her I'd like the shrimp cocktail as an appetizer. She looked very stressed and rushed off to get our drinks. About ten minutes later she came back and took our dinner order. I ordered the Chicken Serrano which was supposed to be two marinated chicken breasts with rice and beans and some pico de gallo on the side. Sounds harmless enough. My husband ordered the Sonoran Style Enchiladas. Shortly after she took our order, my shrimp cocktail came out and it was steaming hot. Actual steam was eminating from it which I thought was very odd. It was in a martini glass piled with shredded cabbage, which you could see through the glass was sitting in some pale orangish liquid at the very bottom of the glass. The cabbage was topped with the same thick, tomato paste salsa with four medium sized warm shrimp on it and a small scoop of guacamole on top of that. The shrimp had absolutely no taste and they were warm. Not hot, not cold....warm. I kept wondering how long they'd been sitting in the kitchen and was I going to end up sick from eating warm shrimp (which I actually did). I ate some of the shrimp and the guacamole, which also had absolutely no taste. After eating that shrimp cocktail I felt slightly nauseated and nervous but we stayed for the remainder of the meal, which sadly, wasn't any better. My Chicken Serrano came out and it looked old and smelled horrible. The chicken breasts looked and smelled as if they'd gone bad. Seriously. I bravely (or stupidly) took a few bites and I knew I shouldn't go any further. I also tasted the rice and beans and they were both totally bland. No seasonings whatsoever. I asked my husband how his food was and he said not good. I tasted a piece of the meat from his meal and it was completely overspiced with chili powder and it was bright red from it. It seemed like they dumped a half bottle of chili powder on the meat and called it a day. No other seasonings on the meat. We both looked at each other and said "we're done" and asked for the check and left.

I will add that I did get sick last night and as I sit here typing this this morning, I'm still very sick to my stomach.

There are a lot of good Mexican restaurants in east Mesa, unfortunately Serrano's doesn't even come close. It's definitely the bottom of the list and we would never go back or recommend it to anyone. I honestly don't know how this place stays in business. Not only is the food terrible, but the wait staff is anything but friendly. Avoid this place...

Horrible!! I have never wrote a bad reviews but I felt i needed to share my experiance. My family and I went to dinner here for the first time and when we sat down we ordered our drinks and then waited for 20 minutes before we were informed we gad a new waitress; (change of shift). So we re ordered our drinks and the waitress didn't come back for 30 minutes. There were 8 of us sharing one bowl of chips and salsa and when she did come back and we asked for more she brought us one salsa and no more chips. Then she skipped my sisters drink order and when my sister went up to the bar to order one because we had been there for an hour and didn't even have our food order in, the bar tender informed her she would need to just sit and wait for the waitress because she was too busy! Waitress comes back 2 more times and hurriedly drops off more chips and salsa and some napkins and skips my sisters drink order again. Skip forward 30 more minutes and we are getting our orders taken and I order grilled cheese and a side of queso for my son and she tells me it goes by a different name other than queso... I asked her if it was queso chees and she said it was but just called a different name and had a different consistancy like more of a dip. I ordered steak chimichanga and my husband a pork chimichanga. When we finally got our food an hour later..., it looked as if my husband and I had ordered different meals even though it was the same just different meats. I was served beef and my husband was served something with chicken, and my sons cheese dip was not what we were expecting at all. I nicely tried to explain to the waitress that my sons cheese dip is nothing like what we were expecting (a luke warm cottage cheese dip is what it looked like), and she told me "I tried to tell you it was different, its cream cheese." Never once did she tell me before hand it was cream cheese otherwise I wouldn't have ordered it... she just said it went by a different name. She hurriedly walked away before I could finish telling her my husband and I did not get the right meats we ordered. I didn't eat my meal because the comsistancy of canned rotelle and ground beef when I cut into it looked disgusting. She didn't come back until we were ready for the checks and when she noticed my food was untouched she never asked what was wrong or if I didn't like it. She brought out a box for me and I told her no thank you and she just shrugged her shoulders, set it down on a ledge close by and walked away. When we got our bill we were still charged for the cheese dip. At the end of the day, we could have said more to her and maybe even got our food taken off, but the server made us super uncomfortable and was so rude that it wasn't worth the hassle. This was almost 3 hours of my life i will never get back. And honestly, even if the service wasn't the worst I had ever recieved in my life; the food was...

Enchiladas Rancheros with the two eggs on top was a delicious option. Two cheese enchiladas with two over easy eggs on top with double refried beans. Mix in some salsa, delicious. They offered tortillas but I declined. I cleaned the plate, delicious.

I was a little annoyed by the placement of everyone, we got there shortly after opening, and I understand needing sections for waiters/waitresses but it was kind of annoying to be surrounded by people when you have this giant restaurant. They put two people less than 4 feet away and I'm like really, whole place, you got to put them right next to us. And then to our left we have a guy on his cell phone who has decided that indoor voice isn't his thing. That was annoying as well, felt like being in the movie theater before the movie, and on top of that you have some medium-loud music going - almost felt like we were at a bar.

The waitresses were working hard, doing a great job, but it appears they need an extra hand. I thought it was neat they offered to give me a to-go drink of my drink, so like a free refill to go which was cool. It's pretty expensive to eat out now, so keep that in mind, my meal was $18.99 but with drink and tip, it was closer to $30-$40. I think you can get by on $20-$30 if you plan it out and get water instead. They do have some lunch specials, but nothing is cheap anymore, so still same range. Great food, HOT plates, great service.

Additional observation- The men's restroom, the left sink does not...