The Cantina — Restaurant in Mill Valley

I had a pretty upsetting interaction with one of the staff tonight at this establishment, and am not giving a lower rating simply because the food was nice and the rest of the staff were pleasant.

A middle aged man, who I assume was part of management, approached me about my service dog upon arrival (note: this is a dog-friendly business anyways). He was incredibly dismissive and intense, and while I understand that my dog is not a stereotypical breed for service work, he is very much a trained and working service animal that I have invested much time and money into for my disabilities. He kept demanding to know what he trained for, but by this point I was already beginning to have panic attack caused by how intense he was. I tried to explain he was a multi purpose service dog, trained in psychiatric and migraine alert tasks, but I was clearly stumbling and flustered by the conversation, and could not communicate properly. He backed off once I assume he noticed me struggling with a very rude, "under the table", and went away. I spent the rest of the dinner fairly disassociated, which is frustrating as I was meeting with family I hadn't seen in nearly ten years. My waiter however was a gem and I only made it through the night thanks to his making jokes.

Ultimately, I'm sure he was coming at the angle of fake service dogs trying to enter a business and fully understand/sympathize, however the way this was approached was incredibly unprofessional and thus caused the exact thing my service dog is trained to handle. I would've been more than happy to discuss the situation if he had approached me kindly and with respect. Extremely disappointed with this and will probably not be returning in the future, despite having been a...

Playing catch up, needless to say, we go to the Cantina all the time--I've probably eaten here over 50 times so yes, I'm a fan. Just about all the time, we're with our kid and friends with kids as this place does a nice job mixing in kid friendly food and environment. It's Mill Valley after all.

I do have varied opinions about the food. The Fajitas are great. They have Tex Mex down but I'm not a fan of their burritos--pretty good but I would pass in favor of other items (salads are good too I'm told but I always go to the default). I've tried the Quesadilla but that too was left wanting. Drinks are good but as other reviewers have noted, they're expensive and yes, you have to be in the bar area to get happy hour so do ask if you're in the right "zone".

Service is always consistent and good - no problems there - it feels well managed. I've had drinks at the bar but it's cramped especially if you're on the ends as the wait staff is constantly coming in for drinks and you'll get bumped in favor of their needs. At times, the bar is definitely understaffed. The outdoor areas are nice - especially outdoor patio off the inside. Out front is more of a bar scene.

Why do we keep going back if the food is average to above average? It's the whole package. Good for kids, comfortable, food passes, decent drinks, good service, it's fun, it's easy, and parking is also easy. If you're looking for the "Mexican foodie experience", this probably isn't the place but if you're looking all of the attributes I listed above, you'll have a good time and there's nothing...

The Cantina does have good food been there many times: my sister actually worked at the one in Walnut Creek back when. What I wanted to talk about was an incident that happened on a Sunday evening in the parking lot. o I was smoking a cigarette in an empty parking lot with nobody around.:when the manager came up and yelled you need to leave here and go down the outside street and smoke:there was a city ordinance. Well that may be true:I’ve never heard it but it was the way this manager did it because I asked him are you the manager: he said yes and I said you know that’s a good way to lose customers rude and in-polite, inappropriate at least the way he handled coming out and telling us not to smoke in an empty parking lot with nobody around. So We Left! We went to another restaurant actually a drive-through! Little perspective: they don’t ask you if you’re vaccinated when you come in or if you’ve been tested: obviously it’s inside with an open area so if you’re not vaccinated and you have Covid you’re spreading it in the restaurant. I’m sure they don’t give people breathalyzers when they leave the bar to see if they’re safe to drive and may end up in a crash maybe in their parking lot and hurt somebody! Smoking a cigarette doesn’t create problems like that especially in a parking lot with nobody around and create being out of control and crashing a car after drinking: just a little food...