Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill - New Haven — Restaurant in New Haven

Geronimo has its ups and downs.

Mostly professional customer service, tasty food, Michelin star presentation of food, colorful drinks and speedy service.

Unfortunately, the bartenders can be very disrespectful. I think it really comes down to who they can take advantage of. Christopher, who worked there a couple of years ago, (I was naïve about tipping) so I left him a five dollar tip, and after that he had a conversation with me about tipping 20%; Another time I went there, I was a little sleepy from working 16 hours in a row, so Christopher decided not to put in my order And he was saying that I was sleeping in the restaurant, and I need to get out and stop doing that, (I was not sleeping at all), so more than likely his mentality was I will not respect you unless you are breaking bank giving me tips. When he did that, I left him a good tip, because I was afraid that he would say something that would’ve escalated into a fight between both of us, But it also became a motivation for me to write a review years ago.

Another time, I was mentioning to a server that I was going on trip to Hawaii and I would like a Hawaiian style drink to celebrate, they replied that they can’t make a Hawaiian style drink, since this is not a bar in Hawaii.

And another time I put in an order, they closed my order when I was done, and then I wanted to put in a new order afterwards, so the bartender through their Voice sent me: even though I recognize that it was disrespectful for me to reopen the order, (I actually came back to the restaurant a few days later, and apologized for being careless) responding back with shouting at a customer is never appropriate, And it makes me feel like the staff is entitled to treat me whatever way.

With all that said, as somebody who would spend 200 to 300 gere every month, I now come here once or choice every 3 to 4 months; sometimes I tell myself that I’m upset that I have a hankering for Geronimo’s food, knowing that they really façade themselves.

Even though disrespectful experiences are minimal, they should’ve never happened in the first place. I do understand that if somebody’s being rude and you know the amount of friendly basis, it’s OK to correct to that person in a very respectful and non-undermining way. But when you get the point of disrespecting me, I have no problem reducing the times that I come back and bringing awareness with reviews because Customers should be treated with respect, is needed.

When you have a customer that is verbally abusive, they are dangerous to others, it’s understandable why people would use verbal abuse and encourage them not come back to the restaurant. However, this was definitely not my case and if it’s the result of faulty, behavior and retaliation for reasonable requests, and not 20% tipping, I wouldn’t recommend this place to anybody and I would have more people start paying attention and evaluating how they...

I would give zero stars if an option. My friends and I sat down expecting to have a nice dinner with some drinks. After checking my out of state ID with no problem, the waiter took my friend’s out of state ID and said he would be right back. After watching him wander around the restaurant for about 10 minutes, the waiter returned and said he couldn’t accept because “I’ve showed a bunch of people and they all think it’s fake.” We we’re astonished, as my friend’s ID was clearly real. My friend said as much, and even offered to show him his student ID with the same details, including birthdate and year. The waiter asked us to hold on, and after another ten minutes, a man who identified himself as the manager, Kevin, walked up and sat down at the table with us. From the moment he began speaking, he was rude and condescending. He said he could not take the ID because it looked “awful” and that it was starting to peel. The corner of this ID has a slight wrinkle from 2 years of wear in a wallet. He then went on to explain, several times, that they were trained to identify fake IDs, but could not explain what features of my friend’s ID they had identified as traits of a “fraudulent” ID. When asked if he could just scan it to verify it’s authenticity, he replied: “No, we don’t have a scanner, we have a book”, but refused to explain what this book was or how it was used in identifying fake IDs. He then went on to say “I’m supposed to keep this, but I’m not. We’re allowing you to dine here, without issue.” Which is ridiculous, as he had just spent several minutes condescending to us in a very public and humiliating way. If he were so certain of the ID being a fake, why didn’t he keep it, as was his company police, as he mentioned numerous times? He told us we could go get dinner somewhere else if we so chose, and repeated that he was “allowing us to dine [there].” After such a gracious invitation 🙄, we of course decided to take our business somewhere else, where they immediately took my friend’s REAL and valid ID. Needless to say, will not return to this place as its staff and managers are willing to treat...

Two disappointing experiences! My fiance and I went here on a Friday for dinner and got probably the last (and worst) table in the place, squeezed in a corner very close to others and chair had a big hole in the back. We didn't get water for at least 20 min, and it was a pretty hot day. Our waiter was friendly but the mediocre service continued (granted it looked like he was working his butt off, maybe they were understaffed). My partner got the wrong burrito (pork instead of vegetable), but he ended up eating it anyway since he's not vegetarian and the waiter took a long time to check on us (we were getting HANGRY and also didn't want the food to go to waste). Margaritas were so-so, guacamole was delicious (HUGE portion, could be too much for two people as we saw many others leaving guac behind... a real shame for an expensive, non-local, and water intensive ingredient... I feel like they should warn customers). We never got refills on our water either. The waiter did have the manager come see us, and he provided $20 worth of tokens toward our next meal. Now after this experience, we certainly weren't eager to return, but since we were just visiting New Haven for a couple of days, we figured we'd grab a small bite the next day to use our tokens and give them another chance. Service still wasn't great considering the place was pretty dead this time. When we went to pay the bill with them, our waiter told us that you could only use $5 worth (one wooden token/chip) per table. My partner insisted they let us use them because there was no indication of this rule printed on the tokens and when the manager handed them to us the previous day he never mentioned this. After MUCH back and forth, including initially being told the manager was too busy to meet with us, our waiter had the manager come by. She apologized for our poor experience and accepted the tokens. We will actually be moving to New Haven now but it is highly unlikely we will...