Mini Jalapeno Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in North Carolina

I'm giving it two stars because the food was okay. We dined here twice during our week vacation. The first time our server was okay, he seemed as if he didn't understand us at all and had no interest in making a good dining experience. Even asking for more water seemed like I was being a pain, and you should NEVER have to ask for water! We were never offered drinks, dessert, to go boxes anything. It was a somewhat weird dining experience but we enjoyed the food. The music was up so loud my mom and I couldn't have a conversation. I like the music but why does it need to be so loud? We decided to go again, this time we had Karla as our server. She seemed very nice and was talking to us and made us feel very welcome, we even discussed that we were going to leave her a great tip because she was so nice. She takes our order and we literally never saw her again. I was trying to be patient and my water glass had again been empty for over 20 minutes. I couldn't wait any longer so I went up to the bar area where about 6 employees were standing there doing absolutely nothing. I again had to ask for water and again I felt as if I was asking for too much and I was interrupting their conversation. We waited and waited for Karla to come by so we could order dessert, get our to go boxes, etc. Almost an hour went by of us sitting at the table with absolutely no service. We finally decided to leave and we go to the front to pay. We tell the very nice girl that we are sorry but we don't have a bill because we haven't seen our server in over an hour. She explained to us that she was sent home. Sent home!! I don't know if she was sick, if it was slow, or if she was fired, but she had customers and no one bothered or cared to take care of us. If you are going to send someone home please put another server in that section. I can't believe the manager would send her home and just let us sit there with absolutely NO service. As a service industry worker myself I was beyond disappointed with the service I received here! I hope you can learn from this...

Hope you found this review well. I am not here to talk bad about mini jalapeño as a whole. The food is good and the servers are very kind, although I do believe I caught them at their worst day and feel like I was treated so poorly. I frequent this place for take out several times a week and have always enjoyed it.

I volunteered to cater a mens group and I thought tacos would be a great idea. I called in and asked for a taco spread for 20 guys. 2-3 tacos a person. So 60 tacos. He said no problem and I thought nothing of it until it was time for me to pick up the food at 5 after work. When I got there to pay I assumed (which is my fault!) that the prices would be reasonable since their menu is always priced well! I think it’s 3.99 a taco , for 60 tacos. So $240 (and that’s a premium price on beef tacos). Mind you they didn’t prepare them individually this was just trays of food. Rice, beans, lettuce, and beef.

They rang me up for $428 dollars. The bill was not itemized and this is when the situation went south. I did not handle the shock well and got visibly upset and acted out of my self ( I was wrong for doing that) but I couldn’t make sense of it!

The manager then called his boss, who’s advice was to pay it or leave. No negotiation, no explanation besides prices are getting higher and the whole 9. I felt like they were calling me stupid to my face. Y’all $428 divided by 60 tacos is over $7 a soft taco. No bigger than my hand. Stuck between a rock and a hard place I had no choice but to buy the food and fulfill my duty to serve my group. Hindsight 20/20 I should have declined and just picked up pizzas. I’m thankful that I had the opportunity to apologize for my behavior and made sure to ask for forgiveness but as this settles it sits worse and worse. I had every reason to feel the way I did but not to act how I did.

Again this review isn’t because I have anything against them. But the customer service and intimidation tactics were beyond anything I’ve seen.

I hope this review helps us...

After reading the reviews, I decided that there were enough good reviews to give it a try. I have to say, the ones that didn’t give a good review were mostly about service, and I found that to be the case with me. Being a Mexican restaurant, I wanted a margarita that didn’t come from a grocery store mix, so I asked the waitress did they have a top shelf one with fresh ingredients. She said she would have to find someone that could answer that. After 15 minutes a man showed up, didn’t seem happy to engage me, and said he could fix a skinny margarita with fresh ingredients. He did squeeze a couple items and the skinny must have meant the amount of tequila he used, lots of orange juice, little else. Food came, it was ok, not great, ordered a Texas chimichanga, should be beef and chicken, it was only chicken, but I decided to let it go. From time food was put down, and I Flagged someone to bring me some silverware, my next contact was asking for my check, after flagging someone down to ask for it. The check was put down, I pulled my credit card and put it with the bill, after 10 minutes, the bartender said I paid when I leave at the front desk. Wonder why she didn’t say that when she put the check down. I think my 3 star review was pretty generous considering. Sad thing is, I’ve done pretty well in life, and I love tipping big, wad at a KFC drive through a few weeks ago for chicken sandwich, and young lady was so friendly, I paid my 6 dollars for order, and handed her a 100 dollar bill for having a great attitude. So I’m on the hunt for the next person that appreciates me...