La Bodega Mexican Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Odessa

This is a bit long but worth the read. Normally La Bodega has great food, but tonight was not a good night. I have to give accolades to the waitstaff for calmly helping me with my entrée tonight, although they have an inner communication problem among that very staff. I ordered the small tamale plate, when it arrived at the table, they were half the size of a normal tamale. I commented that I had NEVER seen such small tamales, the waitress said they sometimes come that small and I laughed. But upon closer inspection, they were extremely dry and the ends were protruding with burned meat. I asked to speak to a manager and was told there wasn't one on the premises, then a different young lady came by and told me the owner was on her way. Then a young man came by and said the owner wasn't here, nor coming in...lack of communication among the ranks, LOL! They had asked if I wanted more tamales I kindly declined. I also said it was ALL on the kitchen staff, for not paying attention to presentation. So in the end I ordered a hamburger dry but with all the veggies, and it came with fires. I was so hungry I inhaled it. I'm a loyal customer of this establishment and have always held them to the high standard they live by. Unfortunately tonight the kitchen staff, let me and most importantly the owner down, by serving food that had NO clear and appetizing appeal for the food served. I attribute that to a long day perhaps, maybe even being busy and time slipped away and they just plated and called it a go. Nonetheless I didn't blame the waitstaff, they did their job. I totally blame the kitchen staff for carelessly forgetting that PRESENTATION IS EVERYTHING when plating food. If it isn't appealing, one tends to refer to past experiences in life at other establishments that tells us...NOPE, I'm NOT eating that. I will continue to give them my business, because I love their...

December 2021 We sat upstairs and there was only one waitress. She was prompt with taking our drink order and brought them out quickly. Our food order wasn't taken until an hour later, it also came quickly once it was placed and the food was good all around. We enjoyed our time as we were there for my mom's birthday dinner but if it were the same for just a family dinner I would've probably been frustrated. We tried to lighten the mood with the waitress who wasn't unpleasant but also not friendly, possibly due to the lack of help, but in my opinion that should not reflect to the customer. Overall I will go back but I hope they can fix the few issues to turn this into a 5 star rating.

Update May 2022 Went in for mother's day dinner, we had a great time and food once again was very good. There was more staff on this visit and everyone was very pleasant. We were able to put our order in quickly and got our food in a timely manner. Everyone was pleased with the quality and the portions are good. Very pleased to raise the rating from the 3 stars I gave in my previous review as we have always enjoyed La Bodega and I look forward...

Giving 3 stars because service was excellent! This was by far the best service I have had in all of midland & Odessa.

My family wasn’t very impressed with the food though. The rice and beans were kind of bland and I had some random super hard raw/overcooked rice in there too. I got quesadillas and asked for veggies in it(onions and bell peppers only) and I got my quesadillas and the veggies were raw.. not sautéed, which was really weird. Not the best flavor because of that. My daughter didn’t have any complaints on her grilled cheese and fries. My husband thought his food was terrible. He said his food was dry and the flavors were just bad. I got the blue margarita and it was ok. I don’t really have any complaints there except I asked what it was and the kid serving us shrugged his shoulders and said ‘idk’ so I just ordered it anyways. I also had a sweet tea and it wasn’t super sweet, but I don’t have any complaints there. The flavor of the tea was bad though. Like it was old. Overall, we...