Cactus Cantina Canal Road — Restaurant in Orange Beach

We called at 5:30 PM to place a to-go order. The lady answered and said may I help you . I said I need to place an order to go. She said ok please hold a minute. I held for 13 minutes and 43 seconds. She never returned to the phone. My husband tried calling from his phone. The phone rang and rang and no one answered his call. This is the second time this has happened to us - on two separate dates-where I was left hanging on the phone with no one returning to pick up the line as we tried to place an order. Jan - Feb is not the busy season. The first time we called we were left holding for 10 minutes. I thought well this is an unprofessional employee who just is not doing her job, but when it happened today again; and no one returned to take the order; this appears to be a pattern. I need to mention we did go back to CC after seeing a roach on the wall by a table close to us while eating at Cactus Cantina in Gulf Shores in Dec. We Thought we would give them another chance. It appears the restaurants are not well run. We have eaten at Cactus Cantina for a couple of years, so I feel my assessment of the service and how the restaurants are run from Dec 2020 until today Feb 2021 is fair. Prior to this time span, would have rated the food and service a 3 to 4. Never a 5....

I Intended to write this review weeks ago. Unfortunately, I have now forgotten our waiter and the managers name.

I have come to the Canal Rd location for many years while on vacation with family. It's always been awesome. Good family atmosphere, reasonable prices , good drinks and food. Admittedly I should have already wrote a good review years ago.

What made me commit to writing was my last visit a couple of weeks back. I ordered my plate no hot sauce. My plate came out and food was awesome. I didn't even notice that hot sauce was on there. It just wasn't too hot and was VERY GOOD. We had a very intelligent gentleman as a waiter. He caught it and insisted they correct the issue. As it was a true non issue for me I saw no need to remake the order. The manager later came around and spoke to all tables and addressed the same concern that had been shared by our waiter.

Lots of typing to say this. The level of service demonstrated to me and my family was exceptional. What makes it stand out even more is this is extremely rare lately. Service at most places has declined. Bravo to our Waiter, the Manager and Owners all for hiring solid staff that are attentive, have an attention to detail and willingness to make things right.

We will be back...

So we are at the end of a week's vacation and we are used to seeing two hour waits for any dining. So please plan ahead if you're here in the summer months. The quote for the wait was only an hour and they did meet that within a 5-minute window. We decided to have an appetizer and drinks at the bar but the bartenders are so rude and slow lazy that really turned us off. We had to clean our own spot off at the bar. we asked the lady if she could help us and she goes "yeah when I get a minute" And then she turned around and said 'Jesus Christ'!

It took us about 15 minutes to get drinks at the bar and we ordered some appetizers along with those drinks. When we got the drinks our appetizers came out shortly after that but then I had to go seek a server to get my chips for my guacamole and silverware for my kids to eat their meal.

The bartenders are too busy taking shots out in the lobby and don't care to serve their patrons. At three different times I saw servers come back behind the bar to get the bartenders caught up.

Think twice about coming to this restaurant as the atmosphere is really not Mexican style. And we haven't yet tried the food. If it wasn't a 2-hour wait somewhere else we would have walked out a...