Fresh Guacamole Tequila & Bar — Restaurant in Ormond Beach

The swing that broke the pinatas back! I'm a local. My first experience at this restaurant was 15 years ago. At the time it was one of the only Mexican restaurants in Ormond Beach. They wanted to charge me for a second ramakin of salsa. Usually chips and salsa are complimentary with your meal, right? That was enough to turn me off. About six months ago, a friend invited me to go there again. Everything was great. A couple of months later I went back, ordered the same thing, and it was completely different. I didn't say anything. Figured different cook, different preparation. Two months more pass. I go again. This time I ask the waitress what I should expect before ordering and was basically told, ' it varies.' instead of being disappointed and testing fate ( I crave consistency when I'm choosing my favorite dish at my favorite restaurants) I ordered a combination to try a few different things. It was a bit odd that the only thing in the burritos was, kind of bland, meat. Everything was good, until I got the check. I had asked a server about sour cream coming as part of the garnish. Every Mexican restaurant I've been in my entire life gives you a spoonful of sour cream as part of the garnish. He said, ' Sour cream, no problem.' returned with a ramekin and I finished my meal. On the check was a charged of $2 for sour cream. I asked my server about it and she agreed, she thought it was supposed to come with the meal and would check with the manger. She came back to me and said the server who brought it to me was gone. They couldn't verify my claim and proceed to ask me for $2 more. I told the server it wasn't the $2. My concern was the fact that I was being charged for something I didn't order! I happily thanked her for everything, told her would not be back on principle. I tipped her 100%. She told how she felt it was her fault, gave me some suggestions how to insure my experience would be better in the future, but made no offer to correct the over charge. The manger never approached me to understand the situation. I didn't feel appreciated as a customers and this establishment was willing to loose a customer over 10¢ of sour cream. Evidently, they don't care about me, the people I talk to, or this this review. Charging me $2 for something I didn't order is more important. Keep that in mind when you go to this restaurant. Make sure you check your bill for padded and over charges. From looking at other reviews, it is a common practice. I'm not an irate customer, flaming for no reason. I'm calm and collected. Content to spend my money where my business is appreciated. My main purpose is to alert management, that might care and let other people know what to look out for, when frequenting this restaurant. You might get charged for everything you mention, or even an extra ramakin of...

It takes an impressively bad experience to prompt me to write a bad review, but I feel like I need to in this case since I have absolutely no idea how this place has any good reviews.

1. the service - we were seated for 10+ minutes before anyone stopped by our table to even offer water. They definitely were not too busy because there were more staff socializing with each other than there were tables, and we watched two other tables be seated, order drinks, get drinks delivered, and place food orders before anyone spoke a word to us. When someone finally did stop by, she looked and acted annoyed as if us sitting there was a massive inconvenience to her. We asked a simple question about the food (if a steak dish came with rice and beans and tortillas), which the server answered incorrectly. Thankfully she did come back out to give us the correct answer though, which we appreciated. The first time we saw her smile was when she brought us the check, and her face and demeanor were so different that my husband thought it was a completely different person.
2. the food - we ordered a horchata, corn-guac, taquitos, birria taco, and fajitas. The horchata was not horchata. It somehow tasted like strawberry coconut milk? It was terrible. The "tableside" guac was not only not made tableside, but had clearly been made a few hours earlier given how brown the avocado already was. It was brought out in the molcajete, had mealy tomatoes mixed in, and was topped with canned corn that had been partially drained and then mixed with crema. Guacamole is one of my favorite things, but I had one bite and was done. The taquitos were overfilled, bland, and served on brown lettuce with more brown guac. The birria taco was actually decent, but overpriced. The fajitas were ok, but the meat was too tough and the peppers soggy. We were excited to come here given the reviews, but ended up incredibly confused and disappointed. And while the prices aren't too bad in general, they are definitely too high considering the poor food quality. The only reason we're giving this two stars instead of one is because the place itself was nice and clean, and the birria...

Hey Fresh Guacamole, since you don’t know how to do the math on your receipts, and both our waitress and the manager refused to hear us out, let me teach you.

If we go in on a Sunday and the lunch special Mucho Burrito we order is listed as $13.99 + $1 on Sundays, the steak fajitas we order is also listed as $13.99 + $1 on Sundays, one of us orders a free water and the other gets a sweet tea listed as $3.50, how much is our bill before your credit card processing fee and sales tax? $33.48. Do we add in the credit card processing fee yet? No, because that will increase the sales tax that is 6.5% going on top of the additional 3% I’m assuming your charging as the CC fee since it’s not more than that (I’m a fellow business owner, I know what they are — also, I bet you’re still writing them off on your taxes every year aren’t you). With the CC fee and sales tax, our bill should have been $36.73. So why did our first receipt charge us $46.59 and when we asked for a menu and then the waitress, she hurried over and changed out receipts before we even said a word, still charging us $42.20? The manager blames it on the credit card processing fees. So that’s why the $14.99 total for the steak fajitas were suddenly on our receipt for $20.59? And just to be petty, I’ll add the sweet tea on the receipt was $3.60.. only a $0.10 difference but how many people are you skimming $0.10 for in a day?

Also, just so you know, after we talked to the manager, our waitress came by to collect our payment and after seeing my husband wrote $0 tip since I always pay it in cash, she came back by and condescendingly pointed at the receipt as I had my open wallet in hand looking for something smaller than my $20s, and said “No tip?!”. I just looked at her puzzled and said I was going to pay it in cash and looked down at my wallet. I stupidly handed her the $10 bill I found. She was a fine waitress until that moment. I could tell she got annoyed when we asked for the manager, but that really crossed the line. I work in a business where I’m tipped too and would never act that way...