Frida's Mexican Cantina — Restaurant in Pineville

My friends and I had lunch at Frida's about two weeks ago for a friend's birthday, and unfortunately, the experience was underwhelming. The food was overpriced and lacked flavor, especially compared to other Mexican restaurants in Charlotte—Mi Pueblo remains my personal favorite. Frida’s seems to be positioning itself as a higher-end establishment, but it falls short of delivering a truly elevated dining experience. The flavors felt very Americanized and didn’t stand out. The corn dip was the only thing that left us truly impressed!

Beyond the food, the service was disappointing. It took over an hour for our table of six to receive our meals, and once we finished eating, it was another 30 minutes before the table was cleared. This isn't something I usually notice, but the delay was so excessive that it became hard to ignore.

The biggest issue, however, was the handling of my friend’s birthday cake. When she made the reservation, she mentioned the occasion, but at no point was she informed of a $25 cake-cutting fee. Upon arrival, instead of a warm greeting, we were immediately told about the fee—no welcome, just straight to business. Upon learning about the fee, we explained that we didn’t plan to cut the cake there but wanted to keep it at the table due to the warm weather outside. Despite this, the host responded with a snarky, “Well, why would you bring a cake inside if you’re not going to eat it?” which felt unnecessarily rude.

Adding to the disappointment, there was no acknowledgment of my friend’s birthday from our server or the manager who briefly stopped by our table. When the manager did stop at our table (Leo I believe may have been his name, not sure), he just doubled down on the $25 cutting fee; to which I jokingly mentioned, "wow we must be at Steak48." Both of us laughed and that was that. Meanwhile, a neighboring table received a full birthday celebration, complete with a song, costume and more. Perhaps they had paid for it, but it would have been nice to at least be informed that this was an option. The lack of hospitality left a sour note on what should have been a special occasion.

Overall, I’d rate the experience a 3/5. As someone who works in corporate hospitality, I see plenty of areas where they could improve—especially when it comes to making all guests...

My experience with Frida’s was NOT great at all. First walking into the restaurant, my boyfriend and I had a reservation. It didn’t take long to get seated but we were immediately seated in their enclosed outside section which I didn’t like. I wish they would’ve asked us where we would’ve like to sit like most restaurants. We also had a reservation as well so I didn’t understand either, I felt like we were seated like we didn’t have one. They actually had an outside outside section but it was closed. This enclosed outdoor section we sat in irritated me because it was 65 degrees in there which is pretty cold. Finally we sat at a table in the very back, and it took over 10 mins for our server to greet us. After our order was placed, we didn’t receive their complementary chips and salsa like everyone else in the room which was already strike #2. Our server Danny told us the chips would come out with our appetizer (which made no sense to me) and we didn’t even eat the chips… Next, our drinks came and my cup was dirty and my drink was watered down. Lastly, when our food was finally served, another waiter brought out the food and my boyfriend’s food touched the table when it was put down which caused him not to eat half his food. Such a disappointment. ANOTHER THING I forgot to mention, I think the manager came to ask us how everything was going and I told him ok but I then asked him for napkins. He proceeded to tell me that the silverware cloths are used as napkins but he said he’ll bring me paper napkins…. like what??? WHY WOULD I WANNA WIPE MY MOUTH WITH THAT! YUCK!! I feel like he only came to check on us because I visually looked unhappy with the service. Another thing I thought was strange was that some of the black people in the restaurant sat out in the outer indoor section with us but not in the main part of the restaurant. I thought was soooo weird!! I don’t know if they’re a bit racist, I’m not sure. I only ate here because of the instagram post from wheretoeatcharlotte which is ran by a “white” woman. We were not treated the best in the restaurant. I will NEVER EAT HERE AGAIN!! You have...

The place is really nice, love the decorations. We arrived at 9:30pm last night which gives us an hour and a half before close time. We were greeted by the hostess at the front and we were informed that the waiting time would be 20 min for a table inside. After 20 min another couple comes inn and the hostess offers them a table outside, while we were standing behind them and we had not been offered a table outside. The other couple decline the table and opted to sit at the bar instead, at which point we were offered the outside table which we took. The server came by and took our full order which was a side of guac for appetizer and for main dish, 2 orders of sopes one with no meat and one order regular. It’s been 45 min and we notice that there was 2 parties going on but they were just having drinks and had already had their food served when we arrived at 9:30pm, so we kept wondering why was it taking so long. At 10:45 PM, the manager comes out with our sopes, my partners sopes the no meat order came with veggies on it and had mushrooms which she can’t have and mine were cold. The guacamole never got to our table, at this point we decided to return the food and leave since we notice it was only 15 minutes until closing time so we did not want to stay over the manager was really nice and apologized for the situation, we had just a bad experience. He did offer to remake my partner’s sopes and said it would take 3-4 minutes, which was surprising because it took 45 minutes for them to get the original order out to us. Other than the one couple that came in after us, there were no new tables sat after we arrived at 9:30pm and there were multiple servers for the small restaurant, so I’m not sure why everything was so delayed. We do understand Saturday nights can be busy, but a heads up or even a check in with the server would have been nice. We ended up leaving at 10:45pm, an hour and 15 minutes after arriving only to find...