Chihuahua's Cantina & Grill — Restaurant in Reno

I wish I could give this place zero stars.

I've been to this establishment several times and had the worst experience by far on Father's Day. I made the mistake of coming with my family to celebrate and ended up having the worst service. We had a party of 8 of us and was sat fairly quickly for not making any reservations and just walking in. Our server Karen was friendly at first. Deciding to get a pitcher of HOUSE margaritas, because 6 of us wanted one, we let Karen know. She said that wouldn't be enough to serve 6 people. So we then ordered two. Taking roughly 20 minutes or so she brought out two wildly different sized pictures, the first completely filling all six mugs with some to spare.

It took about 30-45 minutes to even be able to place our order with Karen after being sat. Once we had ordered it took another 45-50 or so minutes to bring out our food. We were brought half the order then waited a few more minutes the brought PART of the other half. I never received my rice, beans, and tortillas that came with my fajitas. I asked once and still never got anything so one of the other people shared theirs with me.

Karen this whole time never one time came back to table touch, check if we wanted refills on drinks, or anything else the entire rest of the time until she came back asking if we wanted desert. At this point we were fully and just wanted to check out. She brought our bill and when we checked it she had upcharged us to premium margarita pitchers for $40 verses the $22 we had asked for. I being a server know how to order beverages and clearly know what we had said. So I went to Karen to fix the mistake. She then lied straight to my face and said she confirmed with "the man on the end" that we wanted the premium one. This was a complete lie because I was sitting right next to him when he ordered it and said nothing about the upgrade to "Chihuahua's" margaritas with Patron.

I went back to the table because she said she would talk to her manager. When she came back to the table she said she would pay $30 out of her own pocket to cover part of the mistake. At this point we're all livid and say that's clearly not enough and clearly untrue because no employer makes a sever pay for a mistaken order rang it. Already very angry we confronted with how she never even brought the side plate and tortillas for the fajitas... she said yes I did. We enforced no, letting her know some one else had to share with her. She said she would look at the bill again.

Now another random person Baron? In a different, brightly colored shirt comes over and table touches our table asking how everything was, we respond terrible and he chuckles and then asks if we want shots. Why would that be a response at all when we are all clearly very mad. The mid sentence speaking to him he turns around and walks away. If this is the manager he was completely unprofessional and super rude.

Next, another server comes up with a plate of flan for desert, which we clearly didn't order. Still waiting for Karen to come back one of the other guests I was with went to go find her so we could just pay and leave. We end up just running our cards, not again receiving an itemized copy.

As we walked out Karen was nowhere to be found. Terrible service and mediocre food. Don't come here unless you want to be scammed...

This place has taken a serious nosedive in terms of quality.

I don't know if the night we came was just a one-off or if things have changed this much for the worse. Im leaving my prior 5-star review below. But this isn't 5-star anymore.

Legitimately nothing we received was worth half the price actually paid for it. This drop in quality has to be the result of cutting corners to save money and it's going to lose you guys a lot of business.

Quality of some of the ingredients seems to have gone down, specifically the cheese and some of the meats. Chicken was incredibly overcooked. Sauces were lacking in flavor. And the cocktails we ordered were a complete mess. The gentleman behind the bar needs to be retrained. Is he tasting the drinks before they go out? If no, I'd start there. If yes, then you don't understand a good drink. Some of these drinks would be considered garbage even at a dive bar.

I'm happy to speak with management about this. Maybe you all can fix things before you lose too many patrons. Hopefully this was just a tremendously terrible night. But I get the idea that it's not.

I can honestly say this place went from one of my favorites in Reno to a place I'll keep in the rear view. What a mess.

--previous review--

Great atmosphere. Very friendly, attentive server. There was live music on the night we visited. This gentleman playing did a wonderful job.

As for our meals, it's somewhat of a mixed bag. Presentation was spot on. And flavors were very nice.

But I do think there are a few things that should be addressed by me and can hopefully be addressed by the owner(s).

One big complaint was that there was no indication on the menu that some dishes might be a little spicy for some people. Unfortunately, one dish was not eaten by the person who ordered it because she could not handle the level of spice. This is quite unfortunate.

Also, I strongly disfavor oysters served at room temperature. They brought two oysters with a meal, which was an unexpected delight. But we didn't enjoy that delight as none of us wanted to take the risk.

In one of the fish soups (forgive me for not knowing which), the fish seemed mushy as I'd it were sitting in the soup broth for a long while before being served.

My last qualm- the cowboy meat platter was described on the menu as a variety of meats. It sounded delicious. What was not mentioned was that there would be a substantial amount of hotdogs in the entree. That's rather unfortunate considering the approx. $26 price tag on the dish.

I think these are minor issues that will hopefully be addressed. Perhaps most of these seldom occur and can be attributed to a busier than usual night? I don't know.

What I do know is we'll be back for a second bite at the apple. Quite possibly on their anniversary.

Side note- I do wish a manager would do something to control children running around and, at times, yelling. I understand this is a rough situation because, frankly, parents should be on top of it. But when they are not, the disturbances fall on...

Review update, and added pictures

The place nice, food was good. We were a large party so everything took a while to come to our table but it is understandable. I got the Chile relleno burger and it was pretty plain and simple the bread, the meat and a Chile relleno, it was good nothing out of this world.

So we went here again and this time we tried their combo special, pretty good deal. It comes with one, two or three items(enchilada, Chile relleno and a couple more options. All combo specials come with rice, beans and dessert🍮🍰. I ordered the Chile Relleno cause I love it and it was pretty good. My boyfriend ordered the beef enchiladas and was okay with them but he is not the biggest fan of ground feef 😅 so they weren’t all that for him.

Now on the first review I did not talk about the service because we were a large party but and I thought maybe the guy was too busy too check on us and see if we needed a refill but nothing major. Now this time my boyfriend and I were just chilling and drinking our beer, watching the game. Unfortunately we felt a sense of rush by our waitress. She seemed to be rushed to get us to get dessert and then pay😅 we were not mad at all but it would’ve been nice to let us take our time with our food and drinks. My boyfriend was not even halfway with his beer and she was already offering us the dessert. I took it cause I was already half way but he wanted to wait. Then she brought up the bill to our table 😅 and we we’re not done. A few minutes later she stops by and grabs the bill and says is it ready? And my boyfriend said no. We were still not mad but continued feeling like we were rushed . Then finally he was done with his beer, we payed and I made sure the card was were it’s supposed to go so our waitress could see it was ready. She came and my boyfriend asked for his dessert.

Keep in mind if you get the combo special the dessert slice is rather small which makes sense but don’t expect a full serving:) cause it is a special. Also I did not get tortillas with my Chile relleno, not sure if I was...