Taco Cabana — Restaurant in Rio Rancho

The food here was great! Very filling for such a great price...however the customer service here was very subpar. The cashier who helped us was phenomenal but when it came time for the lobby to close the manager was very unprofessional and from the look of things a bit racist. 4 people walk in at about the same time. 2 hispanic males and 2 caucasian teenagers. The hispanic men went to go sit down while the teenagers immediately got in line to order. Here comes the manager sounding a bit frustrated (she is also hispanic) "Our lobby is closed go through drive thru" and started pushing them out the door. The teenagers apologized and left but should never have been treated that way. Then when the hispanic males went up to order they were taken care of. The whole situation just left a bad taste in my mouth and a pit in my stomach. Is that really how you treat your customers? Regardless or age, gender, race etc...I don't think I'll be coming back to this establishment for a little while.

UPDATE: Went thru the drive-thru after the lobby closed today to give them one last chance. All I ordered was a mango tea. Younger woman asked me to pull forward, she sounded quite polite. Of course I had to wait awhile because the cars in front of me but that didn't bother me, I expected that, however when I got to the window it was as bad as expected. Older woman: "You had the two tacos?" I reply "No I had the large mango tea" .. Cashier looks again "We don't have any more mango tea, we have regular tea" ..sighs "Alright that's fine, I'll just take that" rather than telling me they didn't have mango tea at the speaker the younger woman chose to ignor putting my order into the system altogether until I got to the window and have the window cashier deliver the news. Very disappointed. 3 stars...

The reason for 4 stars is going to be for the manager Lori. We ordered after lunch rush on a Sunday around 02:23pm. We placed our order filled our salsas up which the salsa bar needed to be refilled - little to no cilantro. We saw employees hustling around, and watched 4 people order after us and get their food. After 25 minutes I went to the front and that’s where I met LORI. She immediately admitted my order could have been deleted and she will check on it and bring it to our table. 5 minutes later she did so with a sincere apology for the mistake, and a few coupon cards for our next visit, should we decide to return…. The chips & queso are really good, next time I’ll be sure to get my own. The steak quesadilla was more of a chunky cheese with pico & some bites had steak but not all. I would never order that again. The tortilla itself is what made it appealing/ appetizing. Shout out to my abuelita looking lady making the tortillas with a smile the entire time. The flautas were actually really good, the guacamole was definitely fresh! As for the salsas themselves overall they were basic to horrible. The RED was so WATERY. The bright green was the best probably due to the amount of sodium it had in it. The dark green is HORRIBLE at least today it was, all it tasted like was burnt chili skin, think of roasting green Chile only eating the burnt part with ZERO flavor. Horrid. But again we will return back knowing the manager Lori will be there after 3pm. Maybe I’ll try a chicken fajita as recommended by the manager. The salsa bar had ran out and Lori kindly brought me a container of cilantro and jalapeño...

Six years ago, I gave this Taco Cabana a glowing review, but my recent experiences have drastically changed due to one employee and the lack of support from the GM when I reported the issue.

There’s a woman who works the drive-thru, whose name, according to my receipt, is Isabel Valles. She is extremely rude and unprofessional. This isn’t my first negative encounter with her. On a previous visit, I actually drove off without ordering because of her behavior. Initially, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, thinking she might have been having a bad day, but this has now become a pattern.

I can’t understand why someone with such poor customer service skills is being placed in a front-facing role. As a lifelong New Mexican and a loyal Taco Cabana customer for over 20 years, I’ve never had an issue like this—so much so that I feel compelled to take the time to make my concerns known.

When I called and spoke with the GM, Vladimir, he mentioned he was already aware of the situation, likely because she anticipated my complaint. What she probably didn’t mention was how disrespectful she was, speaking over me as I was trying to ask a simple question about my order total. She also failed to acknowledge the absurdity of charging me for salsa for a single burrito.

As a result of this ongoing lack of professionalism, I will no longer support this location. Based on my experience, I don’t expect anyone to respond or take accountability, which is incredibly...