Chavez Mexican Restaurante — Restaurant in Rockford Township

FIRST & LAST: We were so excited to have the old tumbleweeds location become a Mexican restaurant and finally made it we had high hopes. 10-14-23. 7:30 pm. We were seated immediately, with little welcome. Server came promptly nice youngish waiter. Ordered 2 large draft's and Negro Modelo. Server brought one small modelo my husband said that’s okay. He said they don’t have draft corona though it’s still on the drinks menu. Ordered a Bottle of Corona which he brought… I did not send it back but it had not been stored well and was shunky.( happens to clear bottled beers often.). My spouse is allergic to fresh onion and garlic which we explained to the server. Determined the guacamole is made in larger batches and has both onion and garlic. (No biggey) go with out the appetizer. WE reinforced the allergy the server said he would specify no pico on the chicken taquitos and make sure there were no onions mixed into the chicken filling. I ordered one chilli relleno one of my favorites. The server did not know the difference between the vegetarian rellenos and the other chili rellenos. The difference is the vegetarian option doesn’t come with beans or rice. server and I both agreed it was one relleno vs 2 so I ordered the vegetarian that has one relleno..it comes with a lime cilantro rice. Now I know.

He came back a few minutes later and said the kitchen was very backed up and it would be a long time before our food came. We asked how long he said 15 minutes we said that was fine. The food when it came was lukewarm to room temp. The relleno was good flavor. Should have asked about the sauce, there are onions in the red sauce a big surprise, My husbands taquitos were also lukewarm the first two were fine no onions the third had huge onion chunks..at least they were visible but not edible..for my husband. It looked like they had put the pico on and scooped in off missing some finely diced onions which he tried to fine and avoid We love Mexican and usually have no issues with the onion allergy and can always find something. At Chavez it proved impossible. My husband allergy is not a dislike it manifests in Physical symptoms and illness.

The decor is lovely. Staff needs more training and some help from management. There were 4-5 birthdays which the manager seems to love to perform and were fun to watch. They offer a small discount for cash vs credit which was nice to see we left the server a good tip above 20%. Hopefully this restaurant will make it but this was our first...

Very poor service - despondant to the point of rudeness. Not just our waitress, but all of the wait staff.

We were left to wait without being greeted for maybe five minutes. We were then lead, with no welcome or smile, to a dirty booth where we were forced to stand awkwardly with two children next to all the other diners while she cleaned off the table - poorly. The seats had chips on them and they didn't even wipe off the table entirely.

The food was just so-so with smaller portions, especially for a Mexican restaurant. Even the guacamole was bland. When we ran out of the first small bowl of chips, no more were offered. The hard shell taco was stale and our drinks were never refilled.

Our waitress never stopped to check on how we liked our food or see if we needed anything else. The flame/hibatchi that keeps the steak/onions/peppers warm was left, with no way for me to turn it off, and it almost burned my food.

When we were asked if we wanted boxes, I asked for dessert - I was told the kitchen was closed. It was 8:08 and it closed at 8:00. I asked if I could please just get a couple more tortilla shells for my fajitas because they only gave me three little ones with my meal. I was told they will be cold - I said that was okay. She then told me she would have to charge me extra. Nevermind - I said I would find them elsewhere.

Someone spilled their water while we were there and no one ever came to wipe the floor up - they just made everyone walk through it. At least someone put up a "slippery" sign after about ten minutes.

It has been a long time since I have received such poor service at a restaurant. I try to be fair and find the good in all experiences, but I failed to find anything positive during my experience at this restaurant. I will never...

If there's anything they could work on it would be their ability to seat people and then serve the food in a reasonable amount of time. Last time we went there, it turned out to be very close to a 3 hour stay. As we sat waiting for a table I watched the young hostess as she was more interested in talking to the bus boys, wiping the menus, disappearing to who knows where, all the while not paying attention to tables that were opening up around her. After waiting for over an hour, it took my girlfriend to finally get up and show her that there were three tables open in the bar area and asked as to why she was not seating anybody. We were sitting next to two people who had reservations for 6:00 and it was 6:45 when we were talking to them. They still hadn't been seated until the hostess was made aware that the bar tables were open. Who knows how long these people would've been waiting until she noticed. It's very obvious that this young girl is not capable of handling her job duties, and what's more, it showed in her demeaner and shear lack of concern that there were people waiting for over an hour and yet all she can do is wipe off menus and chit chat. The main takeaway as far as we're concerned is, if you're in a hurry or you DON'T want to spend 3 hours for dinner, then don't go here. IF, on the other hand, you want some very good Mexican food, in a great atmosphere, with a very good wait staff, then go to this place, as long as you have the time to spend. We will be back, just...