Sofia's Taqueria of Ledgewood — Restaurant in Roxbury Township

If we'd realized how new this place was, we would have given it a few more weeks to settle in. That's not an excuse for the uneven experience, but it certainly explains the avoidable extreme highs and lows. I came here with my top-tier chum on Saturday afternoon after watching the masterpiece Sinners in Rockaway and then making the hazardous trek down the sinkhole-influenced Route 46. We'd picked this place randomly without doing any type of research (including confirming its insanely recent grand opening) and located the brightly colored building very easily. Since it was mid-afternoon, it was fairly quiet though definitely a decent handful of customers scattered throughout the restaurant, and we were seated immediately at a high top table in the bar area.

...And that's where the wait began. It literally took 15 minutes for someone to come over to get our order, despite numerous staffers walking by, none with a sense of urgency. In hindsight, it seemed like the person assigned to our table wasn't there yet or something (we had a new person handling our service very early on) and they didn't know how to pivot quickly to get someone else over to us to start the ordering process. We also noted that the minute someone belatedly poured water for us and put some chips/salsa on the table, our temporary waiter immediately came by, which makes me think they have orders to wait for the chips before visiting. If true, absolutely insane. If your customers have been sitting there for more than 10 minutes without staff interaction, you go to the table. But regardless of the reason, at the very least someone should have at least acknowledged the situation/apologized for the delay. That's young pup restaurant stuff.

The service situation did improve from there though. I got the blueberry ginger margarita, and my chum got a paloma. Both received top marks, and hers was served in a very edgy pottery-esque cup with a nice looking rim. We also both really liked our entrees. I went with the shrimp/chorizo quesadillas, which were tasty and VERY quickly served. I think we had our food within about 10 minutes of ordering, which arguably canceled out at least some of the earlier service issues. My chum was a little leery of how quick it was, but my argument would be that a lot of this genre's made-to-order options (if it was made-to-order) ARE fast by definition. Regardless, would 100% get that again and it was probably the highlight for me. I don't like crunchy shizzle in food, which typically makes Mexican not the go-to genre for me, so it was nice to find something that didn't have tons of salsa, onions, peppers, etc. roaming around.

I don't usually have a ton to say about the bathroom situation (if it has one, that's basically my standard), but this one was a little odd and also went to the culture at this new restaurant. Every time we went in there - twice each - multiple staffers were in there just kind of hanging out, and the last time I was there, one of them was crying and being comforted by another. Huge, huge red flag and honestly something that would make me hesitate to come back. When I was a young pup, there was a Perkins in Phillipsburg that always had employees crying in the bathroom and after a while I pushed pretty hard for other breakfast options. It's just a terrible vibe and goes to overall management/culture, which we already knew was a bit of an issue from the beginning of our experience. The bathroom itself was notable because they clearly spent the time/money to build a pretty cool Mexican tile situation at the sink...and yet the rest of the bathroom looks incredibly rundown, with shades of NY Penn Station. For all the neat sink optics, I probably would have spread the money around and revisited that project later.

Maybe they're just working out some kinks (as mentioned, I don't usually go to a restaurant until it's been open at least a month for that specific restaurant), but this is definitely still a work in progress. Hopefully they...

I took my family to this restaurant for the first time and I must say that the service was horrendous! Our waitress Michelle, after waiting for about 45 minutes, came by and asked if we wanted anything else in which I replied, "three of us have not gotten our food yet." However, previous to this question, approximately 20 minutes prior, she asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu, leaving us confused for a second because we were still waiting for our main courses! we realized that she had totally forgotten about our main courses. But she offered no apologies, in fact, her attitude and demeanor was that of a person that lacks awareness and should not be dealing with the public. I go out to have a nice relaxing time, and I consider myself a very good tipper, but when you encounter subpar service with an attitude, "everything else gets magnified!" , I didn't realize that this restaurant includes a gratuity charge after taxes! (taxes are not part of the "service"). Also, they expect you to give them an additional tip on top of the gratuity (which I foolishly did!).

I have never written a review before this one, but this experience got me so riled up that I cannot let this one pass. I must be really pissed off that I'm writing a review at 1:20am!!! Listen, train your staff on dealing with the public and remind them (every day) that if they're going to be involved in the restaurant business that "good service" means something...that lack of good service puts businesses "out of service!" We all make mistakes but when I'm spending my money at a restaurant and the service is subpar together with no acknowledgement from management and/or the people tending your table, it's bad business (and then you think you deserve gratuity and/or a tip for ruining my evening?) you gotta be kidding me! I will never be going back to Sofia's Taqueria to...

IF YOU HAVE ALLERGIES, STAY FAR AWAY My coworkers and I came here last night for dinner together. When ordering our meals, my coworker and I had both ordered birria tacos, and she made sure to disclose that she had a severe allergy to both gluten and nuts and requested the gluten-free tortillas since the menu stated they come with 50/50 corn flour ones. When the runner started to hand out the food and it came time for the tacos, we asked him to confirm which ones were gluten free. He seemed visibly confused and after we explained one was gluten free because of an allergy, he stated that both were gluten free. Someone from our table requested that he check with the kitchen since this allergy is severe. He came back saying “they’re both gluten free, the tortillas are corn.” Immediately after our meal, my coworker had a severe gluten reaction to the tacos. After we demanded to speak to a manager given the severity of the situation, we were informed that there was NOT a manager on site as he was an hour away at another location. This entire situation was completely avoidable and unacceptable given we took all the necessary precautions, and we still cannot confirm whether the mistake originated from the kitchen or if there was a mixup during serving. They were lucky that she didn’t have to leave in an ambulance. The lack of apology, management, and complete disregard for allergen protocol was disgraceful. We will never return to this establishment and I would heavily recommend that no one else...