Grill Caliente — Restaurant in Ruidoso

They seated us outside in the cold just before it started raining. Waitress noticed I was looking at the "dinner menu" so she tells me "there's only 1 item available during lunch time from the dinner menu." I ordered the "only item available" which was baked chicken that clearly stated "with mashed potatoes". The waitress brings or food out and doesn't bother covering it up as she walks under the awning that is now dripping rain. She sits my plate down and no mashed potatoes but french fries instead. I asked her about it and she immediately goes and gets the manager whom I'm guessing is also the owner. The lady was very rude and snaps "Well this is a dinner item only and we weren't even supposed to serve it". I told her the waitress said it was the only item available for lunch from the dinner menu and the stupid waitress says, "I never told them that!" I was like "are you kidding me??? And besides, if you didn't tell me, then why did you write it down? The manager/owner snaps back "well the chicken IS available but NOT the mashed potatoes!" I replied, well if I had known that and was gonna eat fried food, I would have ordered a burger. The manager snatches the plate up and tells the waitress "ask him how he wants his burger", then quickly walks away. After taking my burger order the waitress leaves then comes back and rudely asks, "is fries gonna be OK with that burger?" I said yes and then she asks, "anything else?". I said "yes could you please reheat this bowl of queso?" (It was cold out and the entire bowl was now rock hard and untouched because of all the arguing). In an attempt to be nice, I'm guessing, she says, "let me just bring you another bowl." (Here's where it gets ridiculous and why I'll never go back). The manager/owner brings my burger and fries out and with her she has this very tiny (medicine cup size) of queso. I looked at it and said, "is that all?" She immediately snaps back, "that's all your gonna get as complimentary if you're not paying for it!!!" Ummmm, I don't think so. My girlfriend and I did pay but we will never go back...

Freshly arrived in Ruidoso for the weekend, as always we greatly rely on reviews from others. Most restaurants in the area were a real mixed bag going from 5 stars to 1 stars in the same week. I opted for Grill Caliente. It showed an interesting menu and had a full bar and a few craft beers. As suggested by the website, I called for a reservation and was assured that they weren't needed. The town on a Thursday night seemed very quiet. We arrived around 6:45pm. Upon our arrival the restaurant had several tables, but obviously not very busy. The sign at the hostess stand said to wait to be seated and it didn't take long for an older gentleman to show up. My wife who's a bit more outgoing than I am, threw in a cheerful good evening. The host, which I strongly believed was the owner, looked at us, looked at his watch, and without saying a single word grabbed 2 menus and showed us to a table. We were obviously disturbing a quiet night- my wife and I looked at each other and wondered if we had mistaken 6:45pm for a much later time. I contemplated just leaving - and then what? Where were we going to eat? We sat down, and started looking at the menu. Within a few minutes our server Ezra showed up and made up for that first bad impression. She was gracious, polite, and extremely effective. I started out with their house salad - greens, with several nice slices of tomatoes, grilled purple onions, and my choice of dressing - a chipotle ranch which was obviously house made. We followed with 2 burgers. Both were gigantic, cooked to perfection and a nice size of house French fries. Overall a great dinner and pleasant service. On the way out, the owner thank us and wished us goodnight. We had obviously came in at a bad time. I'm happy that we decided to stay to enjoy this great meal. First impressions can be deceptive, but are so important. We will surely be back if we return...

From a repetitive customer who has been to this place several times, today we experienced the worst service from this place. This is not a, by reservation only restaurant, so of course we were waiting patiently for them to open just like others infront and behind us. A couple of minutes after they opened, we finally got to the host. When we told the host how many were in our party, he told us that there was no room for us because we were a party of 6 and he only had room for parties of 4 or 2. So, our party was willing to break up into 2 and 4, adherring to their seating requirements. The host, in a very rude and disrespectful way, tried to avoid us and was unwilling to cooperate even though we were okay with splitting our party. Then, when I asked him if everyone behind us was going to be able to get in, he said no because there was no more tables available but then he let other groups behind us in. Then, once I stepped out of the restaurant out of dissatisfaction, I called the manager of the restaurant named, Evelyn Blue, and explained the situation but she wasn't even willing to try and resolve the situation. All she said was that she would reserve another time for us to come back and eat, yet never tried to assist us to come back in and blatantly sounded like she didn't care. I don't have anything negative about their food since I've been there several times, BUT AS FAR AS THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE, IT IS THE WORST I HAVE SEEN IN THE RUIDOSO AREA. So if you go without a reservation, be prepared to have a backup plan. At the end of the conversation with Ms. Blue, I asked her for management or the owner to reply to...