San Marcos Mexican Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Rutland Charter Township

Excellent food, quick seating. The place is deceptively large. Though there were many cars parked along the side and back (only room for maybe 4 cars in front) the place had plenty of tables available. Many booths and also some tables. The menu is large and has all the usual Mexican foods. I have no idea what is "authentic" or "not authentic" -- whereas some who review Mexican restaurants claim to have this knowledge (tho, I doubt it.)

The (free) chips and salsa were excellent. Chips were thin, crunchy, not salted. The salsa was slightly spicy, would likely appeal to all, and had chunks of tomato.

The frozen house margaritas seemed large ( we ordered the small size), but probably consisted mostly of ice. Flavor was good, but did not seem to have much alcohol (if any). You won't get drunk on two of these.

The shrimp fajita was great: $17 (a fair price) for many large shrimp, grilled (w/ grill marks) in an excellent brown sauce, plus the "trimmings" of rice, guacamole, beans, etc plus 3 (small) tortillas. There is no way you could wrap all the shrimp and other stuff into these 3 small tortillas. Not sure if you could ask for more tortillas, but they did not offer. Took home half of the shrimp dish, since this was a fairly large portion.

The Pollo Barracho was also excellent: flat pounded chicken w/ other stuff (I didn't order this, so I can't recall the dish exactly).

The only quibble we had was that the lighting was so low. I could not read the menu without going over to the front window to get more light (it was still light out, but after 8PM). The restaurant really should invest in some at-table lighting for us folks who can't read small print without...

The food has always been pretty good. My only complaint is the staff is mediocre. Most of them seem to have an attitude or disgust for serving. They tend to mingle around the kitchen chatting with each other and don’t seem thrilled with tending to customers. Any time I call for carry out it takes about a 15-16 rings before anyone picks up even when they aren’t busy. One time I was put on hold for over 10 min before I gave up. I decided to skip lunch and try again for dinner and when I called back, the phone was busy. I drove to the restaurant and found out the person who picked up my call from lunch just walked away from the phone and never bothered to come back to take my order or hang up the phone and left it off the hook the entire day. Never once received any apology.

Also, I have to ignore the estimated time they give over the phone. Almost always it takes another 20 longer to wait beyond their estimate. This causes you to gamble with the quality of your carry out.

It’s getting to the point where the trouble isn’t worth the food. It would be so simple to train the staff to be more polite and considerate to clientele resulting in repeat customers. Please take notice for a more...

I have been underwhelmed every time I've been here. I think this was my last time.

We were seated quickly. We ordered margaritas ($10 each for a house margarita!). The chips and salsa were very good. The chips were hot and the salsa had the perfect spice level.

Unfortunately, that's where the good ended. The food was less than okay. The "burrito" was plain ground beef in a tortilla with sauce and cheese. There was nothing else in it. No beans, no pico, no rice, no seasoning,

The taco was covered in shredded processed cheese food (think loaf "cheese" or American "cheese") It was the exact same flavorless meat as the burrito.

My lunch combination (#8) did not come with rice or beans. 😭 It was a taco, a burrito, and a pile of lettuce with sour cream, tomatoes and more fake cheese. 🤢

We had to flag down our server to get the bill (I think there was only one other table being served at the time. They definitely weren't busy.)

The bathroom was so cold, I was afraid I was going to freeze to the seat.

10/10 would recommend finding a different place to eat. This was not...