Red Mesa — Restaurant in Saint Petersburg

I am in St. Pete for business with a couple co workers. On Sat. 10/12 we decided to try Red Mesa. My initial impression of this restaurant was overwhelming excitement. The outside patio is beautiful. Our host was a very nice gentleman who seated us, I was ready for a nice dinner after a long, boring day in class. I did not catch the waitresses name, she was thin, with short hair and tattoos over her body. The vibe she put off was very negative, i could tell that she didn't like her job. Which i understand as a lot of people do not. Nothing specific to note with service except it was "ok". We decided to go back 2 nights ago because we enjoyed the food and setting, this time, again, I did not catch the waitress's name. She was short with glasses and blonde hair, she looked too young to have a job. The notable experience that occurred on this particular visit, and the reason I will not come back to this restaurant, is the comment this woman had as a response to a simple question from a paying customer. My co worker asked what was in a particular dish on the menu and the response your waitress had was as follows. "Well if you would look at the menu." I immediately was ready to leave before even getting food. This type of interaction is unacceptable from anyone who wants to do, or claims they do "good business". You guys have a wonderful restaurant with so much potential, but horrible service is unacceptable. I am an ops manager through Sodexo down here with fellow ops managers from different facilities across the United States. We run operations in EVS and Dietary in all major hospitals internationally. The reason I am saying this is, we live customer service and understand its importance in the work place. It is the most important part of associates in most fields, especially in a restaurant. Every Sodexo manager comes to manager training at some point in our career at Johns Hopkins All Children's hospital. I was so upset about this experience I went as far as to tell my director Michael Dansberger to take this resturant off of his welcome day package of activities to do while in St. Pete. I have never took the time to write a review. I have so many other things i could be doing that are more productive than writing you a novel, but I felt as if it were the right thing to do, to reach out to management of this facility in hopes that you make a change, for your sake. Once again please take the time to read this review and hopefully come up with an action plan for the future. I am not trying to "bash" or get any of your associates in trouble, just trying to make you aware of something that I am almost certain you already know. Teach good customer engagement, be superstars in customer service and serve food second to that. Thank you for taking the time to read this...

My girlfriend & I came here for lunch after her doctors appointment. Initially we were excited because the place looked really nice & the staff was very nice, but the food changed our minds real quick.

We started off with the chips & salsa, & my girlfriend also got a cup of the tortilla soup. The chips & salsa were alright, barely any flavor or salt on the chips & the salsa was really runny, like it was out of a jar. My girlfriend wasn't impressed with the soup either. It wasn't really hot & and again, no flavor (this was the theme for everything).

My girlfriend ordered a taco salad with ground beef, something she gets at most Mexican restaurants due to her dairy allergy. She said the ground beef had next to no flavor at all & the taco shell for the bowl became really soggy really quickly. The fact that they charge $13 for the salad bowl & upcharge you another $7 just for flavorless ground beef makes it absolutely not worth it! We understand upcharging for certain proteins, but every other restaurant we've gone to that has this on the menu gives you the choice of at least either chicken or ground beef for no extra cost. I ordered the chicken enchilada, & when I say the portion size was small, I mean I was done with my meal before my girlfriend even started hers. The serving size was 1 small enchilada, maybe 4 or 5 inches long. The chicken was cooked all the way, but yet again, it had barely any flavor, and the tortilla they used for the enchilada was a bit overcooked. I had ordered the cilantro lime rice with it, but it tasted like plain jasmine rice, which was really disappointing because I love cilantro lime rice.

We did order a couple of drinks, which were good but a bit pricy comparatively. They were $12 each which isn't terrible, but considering I could potentially get one of the fish bowl drinks for about the same price somewhere else.

Overall, we ended up spending around $85 before tip on lunch for the 2 of us, & it absolutely was NOT worth it. If they did a happy hour or something & I was in the area, I may be inclined to stop in for a couple of drinks, but I would definitely be eating either before or after...

Ok so I waited a couple of weeks to see if I felt different about my experience at the Red Mesa but it never settled right with me so here it goes !! I went there to just have dinner and a drink and so I was sat at the bar as I was by myself and felt social. The Bartender was very nice to make me feel comfortable sitting next to the other guests and made us laugh. As I was ordering, I noticed that a server kept saying things to the bartender. As a sign of respect I and other guests at the bar would stop talking to let him ask for what he needs but more and more it became obvious that those comments were not requests but degrading remarks to the bartender. Whatever the issue, I didn’t appreciate the interruptions in such unprofessional manner while I was ordering. Well, things escalated farther as he kept coming back and made more comments while he grabbed his drinks. So we just went quiet at the bar. The bartender asked him multiple times to please stop, and when he didn’t, she asked for help from management. The manager ask them both to stop, but not firmly. He continued to interrupt the bar service and made my time here very uncomfortable. A minute later, as I am speaking to the bartender she got squirted with lime juice in the corner of her eye, hair, eye brow and collar. it was running down her face. This action to ME was absolutely appalling. I honestly could believe what I just witnessed. The bartender now as MAD as I am asked the manager for help. The server still kept coming back and made comments. Meanwhile one of his customers came up to the bar to pay because he had been ignoring them. She said she always pays 25% in tips and feels like she under payed but today even 10% feels like over paying. She asked if the server was new, and they said “he is actually one of the veterans” …. So now I get why I witnessed this show!!! My Mole Ossobuco came out mummified dry but I ate it. The manager discounted my meal but this experience left me scarred. I won’t be...