Acenar Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in San Antonio

As a local who lives downtown, I had always walked by this restaurant and drawn to the lively atmosphere. However, after dining in, I am not sure I would recommend this place to any locals or tourists.

I'll start with the great. Ambiance was relaxing. My partner and I sat in the patio overlooking the river walk. It was a great place to people watch, pretty decor, and the tables around us seemed friendly.

Service and food absolutely took away stars. Our server never formally introduced himself with his name and it felt like a very informal dining experience. We always enjoy conversing with our waitress but the server gave short answers that indicated he was not familiar with the menu. For example, we asked for starter recommendations, and he did not have any clear guidance to share. He was there to take orders and not to provide a full dining experience. He also failed to ask us for our main entrees after our appetizer. We had to ask him to place them after we had finished our entire plate and he seemed surprised we would order entrees. He provided little to no direction the whole time. Our waters also took a long time to be refilled. At the very end after paying our ticket, he came back to let us know he was leaving (which is fine) but he collected our ticket with the tip and did not take away any of the empty dirty dishes in front of us. As someone who has worked in the service industry before, it felt extremely crass to leave dirty dishes and simply pick up the tip. I will also note that in the patio I saw plenty of other servers smoking, joking around with each other, and clearly no signs of teamwork to help each other out with guests-- this can be shown when we did not receive utensils and napkins for over 15 minutes after being sat. No attention to detail.

Food was okay. Simply okay. Some dishes were better than others. Our Chicken Tinga Chalupas were delicious. The texture, spices, and flavors of it all was the highlight of the meal. However, the Mexican rice and beans it was accompanies with was flavorless and dry in texture. It seemed batch. made and reheated. Then, my Wuachinango (not sure if it is spelled correctly) consisted of a red snapper sitting in cilantro rice, chipotle sauce, and mixed vegetables. The sniper's seasoning was quiet uneven-- some parts were salty while some parts were bland; it heavily relied on the chipotle sauce for flavor. The cilantro rice was the biggest let down of our dining -- it was overly soggy, full butter flavor, and lacking cilantro. It tasted like white rice with en entire tub of butter thrown in the microwave and green color sprinkled on top. My partner ate the enchiladas verdes platter. The enchiladas were fine but we had issues with the rice and beans once again. The dessert pineapple coconut habanero ice cream was complex, and I would recommend for someone feeling adventurous with their dessert.

Our drinks were fine. My partner had a frozen prickly pear margaritas and a hand-shaken prickly pear which was better. My skinny margarita was delicious but definitely on the strong side. Not complaints there.

This place did not live up to the expectations. If you are looking for a full fine dining experience, this is not the place for you. If you are looking for okay food, nothing impressive for service, overpriced for low quality, but pretty environment, this place...

Don’t eat here! Worst restaurant experience of my life. They brought out the wrong orders to our table. They tried to serve the plate to the left to my daughter and called them chicken fajitas. We told them she ordered a quesadilla. They ended up taking the entire tray back to the kitchen and told us it wasn’t our order they mixed it up in the kitchen. They return and this is what I was served. I told them I ordered 3 tacos with chicken, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, guacamole and a side of rice. They then brought me out small bowls of the toppings I had asked for. (Never any rice) I told them the two on the left are chicken fajitas that they just tried to serve to my daughter. They told me the 3 are all the exact same. I honestly thought it was a joke. Manager Louis told me ‘I don’t have the holiday spirit’. I’ve never complained before at a restaurant. I’ve also never left a review for a restaurant. This wasn’t even a complaint. It was comical that they tried to convince me the three are all the same and it was intentional for it to be served this way. If they had said we made a mistake I would have said no problem and that would have been the end of it. Manager Louis also told me he could pick the onions off the fajitas and cut up the chicken for me if I wanted. 😳😂 But also reminded me they are all the exact same. Again, I thought this all has to be a joke. Aside from this, the service was horrible and the other food we ordered was not good. This has been our go to restaurant every time we visit San Antonio, never again. Manager Ernest came to us as we walked out and tried to make it right. He even offered us to come back the next day for a free meal and we declined. It wasn’t about a free meal at all. It was about terrible service. The line was crossed when I was told I don’t have the holiday spirit when I was polite and just confused what it was I was being served. Do yourself a favor and eat...

This would have to be by far the worst dining experience I've ever had. I am a very patient and understanding person who rarely complains. That being said, I ordered the cheese enchiladas, which comes with chile con Carne, I'm a vegetarian, so I asked for just queso on top instead and made a point to say to my waiter "because I can't eat meat" he said "no problem all just have them switch it out with queso.

My waiter doesn't return at all following my initial order. My food comes out, and there are chucks of meat in the queso. My waiter doesn't return, so after about 10 minutes, I flag him down to tell him there is meat in this, to which he responds. "Oh yea, there is chorizo in our queso." Following this, I just politely ask if you could just make it with a different sauce or just cheese like regular cheese. He says sorry about that and then disappears again.

My corrected order comes out, and there is a red sauce, which I assume is just a tomato sauce. I take a bite and there is meat in it. So I just wait for my waiter to return after about 10-20mins another waiter who isn't my wait walks up to ask if I was ok. I simply say I asked for no meat and I think there is meat in here he said "well yea that is chile con Carne" he was very professional and polite and compted the meal. Once my plate was gone, my original waiter came back to give me the check and had to be told my food was being compted because there was...