Thunderbird Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Santa Fe

I'd recommend 'La Casa Sena' down the street if you're looking for a balcony and more enjoyable scene with better service. I generally don't ever leave reviews like this but our interaction with the bartender here almost single-handedly ruined our day! I have and will tell everyone I know in NM, not to come here. Honestly, this place looked cool from the outside and this was my first time in Santa Fe, New Mexico but I will not be coming back here, EVER, simply because of the way we were treated by staff. There were other employees who witnessed this and didn't seem to care and then proceeded to talk about us like we weren't there or we children. Clarissa specifically, (who claimed to be the manager and maybe is) assisted us at the bar and immediately came off really smug and honestly rude. She undermined me and made me feel very uncomfortable. I have never treated anyone like this in my life and I myself am also a Manager. With that said, I brought my sister here for her Birthday which wasn't acknowledged at all anyway. Even then, I tried to ignore it because that's what I do normally, but it continued.... We overheard her discussing other customers and employees (with her colleagues) in front of us and the other customers. Needless to say, they were not positive things. We were told after sitting at the bar (and were laughing and joking and having our FIRST DRINK, so not causing any issues) that we could not go to the balcony because we "needed to be watched". This killed the whole vibe of the group and honestly I will never forget this bar simply because of Clarissa and her very rude demeanor! There are so many other ways she could've handled that! If this is truly who you have employed there or especially in management, then that just speaks volumes on how you run your establishment. We were fully prepared to spend a significant amount of money and invite the other 150 family members that were around for a wedding we later attended and I made sure to tell them not to ever come here. The "Silver Lining" though was that we found a much more enjoyable bar down the street that we wouldn't have gone to if it wasn't for Clarissa. La Casa Sena was a much more positive environment with much...

For dinner.... skip it. I wrestled whether to leave a review or just talk to the manager one-on-one about my experience except that he seemed party to whatever poor service is coming out of this place so whatever. I’ve been a server/bartender/manager for 15 years so I normally have a high tolerance for bad service when I see someone is in the weeds... which our bartender/server was while we were seated at the bar. But regardless she never offered us waters OR food menus. We had to ask for both - but whatever I get it service bar was slammed she can get a pass. But then when my food came out wrong the manager tried to help expedite the issue (I got the wrong dish completely) and the bartender who took the order rang out excuses while making drinks from behind his back without making eye contact. No apologies for a mistake, no acknowledgement of any sort. Later (after a mediocre meal at best that we ate completely cause we had just driven 7 hours from Texas) when I was given my bill I saw I was charged for both dishes.... I was slightly confused but asked the manager. The bartender yelled from behind him “it’s discounted at the bottom”. Oh okay... I see it there. My bad.

But wait... I felt super offended. At like 10 points in this terrible dining experience things could have been made better. A simple “hi how are you?” Or “I’m so sorry I made a mistake and rang in the wrong food” or “here’s your bill, it lists both dishes but it’s discounted at the end”... all very elementary points of customer retention.

Whatever I’m a tourist and won’t ever be back to this place. The manager was totally spineless. Seemed like he was much more interested in chatting it up with our young talentless bartender than making the customer happy. Go...

My boyfriend and I went to Thunderbird at 7:30 pm on a Wednesday night and received little to no service. We were greeted and sat right away, maybe 3 tables inside were taken but the outdoor area was maybe half way filled of people who were mostly getting ready to leave. We thought we left a prompt amount of time to eat at this almost empty restaurant before making a quiet show by 9pm. We were at the table for about 5 minutes before the bartender came out to ask for our drink order (not bad, I didn’t mind that). While we sat there waiting for our drinks people were leaving and the out door patio was slowly clearing out. A waitress even came by our table to ask for our drinks, but we had told her the bartender had gotten the drink order, so she walked off. After about 25 min of no one coming around (besides the waitress ONCE) we were starting to get a little impatient. The drinks we were waiting for was a spicy marg and a 7k. I gave a little grace because they were probably making the drink, but HALF AN HOUR?? I understand that restaurants gets a little behind, or are understaffed, but there were at least 4 staff walking around avoiding our table. Making eye contact, and avoiding. We didn’t want to make a big deal out of it so we just left. We ended up going to SAN FRANCISCO BAR AND GRILL and it was DELICIOUS!!! we got there at 8:07 after leaving thunderbird, scared they weren’t going to serve us because they closed at 8:30 but they were more than happy to take us in. I had the best sandwich of my life at San Fran Bar and Grill. Maybe we just caught thunderbird on a bad night, but I’m not wasting any more of my time trying to go...