Jalapeño Inferno, Pinnacle Peak — Restaurant in Scottsdale

My expectations for this place were not high - my chum and I had plans to meet up with someone nearby at Soul Cafe, and we ended up accidentally being...two and a half hours early. Rather than spend most of that time looking for a place to eat, we figured this was by far the most convenient option, and strolled in. Even when we walked in, nothing I saw blew me away. Apparently it's a bit of a ghost kitchen, so the dine-in customers were minimal and the vast majority of orders/food we saw were for to-go orders. There was a bar right by the entrance with a few people, so we settled in there and had a surprisingly pleasant time.

Our bartender was awesome. Sam was super friendly and hospitable, and the defacto leader of what turned out to be an "everyone knows your name" bar. When we finished our lunches and still had probably 90 minutes or so to kill, she very graciously let us hang out with nothing but waters and chips/salsa until it was finally time to go to the other end of the parking lot. (Both Jalapeno Inferno and Soul Cafe are in the same larger strip mall, probably a three- or four-minute walk from each other, if that.) We became temporary chums with several local customers, who gave us insight into the Scottsdale area as out-of-towners, and I even stumbled across a former high school English teacher who had just as many opinions about Lord of the Flies as I did. (Team Piggy.)

The food itself wasn't too memorable, honestly. We did end up having quite a few generic Mexican-ish dishes in Arizona like this, and they kind of blended together. When we met up with another one of my friends later who's lived in the Phoenix area for several years, she told us the food scene isn't considered that impressive, especially when it comes to trying to find authentic ethnic cuisines that you'd assume were pretty prevalent. So I don't want to claim here that this place specifically was just run of the mill, because it seemed to be a pretty pervasive trend. That said, my lunch was fine. I ordered the carne asada fajita lunch, which was about $15. I'm not usually a huge fajita fan because I don't like crunchy shizzle in my food (which is kind of a hallmark of this dish), but this version thankfully didn't have peppers, onions, etc. - it actually had a lot of accompaniments that I associate with burritos, such as rice, beans and guac. Very standard but welcome.

I usually don't have a strong, favorable opinion of a bar unless I've had a few drinks there. This is one of the rare instances where I really enjoyed myself for a few hours at one with nothing but water. The clientele and barkeep were the stars here, not the food. For one random slow Wednesday afternoon, we passed the time with new friends and I'd return solely...

I'm from Oklahoma City, I have dined at plenty of Tex Mex over the past 20+ years. This place was outstanding and I hope they open a location in OKC in the near future. This was by far better than Tommy Bahamas, which I sadly went to yesterday.

The fried flour tortillas with the chips is a fantastic starter that comes with your meal at no charge. It is very unique and a pleasant treat.

The red salsa has good flavor, however the "spicy" orange salsa left much to be desired. Very little heat and almost no flavor. I added it to the red salsa to add some heat to the flavorful red.

The green corn tamales...oh my. They could easily make a great cornbread out of the tamale by removing the filling. Slightly sweet and quite moist fantastic!

I got the Signature Fondido (sp?), even though it was not on the lunch menu. Fajita chicken, onions, and green peppers inside of a flour tortilla. At first I thought it was a sour cream cheese sauce, however it tasted more like a ranch cheese sauce. Great flavor! Delicious!

The rice was well cooked, but the weakest part of the dish. The beans had an added flavor I enjoyed thoroughly. The Chile pepper that came with it was sweet with decent heat as you got to the mid section to the top.

Atmosphere was dark and had a dinner setting even at lunch. Outdoor dining is available and likely good at the right time of year.

Decent drink selection, would be nice is they muddled limes for the rim before adding salt. The lime pulp and flavor on the rim is better than bar syrup.

Great for adults, expensive for college range individuals. I would not suggest bringing young children as it would disturb the atmosphere for others. Great for a date or a quiet...

I’ve been coming here for over 10 years. Their food is still delicious, but the service has gone down the toilet. It makes me so sad that we can’t frequent this place anymore.

Specifically, we have had two HORRIBLE nights with Samantha as our server. If you wish to read my first review, you can go to yelp. Tonight, we got her as a server again. She quickly ran over and handed us waters and said I’ll be back-never took our drink order. Fast forward 15 min, and she came back and asked us for our FULL order. In the meantime, someone else had brought us over chips. We ordered margaritas and our meals. We also asked for more chips.

Samantha never brought us our chips and we ended up having to ask a manager for them. Another server also brought us our margs and when Samantha came over to check on our drinks, we told her that someone else was grabbing us chips. She got super confrontational and said she would grab them and she just got held up. I told her not to worry about it because someone else was already getting them. She went and grabbed a basket of chips and both her and someone else delivered the chips at the same time. These tables are tiny and we did NOT need to waste an entire basket of chips just for her to prove a point.

Fast forward 20 min, and someone else came over and said “are you waiting on your food”? And we said yes. And he said I’ll go check on it. He ended up bringing our food out.

If you’re keeping track, the only thing Samantha brought out for us was the basket of chips that we told her not to get. I always end up leaving this place angry and we don’t leave without spending at LEAST 60...