Fire Tacos & Cantina — Restaurant in Seattle

This is one of those places where the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. The food is usually great (if you get it), it’s the service and inconsistency that’s always a hot mess. I totally understand that running a restaurant is really difficult and the service industry is not for the faint of heart, but every time we decide to try them again we’re reminded why it took us so long to go back.

TIPS:

If they quote you a time for takeout or seating, just add 30-40+ minutes to whatever they tell you if it’s busy. They are never on time and there is no place to sit and wait.

They will not set boundaries or time limits on tables like most restaurants these days; they kept promising tables to us that had “closed out” and would allow them to open more drink tabs, linger etc. This is not the first time.

If you want them to cater food for an event, they will drop the ball on communication and stop responding.

Do not trust hours on Google; many times we have walked up during posted hours only to have a sign in the locked door say they are closed due to staffing issues. This may improve after winter as Alki gets busier.

I don’t recommend delivery, we rarely have consistent orders. Check your takeout order to make sure everything is in place as we would have missing items.

Their food is actually fantastic; if you can go outside of peak hours you will have the best of their quality when they aren’t rushed.

After waiting well over an hour to be seated (25 minutes on call, over 40 minutes AFTER they called us in), really rough service, mistakes on our bill, half baked apologies (when it came time to tip) and overcooked tortillas I think we’re finally done. It was rough watching people come in after us and get tables AND their food for an hour while we stood in the hot, tiny front door area. Our party was only 6 people. We waited even longer for our food and most of our tortillas came out completely charred. They also sent the wrong items and left my husband without his food almost 15 minutes after everyone else had theirs.

Cherry on top: During our 1 hour wait they asked us to place our order ahead of time so that our food would be ready when we sat (plot twist, it wasn’t). She was very meticulous getting us on our separate checks. I don’t know WHY because at the very end our server told us “it was too busy” and it would be more convenient for HIM to put everything in one check… for our party of 6 who only needed a 3 way split. Even though we watched him take 5+ separate card swipes for another party of 6 not 30 minutes before.

After everything they put us through and seeing him not apply this rule to the table before us we were so insulted.

After a year of trying to support this place and letting them work out the bumps, we’re breaking up...

After learning this location was open, my partner and I decided to visit this location instead of the kent location. We use to be regulars but moved out of kent, so yesterday was the first time we had fire tacos in a while. I ordered two beef quesadillas with cilantro and onion and my partner asked for two beef tacos with onion. The server brought out two beef queso tacos with onion and cilantro and 2 beef tacos with onion. l politely tell the server I didn’t order queso tacos but I’ll keep them and pay for them, I then repeat the quesadilla order I had told him a few minutes prior. The server seems unsure of what I’ve ordered and walks away appearing confused. A few minutes later, he comes back with two flower tortillas with only cheese, cilantro and onion. I call him over and politely tell him there’s no meat in the quesadillas. He tells me he gave me what I asked for… I politely tell the server I asked for 2 beef quesadillas with onion and cilantro. He walks away without saying anything, appearing bothered and confused; not sure why, I didn’t subsitiite anything or order anything that wasn’t on the menu. A few minutes later, the cook comes out and tells me the server is confused with my order and ask me for my order. I politely tell the cook, I never asked for queso tacos and repeat my order. I guess the third time is a charm because the third time my food came out it was right. My partner and I paid for the full tab, including the queso tacos we did not order but decided to keep. The menu is small, but yet the sever didn’t seem familiar with it. I’m not the type of customer to try to get free food or “find” issues for a free meal, but I was under the impression the restaurant thought otherwise. No one apologized for the confusion, this gave me the assumption the staff thought I was the problem. The food is pretty good, it’s at a great location where you can walk the beach and do more, so why not stop by? However I probably won’t be back, it was a super awkward experience. I would have rated 5 stars if the server was familiar with the menu/confident taking orders or if the staff would have followed up with what was going on but nope - so I just put my thoughts here. I know offering the dine in experience is new to Fire Tacos, so I’m sure the service will only get better; so stop by if your considering tacos...

I was visiting seattle for the weekend with my family and we came across this restaurant with good reviews and the food looked amazing! we were excited. We walk in and asked for a table for 6 we were told they had no tables for 6 at the moment it would be a 20 mintue wait. mind you the place was pretty Extempty at the time, we asked if it was possible to sit at table at just scoot 2 chairs (we asked kindly we even said if it was possible if not it was ok we would wait) the host said he couldn’t do that but he was rude about it he had a nasty tone in his voice, we then decided to go ride scooters meanwhile we wait, it had been about 25 mintues so we decided to go back and see if there was an update with our table as we enter the restaurant it was 3x as packed and we still weren’t seated (we left our phone number to get called when a table would be ready) we kindly asked how much longer it would be because we were told it was about 25 mintue wait i told the hostess it had been about 30 mintues she then said it only has been 20 MINTUES. what kind of service is that? is that how you treat your customers? DISGUSTING. AWFUL SERVICE. we left and We walked over to chupacabra restaurant were the nicely SCOOTED A TABLE TOGETHER AND CHAIRS sat us right away super nice hostess. FIRE TACOS TAKE SOME...