La Casita Mexican Restaurant & Cantina — Restaurant in Sierra Vista

[2017]: Always a great place to eat Mexican-American food. Fantastic staff, reasonable prices... It's our family's go-to for Mexican food. {comment: this was the entry for my 5-star review}

[January 2023 update]: Not so much. When I wrote the first review, we had a great time with really good food. We made it a staple in our rotation of 'going out to eat' places, with our most recent visit about 6 months before the visit I'm reviewing. Until now, I've had no reason to change my review.

We drove to the restaurant in anticipation of their Taco Tuesday specials, only to find the parking lot at about half capacity. This was odd, as TT is very popular. We went inside anyway, thinking we probably just beat the rush.

After a 15 minute wait, my child and I were seated (in a less-than-half-full restaurant), but without seeing the usual Tuesday menu. 4 or 5 minutes later, we had placed a drink order (two Shirley Temples), and I asked about the lack of menu. "Oh, we stopped doing that about 5 months ago." We were left to chat about why that change happened, and the conclusion we came to is that inflationary pressures probably forced the change...though given the event's popularity, we couldn't understand why a slight price increase didn't solve the problem.

Within another 5 minutes (it felt longer), our drinks arrived, and we placed our food order. After the server departed, we tasted the drinks. No cherries, and the drinks tasted (to me) like they waved the bottle of grenadine over the glasses of lemon-line soda, and there was absolutely zero ginger flavor, either. They were comparatively expensive glasses of soda, but we pressed on.

Despite there not being a special, my child's order was for tacos anyway, and I ordered one of the platters. Within 10 minutes, we were half-full on the chips when food was placed in front of us. They nailed my kiddo's order, but my platter was missing both the cheese enchilada and the taco that are supposed to be part of the platter. I pointed this out to the server, and what resulted was several minutes reminiscent of the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" routine, but without the laughs (yes, I'm old).

Seeing that I wasn't going to be a good little minion and just take what I was given, the sever brought over the manager on duty, who recognized that after comparison with the written menu, I was perhaps more right than the server, my plate was whisked away with assurances that I'd get the proper order upon its return.

Sure enough, they brought me the corrected the order, then left us alone for about 20 minutes before returning to check in. Given that the place was so empty, this seemed like a long time to wait, but by this time, I was hungry and the food was at least warm and tasty. Besides, I was more focused on our exit strategy. Dessert or no?

We weren't offered a chance to order anything else, just the cheque, and was left feeling they wanted us gone more than they wanted to deal with the possibility of another order that a picky customer might send back.

I shouldn't have left a tip, but I feel bad for servers who already don't make much, so I added a few bucks and we departed. At the time we left, the waiting area was empty and there was no one at the reception desk to wish us a good night. It's worth noting that the bill for 2 was almost the same as what we paid for 3 a year ago.

Bad economic times sucks, but leaving paying customers with the feeling that we who are actually in the seats and buying the food are to blame for the weak sales seems counter-intuitive. So, here's my nickel's worth of free advice, La Casita owners: when times are getting tough, don't chase away the business you have. Re-double the smiles and efforts to please, and make every effort to ensure guests have reasons to post good reviews. It's rarely (if ever) OK for wait staff to argue with customers over order inaccuracies.

Will we go back? Probably. Maybe this was just several people's 'bad day' happening simultaneously...but not until we've visited the competition....

Me and my friend went to pick up an order my friend placed ahead of time for a baby shower that we wanted them to cater. Me and him had never been to this place and I’m not from Sierra Vista so it was the first time trying this place out. My friend had tried to place his order two weeks ago but no manger was there to do it. But has told he would receive a call back but after three days of not getting a call back he tried again and went in this time and still no manger but he left a note with his info about the details of his order and specifics of his order and the waitress told him they would put it on the mangers desk and it would be taken care off. Saturday rolls around and we go to pick it up at 2pm (the time that he said he would like the food ready) however they would not find our order in the system so the nice hostess went back to see if they knew anything about it. We were told that we would have to come back at 2:30pm and our order would be ready. So we waited and came back…Only to find again that they were clueless besides the nice hostess at the front and they did not know anything again so we waited for someone anyone to come up to the front to figure out what’s going on. So we stood there watching people get seated, watching another cater order get fulfilled and watch multiple other staff members that were back in the kitchen help the other people get there cater order and only be asked if we had been helped yet and we said we were waiting for management or someone to help us get our order in order they said ok and they went back to the kitchen to try and figure it out during this whole time the poor waitress was trying figure out where our order was and kept telling them. It got around to 3oclock when the manger came to talk to us and we explained then no apology or anything just ok we will start working on it… so we left my poor friend that was in charge of the food for his baby shower now had to deal with hungry guests find a new place to get our food from. AFTER they acknowledged our presence and order at 2pm telling us to come back at 2:30 for our food then coming back and still not even receiving acknowledgement for any sort of management till 3! Saying oh we will start on it right now. Absolutely ridiculous the only reason why I’m not giving a one star review was the hostess at the front who was nice understanding and trying to talk and help us the entire time while she was busy the rest of the restaurant could learn a thing from her. The parking was ok couple spots up front and a lot on the back atmosphere was nice I only was able to see the lobby so I can only judge on that. Food I cannot speak for unfortunately. Staff well only the hostess I would even give recognition. I own a coffee shop in my hometown so I understand the struggles of the restaurant industry it’s hard but no reason to not take care of a situation untill an hour later. It was a little busy because it was a Saturday afternoon but it was no crazy lunch rush in which you couldn’t get to someone untill an hour later with an issue and I saw plenty of staff at both times of us being there so understaff is no excuse at all. I would not usually give this type of review but it was honestly a terrible uncomfortable experience. I hope this find the right person so no other person has this experience and they can fix the miscommunication between customer and staff and staff and...

Not working tonight . . . we used the call ahead service to put ourselves on the wait list, they send a text to your phone when your table is ready. We were seated probably within a minute of receiving our text. Our waitress was okay but was clearly rushed and not handling the crowd very comfortably. She took our order just fine, but then . . . nothing for the better part of an hour. No food, explanation, or manager. By now we normally would have given up and gone home, but it was getting later and we were really hungry (67 miles on the bicycle Tour de Tucson = starving!). When asked to check on our food the waitress seemingly did check, told us there was one order ahead of our but then we would be next. Twenty minutes later, not so much. She volunteered that she would be giving us a discount — our bill was about $35 at that point solely because we’d each ordered a large margarita, which, our mistake, was huge! and cost $16.95 each. Our food did finally arrive, albeit the meat for a fajita arrived later so all that was served were the rice and beans. It seemed like about the time we arrived, food stopped coming out of the kitchen. No reason was given? All that having occurred, we weren’t fully mad until we realized the “discount” we were given was $2.97. On a $60.00 to $70 bill? Why bother? The waitress told us that’s the biggest discount they give. Seriously?? That’s just weird! I said, “You probably should tell people that because it’s unreasonable and nothing like what we expected after we heard “discount.” We also said we know it’s not the server’s fault when the kitchen just isn’t getting food out timely. Her goose was likely cooked at that point, but all she said was “Okay, goodbye.” We did leave a 15% tip — because that’s the civilized thing to do, but they need a manager on hand to speak to the customers, and a discount of $2.97 for waiting an hour for our food is somewhere between insulting and bizarre. How could any business think that’s reasonable?! It’s hard to say if the food was good, at that point we just ate to eat. It must have been okay because we did eat it! Not sure if we’d risk that experience again. The problem happens in restaurants sometimes, but we deserved better...