Loco Patron — Restaurant in Tempe

I eat from here ALOT. taco Tuesdays or our job picks up. A bartender/manager almost ruined that for me today! I work next to loco so we go on a 30 min lunch. Because of The short time span this restaurant has let me call in our order ahead of time so it's ready when we get there and we eat at the bar. I called kind of early today and a lady told me to call back later closer to 2pm, understandable, no problem😊 well I call back at 1:30 and get this EXTREMELY rude gentleman who tells me they can't take call ahead orders but they can do take out or dine in only(what I'm asking for). I advised we do this regularly and the reasoning, he says he can do take out. I said ok but can I eat it at the bar? He said "fine whatever what do you want" i placed the order. He hung up so fast I couldn't question the price, which seemed high. I called back asking if it was taco Tues pricing and the lady told me if we are eating there she will change order from take out. We get there and the situation escalated very quickly as when he told me the food would be out shortly I told him if they hadn't bagged it up yet that we are eating here as was told on the phone so they can put it on plates. He rudely told me "it's going to come out as it says on the receipt" and walked away. Obviously he was still upset. He gave me the food bagged up in containers so i took it out and we ate at the bar. When he brought the check it was at the takeout pricing even though we opened our food at the bar and ate it there as requested. When I approached him about changing the bill to the Taco Tuesday special he told me he was not changing my bill and I was not going to get my way today. Then he proceeded to ask me if I was refusing to pay the bill and grabbed the phone and said he was going to call the police. I had my card in hand and was trying to explain to him that his employees have been doing this for us for over a month now and the misinformation was an employee problem not a customer problem so he should be able to accommodate our request. But he was very Stern about not adjusting anything and then mentioned that there were holes in my story because I said I had to be at work at 2:00 and now it's after 2:00 so I was lying. I let him know I said my lunch was at 2:00 and we arrived at 2:07. Thankfully RYAN came over and asked what the problem was, he totally understood as he is our usual bartender. The "manager" said he was going to have a talk with everyone because company policy states we cannot call ahead for orders. He kept interrupting Ryan and I saying he was not adjusting it. Ryan told him, if we are eating and drinking at the bar, what is the big deal about charging us as if we were eating at the bar. It was a simple thing. since I know now we won't call ahead but the fact that this manager was so rude and so adamant about not listening, arguing with myself and his co worker for over 5 mins, idk who made him management. If it wasn't for Ryan adjusting it for me I'd probably be in jail for "refusing " to pay. And all we did was call ahead so we can get our lunch and eat in 30...

After a somewhat chilly evening walking through the Phoenix Zoo for Holiday Zoolights on a Saturday night, was looking for a place still open past 10PM to feed a family. Got there a few minutes before 10 to find out the kitchen closes at 10 and it's more of a bar after that, but... that they would keep the kitchen open for us.

It's on Mill Ave in the university district, so the loud music was to be expected, as it goes with the territory.

The food turned out to be really good! Nice presentation, too. I had the Fajita burrito with smashed potatoes and seasoned waffle fries, which really hit the spot. The burrito is a bit spicy hot, so just be aware if you aren't expecting that, but it was very tasty and quite large. Against my better judgement (I should have taken half of it home for later), I ate the entire thing. One of my children had shrimp tacos, which I'm tempted to try next time because the shrimp were about twice as large as any I've seen in other tacos. My youngest was even impressed with their chicken tenders off the kids menu. I should mention the complimentary chips and salsa were also quite good (different flavor of spicy salsa than most mexican restaurants and it was a nice change) and a frozen mango margarita I had, once I got past the initial brain freeze (will I ever learn?), rounded out the palette of flavors my palate experienced this the evening.

My children, who didn't care for the loud music at all, liked the food so much that they still want to go there again. I concur. Next time, we'll need to go earlier and maybe not on a...

Tried them TWICE and both visits were a DISASTER! The first visit a customer was able to bring in her pet dog. The dog was allowed to walk around the bar area eating food off the ground that customers dropped on the floor. I'm personally terrified on dogs especially NON-trained and NON-SERVICE dogs. Which brings me back to being non-trained. Anyway the second visit The very unprofessional "door man" expected 5 couples to block the entrance way for an undisclosed amount of time until the next available table was ready. First of all there had to be some type of safety violation, making all those people stand and block the door way. Second of all I felt very uncomfortable standing in such a close proximity to the other couples and we were all blocking the door way. There was no organized way to let the patrons know when there table was ready. When I attempted to ask the man could we sit over to the side while we waited, this guy had a major emotional break down! Before he could finish his rant we left...Never to return again! I honestly tried to give this establishment a whole hearted second chance. Im not mad at all! Lol, Oh well I'm new to the city and one restaurant in the greater Phoenix area isn't even a drop in the bucket! I'm more like let's see what this beautiful new city has to feed a girl from the East Coast lol! Whatever it is...its NOT at...