Terra Tempe Kitchen & Spirits — Restaurant in Tempe

I went to Terra Tempe yesterday for my birthday. I had reservations for 7:15. I arrived about 7:10 to a sign that said wait to be seated. I literally stayed they and no one walked up and greeted me everyone sat to the side just staring. I could understand if the place was busy, but it wasn’t.

After waiting for awhile I decided to walk to the bar, which I had an even weirder experience. It took her a few mins before she came over although again she wasn’t busy. I ordered my drink out my card on file. A few mins later one of my friends came and placed an order and shortly thereafter my other friend arrived and placed an order.

I received a bill for the total with no breakdown. We all get ready to pay and she tells me she charged my card in total for everyone’s transactions which I could not for the life of me understand. We left to be seated. Which I was ready to go somewhere else. Luckily for my waiter the new guy Lucas. He was amazing, I’m assuming because he was new and hasn’t been tainted by the veteran staff. He had an amazing personality, and really took good care of us!!

Also Khalil at the front desk was just plain delightful and went above and beyond to change my experience, offered suggestions and was so eager to help. If it wasn’t Lucas and Khalil I would not have given any stars. I hope that you all really change the culture here, it’s a shame that your staff suck this bad with the exception of two throughout the whole...

My wife and I tried Terra Tempe at the Westin hotel last night. We each had different starters, main courses and desserts. At $55 per person on the special AZ Restaurant Week menu, we expected to be wowed, but sadly we were underwhelmed. First off, the ambiance is a little strange, as the restaurant also serves breakfast and lunch and has no wall between it and the rest of the lobby. More importantly, some of the dishes just disappointed us. My wife's chicken dish was dry, although she liked the succotash in it. My New York Strip steak was cooked perfectly, nice and tender, but it was somewhat lacking in flavor. Mysteriously it had avocado slices covering the whole steak. It came with some yucca fries which were almost totally lacking in flavor. Our starters, a peach lettuce wedge and some sweet corn ravioli, were both tasty. For desserts we had gelato which was OK but not great, and a truly creative and very tasty orange creamsicle cheesecake which was a delight. Our server Lukas was attentive and friendly, but at least once during our three courses our finished dishes sat uncollected on our table for way too long before someone took them away. I am far from a culinary critic, but we do enjoy dining out and do both the spring and fall Restaurant Weeks every year, and some of the important parts of our meals were just...

We dined here during our stay last week. I ordered a burger and substituted the mashed potatoes for the fries. The food was good….nothing special. The service was really slow and it took forever to get our checks. I gave the server my credit card (for one check) and when she returned, she handed me two receipts to sign. One for the burger and another for $10.81. I thought maybe she accidentally charged me for someone’s else’s glass of wine. When I asked her about it, she said there was a $10 up charge for the mashed potatoes. I was in shock. First, she should have told me that when I ordered. Second, she should have included it in the first check instead of running my credit card twice. I would’ve said something about it, but it was a work dinner and I didn’t want to cause an issue. It’s bad enough that the server was slow at doing everything and screwed up our checks (not just mine), but it was another to be charged TEN DOLLARS for mashed potatoes and not be told about it beforehand. We also ate breakfast there the following morning and had equally slow service. At least this time there were no “hidden” charges. Just be aware of the slow service when...