La Fiesta — Restaurant in Town of Colonie

Went out for dinner last night with some friends from out of town, a total party of 5 including a 2 year old. I have eaten here before and the food is never bad- only good to phenomenal and everything in between. Got seated quickly. Waitress was friendly through this entire experience, however it lasted FAR too long. There was another table outside that seemed to have her attention, which made our visit drag on. Good friends and company aside, there is an expectation for service that simply was not met. Arrived at 645, opted to wait until the last in our party arrived to order. He arrived at 7:10. Our order was not taken until 7:30, it took 15 minutes to get drink refills mid meal (because of the aforementioned table outside) and an additional 20 minutes from meal completion until they STARTED gathering our check. The waitress even came over and asked how many drinks we had in total. Just abysmal. The worst was yet to come- as we get the check and the cherry on top was the automatic 18% gratuity added. I did not see such a message posted anywhere in restaurant, so I asked a server who showed me where it was in the menu, which he did. Unfortunately it said “automatic 18% added to tables of 8 or more” … needless to say I had them remove the charge that was an attempt at theft (as far as I’m concerned). You can see the gratuity amount below. LET THIS BE A WARNING FOR ALL: If you go in and have many peoples in your party, do not let this happen to you. I caught it, but I shutter to think who didn’t and how much money this staff has stolen from others. And I will let you know, I have a firm belief that waitresses never get stiffed. They live off tips, and I still tipped something. But this is inexcusable and it was surely not near...

Appearance was underwhelming, but one of the only restaurants serving Mexican food that we could easily identify while driving along Route 5. When we walked in, there was quite the crowd, but it must have been from the two hotel/motels that were located in the same parking lot. There was a musty carpet odor in the restaurant and it was noisy. The outdoor patio was better on noise (despite Rte. 5 being there), except every once in a while (coinciding with toilet flushes?), the patio smelled like a sanitary vent.

The mojito I ordered came to the table foamy (??) and lacked simple syrup. The drink did not taste like a mojito at all. The "salsa" and chips - better off passing on these. "Salsa" tasted like canned italian pizza sauce, chips lacked the light corn, fried texture that a quality Mexican rest. would offer. There was an unappetizing heat skin on the refried beans, the chalupa had a flat, hard taco shell as the "chalupa," the meat (ground beef) was unseasoned (or so badly seasoned that it tasted that way) and the texture was like regurgitated ground beef.

We will not be returning to La Fiesta since it was one of the two most unappetizing restaurants we have ever patronized.

PS - Albany Dept. of Health - Still have food poisoning...

I placed an order at 7:41am on 5/5/20 for Cinco De Mayo. The order was prepaid and was set to pick up between 4:30-5:00pm. We arrived at 4:50pm. To get out of the house, we brought our 2 kids - ages 2 and 4 for the ride With us. Upon arrival we had assumed that the meals would be prepared and ready to grab and go as they had already been paid for. Boy were we wrong! My husband stood inside of the cramped building without a 6 ft minimum spacing between other customers to pick up the meal that was preordered and should have been ready. He did not leave the building until 5:47pm. This is a complete disgrace and the reason why New York State will not be able to reopen again. If we had not already prepaid for the food, he would have walked out. I just saw pictures of a similar situation that took place at the Clifton park location. This is a complete disgrace. If businesses are going to operate like this upon opening this will continue to lead to the problems we are facing. When my husband voiced his concerns the owner stated “that he did not expect this but he has too many apps that he’s operating”. This business practice needs to be looked at and should be shut down for lack...