VIP Mexican American Cuisine T.I. — Restaurant in Treasure Island

This is my second time here on my second visit to VIP Mexican.

It was an off season Monday and the wait was still 20-30 minutes to show you how popular this place is.

Enter from the backside is the best, because the hostess stand and waiting area is there. The parking here is horrible. Rates are $4.00 an hour! Not VIP's fault mind you.

VIP does let you park two cars deep behind the restaurant, but you might be interrupted mid meal to let the car in front of you out!

Entering from the back, you are taken through a narrow walkway through the kitchen! Yes kitchen area where waitstaff place their orders, not the actual kitchen.

Seating is very limited to lower round tables seating 4 ( probably about 6 tables) inside, and about 6 high top tables that seat 2 along the bar. Then there is seating at the bar and also outdoor seating (park bench type) for about 20 more persons.

Outdoor seating and waiting area they were smart and put an outdoor bar! I forgot to get the bartenders name but he was friendly and very attentive.

Atmosphere is fun, LOUD, and festive. We were seated in two top area by bar and music (great loud country music in Mexican American place, yeah baby yeah).

The music was quite loud, and the locals were intoxicated and louder at the bar right next to us. I loved it. Reminded me of "Cheers" because as people came in the front door (off street) it seemed like everyone knew everyone.

The food. Fantastic. I had the "wet burritto" which they are known for and it did not disappoint. Stuffed full of ground beef, a side of salad and sour cream was a lot. I got the large size( only 8.99!) And it was a lot!

My wife got the smaller size at 6.95 and she was full. The Mexican steak and Fajitas are the other well known menu items here, but have not tried them yet.

WARNING: the chips were crisp and fresh but the salsa is very spicy hot. I asked for something milder and they do not have anything milder.

Many beer choices are available so no problem there. The drinks are STRONG! THAT MADE MY DAY!

They finally turned down the music to an acceptable level 3/4's of our stay after several patrons started to do their own makeshift dance floor in the bar area. Gotta love it, and we did.

Peak season we learned from the waitstaff there is a one to two hour wait.. I asked if today, which was a Monday, non peak was busy and she said no. I asked even with a 20-30 minute wait, and she said they were slow. Need to let you know that the whole time we were there no table was left empty!

We arrived about 5:30 waited only 10 minutes but was told 20-30. When we left, the outdoor seating was still full, the line for waiting was still 30 minutes.

Oh yeah, while seated for dinner the locals gave us a free shot as the bartender accidentally made one to...

We go here all the time and not sure what happened tonight. We ordered a drink from the outside bar while we waited and specifically asked for a skinny marg and “very light on the sweet”. It was extremely sweet. So my boyfriend waited at the outside bar for quite a while to get it fixed as I was sat inside. The bartender just added more ice. He sat down and didn’t touch his drink and I asked a bartender inside for one that again was a “skinny and barely sweet” it was brought to me floated with grand mar and even sweeter than the first. We hadn’t touched the drink past a sip. It sat for 30 min. I don’t drink and he’s diabetic. We asked our server and she took the extremely full drink and made us the correct one. When we got our bill and she charged us for it.

Now, I rarely rarely rarely post a review but I’ve been a bartender and bar owner for 20 years and these are the points that disappoint me when this has never happened before here. Our server never once asked if we liked a drink that wasn’t touched. It took three tries and this kinda killed the vibe. There was zero mention she was charging us for something that wasn’t our error. This is for a health issue and after this was mentioned and stressed it took a third time of us having to ask again. We paid for it because she was obviously annoyed and by this time we wanted to leave. We wouldn’t have ordered the third if we knew she was charging us because we simply should not have been charged. Clearly the restaurant wasn’t caring about the patron, our experience, our HEALTH issues or respect for our money or time. Not one apology, just clearly treated like we don’t matter. It’s an easy fix and it’s good customer service! If you’re so busy that you can’t give good service or at least pay attention to the guest and care about an experience, there’s a problem. It was a 100%...

People have been hyping this place up since I moved to FL 8 years ago. I finally checked it out, and maybe I should have checked it out 8 years ago, because it was not impressive. The meat was dry and had little flavor, the portions of chip dips were dinky, but at least the pricing on everything was roughly average for the area. It was slower than most places taking orders and getting food out. The seating inside is limited and cramped, and you're competing with a noisy bar atmosphere to have a conversation, so it's not worth trying to have a conversation. The seating outside is limited, but looked more comfortable than inside - unless of course it's 100 degrees and humid in late August... so irrelevant. The paid parking out back is probably managed by some sort of organized crime operation, and if not, definitely shady/greedy people. It's $4/hr with no receipt, plus a little surcharge for processing your card (I assume, I was surprised when I saw it later, but maybe I just wasn't paying attention to that detail when I paid).

It wasn't necessarily a bad experience (lots of those in the area), but there was nothing about the experience that would motivate me to willingly go through it a second time. It's about as "authentic" as any other americanized mexican place around here, maybe even less so, I think. If you don't cook at all, I think any recipe online would land you better food on your first go. Like this place on my visit, it may not be your best, but unlike this place, you can add a little flavor. If you don't feel like cooking, there are a few mexican places better than this around here (and there aren't a ton of good restaurants in general...