Blake's Lotaburger — Restaurant in Tucson

Just to clue you in, I've been battling with Google's review system for 20 minutes now, just for the sake of warning you about this place. I've been eyeing the long lines since the place first opened, so tonight I was glad to see that it was empty. If only I had read the online reviews before entering... Firstly, the employee who took our order was borderline incompetent. I was patient with him, thinking it was probably a new job for him and I know that struggle. Thought it was very weird that they asked for my car's color, make and model, but I went with it for the sake of trying new things. Had to repeat my order twice, and he kept apologizing, once even saying that he was locked out of the restaurant...?! I was very nice to him, as I always try to be, because I know fast food is a hard place to be, especially in a new restaurant. My boyfriend and I ordered two double burger combos with fries, I got a strawberry shake and he got iced tea. We also ordered a chili Fritos pie to split. When we got to the window, we waited several minutes to even be acknowledged, and then we had to reconfirm our order again, so I was sure they would be correct. Boy was I wrong. Let's start with the burgers. Before I even opened the wrapper, the grease came pouring out of the seam and all over my clothes. Nice. The bottom bun and wrapper were soaked through too, and my boyfriend's wrapper stuck to the entire bun and tore when he tried to remove it. Queue more grease waterfalls. The patties themselves were thin, but not terrible. I've had better, I've had worse. The toppings were, as the other reviews, wrong. I ordered mine with bacon and cheese, got a ton of chilies I didn't ask for. My boyfriend ordered chilies and barely got any. (A word to the wise, if you love spicy chilies like my boyfriend does then you'll love these. I don't mind spice, but these are HOT.) I had to scrape them off, along with my meager slice of cheese that was really more like two little lumps. The fries taste like Arby's curly fries, if you over-cooked them, washed off the seasoning and then served them lukewarm. His tea was mostly ice. My shake was clearly made with a syrup and tasted very fake, but it wasn't awful. It helped with the heat that the chilies left on my burger. After all of this, we were really hoping the Frito pie would be amazing, like the one at Eegees is. Maybe that would redeem this meal. Again, wrong. Firstly, they charged us for the Fritos but all we got was chili. I use that term loosely. I work in a nursery and all I can say is that this chili looks unsettlingly familiar to a dirty diaper. It may not taste like one, but it does taste like dirt. At most, peppery dirt. And it has an unnaturally light brown tint, even bordering on grey. My boyfriend isn't the type to waste food, so he drenched it in hot sauce and pushed through, saying it was better than the MRE's he had in the Marine Corps, but not by much. Overall, I was incredibly disappointed. Friends from New Mexico have raved about Blake's. I feel like the biggest flaw here is by far the employees. I could almost understand this level of failure if it was slammed, but the restaurant was almost empty, and we still got service like this. Overall, bad service, bad food, bad experience. My boyfriend and I are VERY tolerant of food service workers and small errors, I've never even made a bad review in my life (usually I just don't return), but this called for it. Go somewhere else, unless you like spending $25-30 on a stomachache. There are much better burger places around, like Monkeyburger and Graze. Heck, over Blake's, even the one with the yellow arches at Speedway and Alvernon...

Went here on the way home later at night on a whim. I usually don't do fast food but thought what the heck. I went through the drive-through because it was after 10pm. First the girl asked me for "the name for this order" which I thought was weird...because I was a) in my car and b) the ONLY car in the drive through. I thought the girl's headset was turmed up too high because it was really hard to understand her. I heard a lot of background noise...specifically talking. So she asked what I wanted to order and I said "This is my first time here." crickets That irritated me. So I asked what the difference between the ITSA and LOTSA and she talked so fast I couldn't really understand. Further annoyed...so I just ordered a LOTSA meal. Although I got asked if I wanted to add chile or bacon...I was not told the standard burger doesn't come with cheese. When I get up to the window, I discover that the girl's headset WASN'T too loud...there are 5 other girls standing within a few feet of the girl who took my order talking about something. These girls were all probably still in high school or just graduated. The drive through window was open about 6 inches when I pulled up and they just kept talking away...until one of them noticed the window was open and motioned for the other girl to close it. God forbid I eavesdrop on their conversation. Finally the girl takes my card and hands me my drink. As I wait for my food, I see the girls right around to the right still talking. Finally, about 10 mins later I see the person who I am guessing made my food plop/toss the paper bag down on the counter. The girl takes it and hands it to me and says "Sorry about the wait. Have a good night." And as I am in the middle of saying "Thanks, you too" she slams the wondow shut. Drive home is less than 5 mins. Pull food out of the bag. I got the seasoned fries which were nice and hot, but they must have been what the wait was for. My burger was cheeseless and limp. It looked like it got thrown on the bun with wilted shreds of lettuce, onion, & tomato. The meat patty was about 1cm thick and COLD and pink in some places. The burger had no flavor and I REALLY wish it had had cheese on it. Needless to say, I didn't finish it. I ate the fries. They were good. Customer service needs huge improvement. Burger was nasty. I will...

I want so badly to give Blake's Lotaburger on Speedway 5 stars being that I'm proudly from Albuquerque and grew up with Blake's just down the street from my home but everytime I try to give them a chance to do better, they disappoint. I keep coming up with excuses to my friends about this New Mexican staple and they just need to give them another shot but I just can't ignore the terriblfe flaws in this particular establishment any longer.

1. Every single time (literally) I have tried to order the Chile con Carne bowl, they don't have it. I have ordered this menu item at least 10 times at different times of the day and they are always out. Now, more times than not I have ordered around dinner time but how is it possible that there is not enough supply to last through dinner? Or is it being made at all? I highly recommend removing this item from the menu if you are not able to produce this item or perhaps indicate that it is only available at certain meal times (ie: through breakfast or lunch). This is very frustrating to come to Blake's to order this to then get stuck in the drive through line with my dinner intention to have this in it.

2. Attention to detail. Again, I keep coming back thinking that things will be different but they never are - nearly every single order I have drove home with has not been correct. A majority of the mistakes are simply attention to detail. Things such as giving me a sweet tea when I ask for unsweet, onions when I ask for no onions, a few flakes of green chile when I paid for a full serving of it on a burger - all of these things have been missed and all of these are just attention to the job.

I have been to Blake's many times since their opening in Tucson hoping to get that New Mexico craving out of the way and I really have to wonder how all these mishaps keep happening with the staff. Is it management not leading their team or requiring a standard of expectation? Is it an unhappy work place in which the staff is not motivated to provide good customer care? What is it? Because these problems have been here since the beginning.

I keep trying, Blake's, but it just isn't working out. Trust me, I want you to stick around but even this New Mexican is about to...