Fresco's Cocina Mexicana — Restaurant in Watauga

My wife and I have been loyal customers for almost 11 years. We fell in love with the beef fajitas, pitchers of margaritas and as always the quality service and management.

However, that all ended tonight. I realize that Cinco de Mayo is a festive night and people like to go out and have fun. We got to the restaurant during a busy period and found seats at the bar. The bartender was as sweet and professional as always and served us promptly. However, management has changed the Margarita pitcher mix. When we started coming, a pitcher was a good deal because although it cost approximately 4 margaritas, you got approximately 6 out. Now, management has them fill the pitcher AND the glasses to the brim with ice. This results in watered down margaritas. No longer is this a value. The beef fajitas were always flavorful and tender. No longer. They may be tender, the the marinade has changed. The restaurant has always been loud. Tonight, my evening was ruined by a table of 6-7 millennial girls that had (according to one manager) been there for over 3 hours. This is a family restaurant. The girls were well dressed and looked respectable. However, I have heard less noise from a 30 person cheer squad. They were behaving like the epitome of Woo girls. As our night wore on, they only got louder. I brought this to the attention of the only person dressed like a manager on the floor. He admitted that they had been that bad for 3 hours. He apologized and went upon his way. The table got even louder. I walked over to the table. And as the restaurant was loud and I did not want to raise my voice, I leaned in and stated that this was a family restaurant and as such there was an acceptable volume level for people. I stated that they had exceeded it by at least a factor of ten and asked them to tone it down. The woman on my right got into my face and asked if I worked there. I'll admit that when she got into my face, I got loud. I told them to chill out. After exchanging shouts, I went and took my seat again. What appeared to be a waitress came up to their table and spoke with them. Then, she came over and chastised me for not finding a second manager to deal with the situation. She even got upset when I asked if she was excusing the other table's actions. To hear her tell it, the only issue was that I handled it instead of allowing them to ruin more of my evening. After 11 years, we're done. The restaurant will not see another dime from me. My tips between the bar and the dinner were likely more than the combined tips of all of the girls at that table. But, my money is...

Updated after the new ownership or management change, or WHATEVER happened here to this once-great "must stop" Mexican food joint. We have been coming here for TWENTY YEARS and this was the worst experience we've had by far. This place has turned for the worst. They shut down unexpectedly a month ago. "New menu" was the word. Methinks the place was falling down because they sure did a lot of reconfiguration. The "new" Fresco's is a shadow of its former self. They killed the fish tank before they shut down, but after reopening, half of the TVs are gone, the inside is drab, the place is quiet (because it's mostly empty) and the two top next to us was finishing their meal when we arrived, not happy with service. Uh oh. At this point I should have trusted my intuition and left. Nope. Didn't do it. First: their new menu is boring. No pechuga de pollo. They didn't have chili rellenos (huh,?) and were out of a lot of things actually. Surprisingly our server would NOT serve us any arbol sauce unless we ordered a certain dish (huh??). The nachos were not the same chips, were overcooked. I ordered the mahi mahi (new item for 22 bucks) and the piece was tiny, overcooked and uninspiring. Their Mexican rice is now made with mole. Our server served this nasty spicy mole rice to my 9 year old, arguing with my wife that she said rice when I KNOW she said FRIES (waitstaff 101: DON'T ARGUE...apologize and go get the dang fries!!!!). Salsa recipe has changed. Grilled items are not as mesquite flavor driven. Fajitas for two are the size of fajitas for ONE pre-reboot and $5 more expensive. The only good thing was the table side guacamole but hard to screw that up. Took 37 minutes to get our food (a party of 3 adults and 1 child and there weren't but 5 other tables filled in the whole restaurant). We tipped almost 15 percent but was probably 14% too much. This place is in serious trouble. Staff look unhappy, and the shutdown likely wiped out their loyal staff (I only saw one person there that I remembered pre "reboot"). If this is what an upgrade is, we're done with this place. Way too many terrible changes all at once. It will at least be six months before we visit this place again, if they're even still in business. Now I know why there are coupons in the money mailer.... advice, go somewhere else. Hard to say that when we have been coming here for two decades but this place is...

My parents wouldn’t let me say anything while we were there so I’m going to say something now.

This was our first time here for my sisters birthday and we had the worst experience. We got there at 8pm and the closed at 10pm. Our waitress was so slow, we had to ask for waters with our alcohol, they didn’t give us plates with our queso and we had to ask for those too, our food took so long to get out to us and there was maybe two other tables in the restaurant at the time. When our food finally did get to us it was terrible. Our rice (all of them) was crunchy. And I mean crispy crunchy. Rather it wasn’t cooked all the way or we got old rice that had been sitting for a long long time. My dad got the birria tacos and one of the taco had a massive piece of fat on it. It was about 4-5 inches long and 2 inches wide. A huge piece of fat and no meat. My sisters enchiladas were subpar. She cousins even finish them. The beans were flavorless. And then they rushed us out of the restaurant. My dad couldn’t even finish his drink because one of the lady bussers kept popping her head around the corner and giving us a dirty look. Girl I saw you. But also, we left before they even closed because we felt awkward being there and we wouldn’t have been there so long if the service and food didn’t take forever. I’ve been in the restaurant industry for over a decade and this place was all around terrible. I wish my parents would have let me say something when we were there because my parents deserved a compt meal. Especially for those nasty tacos. Not worth the money at all. We will not...