Plaza Azteca Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Williamsburg

Plaza Azteca in NJ is my favorite place to dine because the food is delicious, and the vegetarian options are fantastic! However, my husband and I were visiting from out of town. We decided to go to the Plaza Azteca in Williamsburg, VA (the shopping center where the Movie Tavern and Five Guys are located), and we were shocked...Let me explain; I will try and be as detailed as I can. We walked in for service at 5:00-5:15 pm on 6/28/23. The older male waiter (who lacked interpersonal skills) seated us to the left of the front door. Note- When you walk in, seating is to the left from the main entrance and to the right. There were no other customers seated on the left other than us. We sat in a booth for two and were provided with two dirty food menus (literally had dried-up food on the menu). My husband looks over and asks if I want to leave. I said no, but I was concerned (red flag that something was wrong). I notified the waiter immediately about the dirty menus, and he issued us new menus: no apologies, No words offered, simply nothing. Anyway, I ordered the vegan tacos (three tacos and a bowl of black beans and rice). My husband and I shared the meal because we weren't hungry. Midway through the meal, my husband jumped out of his seat, and I turned to see what he was looking at. A roach scurried across our table, and I couldn't believe what I saw. I jumped up as well and notified the young lady who was stationed at the front desk. She was extremely apologetic, much different than our waiter. Our waiter rushed over to our table and asked what happened. We explained that we saw a roach scurry across the table. The waiter seemed like he didn’t believe us and wanted us to describe the size of the insect. I already could tell from the questions that he didn't think we saw a roach. Well, as the waiter collected our plate from the table, the cockroach was crawling underneath the napkin located next to our food! He quickly squished the roach with the napkin and grabbed the plates and bowl, and walked quickly to the back area. My husband and I were left standing in the aisle in shock! We couldn’t believe what we just experienced! The young lady by the front desk felt horrible and kept apologizing, but we weren’t sure if we were to stand there and wait for the manager. Were we supposed to pay for half the meal? No one came out, so we left. The whole experience was odd and disturbing. Please feel free to contact me. I will contact...

We were 6 ladies who ordered drinks and food. 4 of the ladies had gone to the Movie Tavern, so that's why we decided to eat here. The evening didn't start off well because we had one drink menu for 6 people... and the menu didn't have any prices on it. Each person had questions about the cost of the drinks and the server had to leave the table and go and ask about the prices every time. This took about 20 minutes to get all of the drinks ordered. These were fine when we received them.

Food was good, but the server didn't understand what we were saying and she brought the wrong dinner. Our 90 year old friend said she couldn't eat a big dinner and she really just wanted two tacos. She didn't ask how much that would be but assumed it would be less than the 3 taco dinner. Server didn't ask her if she wanted rice and beans. Then the server brings the food and she has 3 tacos on the plate. She said she only ordered 2 and the guy who brought the food said "just keep it". 5 minutes later the server comes over with a plate and says to give them one of the tacos. We did that. When the check came, she was charged for the 3 taco dinner. So, we questioned the bill and the server said the price is the same. We said "if the price is the same, why did she come and take one of the tacos away?" She then said well each taco is $5 and then it's $5 for the rice and beans. But, she didn't order rice and beans! But the server said she ate some of it. Well, she didn't know that the rice and beans didn't come with what she order. Server was still not going to fix it, so I went to manager and explained. She seemed like she wasn't inclined to fix it either, but I was very insistent. She did finally fix the bill. The whole thing was so stupid!

I've been to this restaurant a few times before, never had a problem but never had the kind of experience that keeps you coming back on a frequent basis either. It's really a typical tourist type of experience and I guess the place doesn't have to count on repeat local business. We were 6 ladies who eat out a lot. I've been here a handful of times, 3 of the other ladies (long time Williamsburg residents) had never been here, and the other 2 only once or twice. They certainly didn't convert us into regular customers.

"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding" and "How can I make it right" are important concepts for people in customer service. These folks need...

We stopped by Plaza Azteca Mexican Restaurant on 08 June, 2021 and found they've revamped their menu from what they offered in a previous visit in January of this year ... and the Cliff's Notes are not all changes were improvements.

Pluses- Still offering Coke products, two (2) of the better salsas (red & white) that you'll find, fresh tortilla chips in baskets brought to your table, offer table side guacamole prep, decent size portions, and convenient location (note that none of these are new).

Minuses- No longer offer chile rellenos (WTH), don't offer tamales, and navigating new paper menu is slightly challenging.

There was also major differences in the service we had in January and what we received today. In Jan, we had stellar service with zero complaints. Today's visit was just the opposite ... it started with the hostess and got worse with our server. When we walked in we asked for table seating and that was repeated back, then we were walked thru the restaurant to a booth in the very back. So when we repeated the request to be seated at a table, the hostess didn't seem to be happy with us and we were taken back to the front section and shown a table. While our server was fairly prompt with her initial visit to our table, after bringing chips, salsa, and our drinks we didn't see her for quite some time. In fact, we'd polished off the chips as well as our drinks. We did receive our entrees shortly after ordering them and then didn't see our server for a while, but instead of visiting our table a last time to check to see if anyone wanted to order desert, she instead brought us the bill. We started to tell her that we'd just go to another Mexican restaurant for dessert, but instead informed her that we would like to order dessert and asked her to bring us Flan and we were promptly informed that they were out of whipped cream. In hindsight, maybe we should've just settled the bill and left because this Flan definitely wasn't anything to brag about.

While I'm not sure what all has changed, other than the menu, at Plaza Azteca since January, we'll be looking for another Mexican restaurant in the area on our next visit. No longer...