I have been to the Margarita Ranch on several occasions. On most occasions the service has been very attentive, and the server knowledgeable regarding the drinks. This last time, well unfortunately... bad memories can outway the good. I recently visited there to meet friends to celebrate a friends birthday for happy hour. The bartender served me a drink, and that was the last time anyone served me without me asking for service. To make a long story short... we talked to a manager about sitting for more than an hour with no service and having to ASK for chips salsa and a menu and Doug Sinclairs response was "So what do you want me to do?" The service went from neglect to blatant NO service from there. By the end of the night we had found out that Doug had told the staff, including the bartender not to serve us. He stated that he had sent 4 servers to our booth and that we were rude to them. The only server that came to our table was Taffy... and her attention to us was sub-par and abrupt. She took a friends drink back to the bar because it had a hair in it, at the time she was standing next to our booth waiting on space at a table. In the time that Taffy was gone with the drink a seat came available at the booth right next to us. Taffy came back and sat her drink on the counter behind me where my friend was standing. After 20 minutes she asked Taffy if she had forgotten about her, Taffy told her no, she put the drink where she was standing, picked it up, put it on her table, put the bill on the table and then said, please take care of this and walked away. That was the last time anyone came to our table.

Thank goodness we know someone that knows the owner because apparently they get a bit of confidence in the fact that no information concerning anything other than the happy hour menu is indicated on their website. So please if you get a chance... go visit Doug... let him know right off the bat that you deserve and expect 5-star service.

The restaurant is typical chic uppity Dallas! The decor is cold and sharp and efficient, with muted colored lights illuminating bare pastel-colored walls. For lunch it is filled with suit-and-tied business men munching on nachos while they drive the Dallas financial world. In the evenings, it is filled with tall, slender yuppies clad in black with oversized black glasses sipping margaritas out of martini glasses and making small talk about the new art opening at the museum.

The menu is typically Tex-Mex, with some of the rough edges softened by fancy terms. You'd never guess by the look of the place and by the typical crowd that the food was so inexpensive! Entrees range from $8 to $15, with a few in the $20 range.

Also, despite the look of the place, the food here is DAMN good! Their in-house salsa (served steaming hot with impossibly thin tortilla chips) is quite simply the best salsa I've experienced in Dallas. The food is served in over-generous portions and tastes so authentic and delicious you might think it just came from a hole-in-the-wall shack in El Paso.

The restaurant prides itself on its namesake margaritas. They have pages and pages of them, and they can make them with any of over 100-shelf tequilas, most of which I've never heard of. I particularly enjoy their mango margaritas, which ARE made with fresh mangos!

The restaurant is packed after 8pm Thursday through Saturday. Call ahead for reservations if you can, otherwise have a few margaritas at the bar and stroll around the adjacent shops while you wait an hour for your table. Outside dining is available in season.

Make this a perfect evening by treating yourself to dinner AND a movie at the Anjelika Film Center upstairs from the Margarita Ranch. Early dinner will avoid the crowds, and you can catch the movie afterwards.