We pulled into the parking lot with an easy exit from Highway 10 / 78. After a full day, a simple dinner of Mexican food sounded appealing. The outdoor seating faced the highway and did not offer any shading form the hot sun. We chose to eat inside.
We sat at a clean booth under the windows adjoining the outside patio. Clusters of tables sat in the middle of the restaurant filled with large families or groups of college students. Signs hung at every booth outlining the check splitting policy (basically "no"). Groups of five people or larger automatically pay 15% gratuity. Although this forces some medium size families to pay an expected tip, the policy does ensure that groups of poor college students provide an appropriate monetary acknowledgement of service.
Surprised, I was asked for my ID when ordering a beer. My wife giggled as it’s been many years since anyone has questioned my legal age for drinking. Embarrassed, the server stated that it’s a restaurant policy to check everyone’s ID. Good policy for a college hangout.
Our server brought a basket of chips and small dish of salsa. Dipped deeply in the hot sauce, the nearly stale chips were edible. Hungry, we ate anyway. We ordered the cheese and spinach dip and even eating slowly, the basket of chips disappeared before the dip arrived. Soon the server plopped a small blow of cheese sauce with a blob of cooked spinach sitting on top, not even stirred into the cheese sauce. Realizing we needed more chips, the server offered to bring another basket. I earlier read on the menu that only one basket of chips per dinner was offered and subsequent baskets cost extra. We ordered two dinners, so the two baskets of chips should be included (and they were without extra charge).
The dinner arrived shortly. The young server had placed one plate directly on top of the other plate so that the bottom of one dinner plate was covered with the toppings and cheese from the other dinner. Additionally, the server wore a pair of oven mitts to protect himself from the hot plates, and his thumb was sitting in the middle of my wife’s dinner. The oven mitt was well stained and we wondered what other dinner and/or bacteria crept into our food. She ate from the opposite side of the thumb print, avoiding that section of food.
The quality of food was fair, resembling American seasonings and spices more than Mexican food. The quantity of food was more than adequate, certainly appealing to a hungry college student. Personally, I will leave this restaurant to them.