Vallarta Restaurant
| Address: | 16023 Tampa Palms Blvd W, Tampa, FL 33647, USA |
| Phone: | +1 813-978-3761 |
| Site: | vallartatampapalms.com |
| Rating: | 3.7 |
| Working: | 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–9:30PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–9PM |
Location
Photos 91
Reviews 7
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Loraine Lopez Tirado
The food was good, the price was reasonable, and my waiter was a very hard worker. NOTE TO STAFF: Stop playing around with your coworkers in front of customers, that is so unprofessional. I came in with my husband and baby in carseat, stood in front of the hostess booth waiting on the 3-4 staff members that were joking and playing around to recognize our presence and find us a seat. It took them so long to do that that I started asking my husband if we were supposed to seat ourselves since they had literally seen us but no one said anything, they just kept going about their personal conversations and jokes and seemed like playfull flirting with the young girl (hostess, I think). They finally cleaned a booth and sat us. Our waiter seemed to be the hardest working person in my vicinity. All the others kept sitting on the high tables right behind our booth and were just on their phones and talking (why werent they finding something to do?) The one that kept getting on my nerves was the young girl (hostess I think) with the long wet looking hair that kept flipping it and running her hands through it. I was really hoping no hair or anything from her head fell in my plate. She seemed very immature, kept tripping, walking into other employees, and making herself noticed I guess. Anyways, I frequent places based on the food, and staff. And based on the staff I dont think I would come here again.
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Chau Vo
This is probably my 3 or 4th Time here now. Its not all that bad, If you sit on the right side of the room I guess. But before I get to that, lets talk about some of the good things they have. Happy hour is great from 3-7 and you can get two for 8 margaritas or their giant 32 oz margarita for 12. It definitely hits the spot. Monday and Tuesdays are $1.00 tacos. I love that they dont use youre generic sharp cheddar cheese. They use a Mexican cheese, and its so good. The tacos are normally just meat, cheese and lettuce. But dont let it fool you. The meat is seasoned very well. Now for the bad part. Normally when I arrive Im seated at the booth. I always come around the same time, and Ive always had great service, except for today. Service was horrible. I got sat in the corner of the restaurant. The hour i was here, the waitress probably came by only once. The second time was because I had to get her attention. Worst of all, I lean over on the table to tell my boyfriend something and the table makes a snapping noise. Turns out its missing a screw and I end up holding it for about 20 minutes. Told some waiter about it and he disappeared and never came back. They didnt even do anything about it.
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Ashley Hinton
Long story short: if youre looking for TexMex, there are much better places on Tampa than this with much better service. The story: My friends and I went for Cinco. We spent $10 on margaritas that tasted like lemonade, sat at a table, and no one came to our table for an hour and 20 minutes. After multiple attempts to flag down a waiter, I ordered a margarita and fried ice cream, to which he responded that the kitchen was closed. We finally got a manager, and he argued with me when I told him that I wouldnt pay for such poor service. He said that I had to pay my 11.77 tab or he would call the cops. When I told him that after working 10+ years in food service, Ive never heard of a restaurant not comping a check for unhappy customers, he yelled at me and used multiple curse words. Ive never had such poor service in my life, and the manager didnt take an ounce of responsibility. My friends and I wont be coming back, and I would suggest the same for anyone else thinking of going to Vallartas for dinner.
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Cindy Cruz
Post edit: Every experience after our first has been horrible. The service just isnt good. Thankfully though the Vallartas on Dale Mabry is awesome and our new "go to". Old post: Have tried two other Vallartas and this is by far the best one. We had been looking for a Mexican restaurant in the Lutz area and didnt visit this one bc we had been to other Vallartas before which were fine but we were looking for non-chain. However we went last night and the food was super fresh, big portions and very tasty. I gave four stars because our server was very nice but stretched to care for all of his tables. We sat awhile before seeing him and then once ordering our drinks received everything but a magarita which once received barely had ice left in it as it had sat so long at the bar. Overall, good experience and we will be back. Only recommendation is to increase number of servers so that it can be consistent with the high quality of food.
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Jonathan Dowdy
From the time we sat down we were neglected. It took forever for them to even come by for our drink order. We got one drink nobody asked if we wanted a refill my drink was empty before the food was even brought to our table. The server dropped our food at the table then left again. We didnt even get silverware to eat with. Nobody came by to ask about the food or anything. The place was not super busy empty tables in the restaurant was common for the entire time we were here. Finally after an hour the server came back and asked us if we wanted anything and all I could ask for was the check to get out of this place as quickly as possible. The server printed us the check dropped it off as I was trying to hand him our credit card he ignored it and just walked away. Had to flag him down again so we could leave. Never going to come here again. Might check out the other store as the food was good just really crappy service.
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Charlie Gipson
I have been to Vallartas at Tampa Palms several times. The service is always good, very attentive servers. The food is always good, although not as traditional as some Mexican I have had. I have spent several vacations in Puerto Vallarta, and love the food there (especially the Al Pastor). The Al Pastor at Vallartas is a very Americanized version, but is still very tasty (if you order it with the pineapple). Fajitas are decent, if a bit bland. Some of the sauces are definitely not made from scratch either. The Camerones Diablo is nothing like I have had at the Rio Grande restaurant in Puerto Vallarta... it tastes like Vallartas uses ketchup in that recipe, instead of making up a good, spicy ranchero type sauce.. This is a Mexican chain restaurant... so you cant expect made from scratch goodness on all the dishes. It is a decent Mexican food place... with tasty food that will fill you up, for a reasonable price.
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Holly Dolente
This use to be my favorite Mexican restaurant in Tampa until my last experience. I frequent this restaurant weekly. We sat at the bar, It took 5 mins for someone to even acknowledge us after at least 3 servers pasted right by us. Then it took 5 more minutes to get chips and salsa. We ordered corn tortillas and were served flour tortillas, we couldnt even tell our server it was the wrong order or order more drinks/chips because our sever didnt check on us after 30 mins and We had to ask a random passing server to speak to the manager who ended up being the person who served us! He took our dollar tacos off our bill...wow that really made me feel like a valued customer. If this is how a manager serves customers, it makes sense why every time we go back the service gets worse. Very disappointed and will not ever go back! You have one job and its frankly pathetic to be that bad at it.
