Escalantes Mexican Grille

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4053 Westheimer Rd
Houston, TX 77027

Phone: (713) 623-4200

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Neighborhood: River Oaks

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  4.2 stars - Based on 29 votes

#3 out of 7 restaurants in River Oaks

#2 of 2 Mexican in River Oaks

5 star				13 votes	45%
4 star				11 votes	38%
3 star				4 votes	14%
2 star				0 votes	0%
1 star				1 votes	3%

Top Reviews of Escalantes Mexican Grille

02/17/2024 - MenuPix User

01/22/2024 - MenuPix User

12/18/2023 - MenuPix User

12/08/2023 - MenuPix User

08/26/2009 - Lina
In the evening of Friday, February 13, 2009, two of my co-workers, one friend visiting from New York , the 18-year old daughter of another coworker and myself decided to have dinner at the Escalante’s restaurant, located in the Highland Village . Normally, Escalante’s would not be our first choice for Mexican food, but since we did not want to go very far from the hotel where our friend visiting from NY was staying, we thought Escalante’s would be a perfect choice for him for a Tex Mex dinner.

I have been living in Houston for over 15 years and have been the patron of many restaurants: Smith & Wollensky, P.F.Chang’s, McCormick & Schmick’s, The Oceanaire, etc… I have experienced good and bad service, but I usual never complain because I believe we are all entitled to a bad day once in a while since we are all humans. However, my experience at this Escalante’s in the Highland Village was so appalling that I want to warn the rest of you from ever having diner there and to avoid this place at all costs.

We went in at about 9:15 p.m. on that Friday night, and there were some people at the bar while the dinning hall had a large party as well, with some other guests. By consequence, the restaurant was full. We were a party of five, and we were seating at the table located in the bar area. We ordered our drinks, and while waiting for the drinks which still did not come after 15 minutes, a waiter (not our waiter) came to the table and told us that we need to order quickly because the kitchen would be closed soon. Those were his exact words, and please recall that we still did not get our drinks ordered 15 minutes ago. In addition, not only his tone of voice was ruder, but the manner in which he spoke to us that was incredibly condescending. My first thought was this guy was having a bad day, maybe he was tired from a long shift or maybe I am just overreacting. After this waiter left our table, I looked at my friends and they all were shocked because of how rude that waiter was. The rest of the waiters were at the corner by the bar and started to talk about us, and giving us nasty looks. In my life, I have never felt so uncomfortable as I was at that point. A bunch of men in their mid-30s were looking at us as if they were about to fight us and they were not even trying to hide the fact that they were talking about us 5 feet away from where we sat. In the meantime, we were still waiting for our drinks and for our waiter to take our order. I have never left a restaurant (but then, nothing similar has ever happened to me), and yet, we considered leaving right there. The only thing that kept us from doing so was that it was late, and many other restaurants were closing soon and that we already ordered our drinks.

Finally, we saw a gentleman with an apron who looked like he was a manager and we asked for his assistance. We told him that we were still waiting for our drinks and that the waiting staff who came to our table was quite rude. I work in the financial industry and if for some reason or another, my clients are not fully satisfied, I always try to accommodate them because their complete satisfaction is my goal. But this manager (and yes, he is a manager at Escalante’s) has no idea or has never heard of the concept of customer service.

His response to our complaint was that he did not understand what we expected from him.

We stated that we still do not have our drinks 25 minutes after we ordered them, that no one came to take our food order, and not only the waiter was very rude, but basically he told us to order our food and to get out. This is how we were treated while all we ever wanted was to come to Escalante’s to enjoy our evening and to relax.

The manager continued to state that we he still did not understand what we wanted, but that he would talk to the waiter and tell him what we said. Some few minutes later, the waiter with the rude attitude came back to the table and told us that he admitted to being rude to us, but the reason was that he had a long day and he was tired. So, we told him that we understood and continue waiting for the food.

That waiter went back to the bar, where the rest of the waiters were still standing and incredibly enough, they continued talking badly about us as if we could not hear them. Then, during one minute interval, different waiters went around our table, rubbing their shoulders against our backs and this went on for about 5 minutes. None of them were smiling, none of them asked if we needed anything, all they did was to take turns on going around our table, brushing against us, and then, they went back to the corner of the bar where they were all standing, and continued to all stared directly at us while talking to each other. We were feeling incredibly uncomfortable and were about to ask for our bill and leave when the manager came up to our table. He looked very angry and irritated and was talking very loud. At that moment, he pulled up a chair next to our table and sat between my friends and me. He then said loudly “I do not understand what you want from me and want me to do and what are you not happy about?” He said that he was trying to fix this for us, but he did not understand what we all wanted. I was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, with the restaurant manager sitting himself at my table, and screaming at my guests and myself in the middle of the restaurant. He was getting angrier and angrier and persisted in screaming “what do you want from me?” At that point, in order to not aggravate the situation, I simply told him “Sir, please do not scream at us, we are clients in this restaurant and we came here to enjoy a relaxing evening”. The manager jumped off his stool and threw it down on the floor, and at the top of his lungs, he started to scream “Get out! Get out! I have been a manager for five years and I do not want you all here. Just get out, you do not have to pay for your food”. He was screaming at the top of his lungs in front of the full restaurant, walking up and down the bar area and during all that time, we were just sitting there in complete shock. We certainly did not come for free food and despite the fact that the service was horrible, I intended to pay for our food and drinks, and tip. I told the manager that all we wanted is our bill so we could pay for it and we would leave, but he kept on screaming. At that point, I was crying because I was so embarrassed, but I managed to come up to one of the waiters and gave him my credit card in order to pay for the bill. After I paid, we got up and left.

We did call the corporate office and left a message. On Monday afternoon, a lady called back and said that she would forward it to appropriate person. Three days later, a corporate manager called and he was very nonchalant about the whole incident. He said the floor manager was very stressed that night because of some internal issue with one of the employees and was having a bad day. That same corporate manager said that a waitress who worked that night told him that there were some staff problems that night and that the floor manager was upset and yet, that he did not want to lose us as clients and he hoped we would come back. There was no discussion about whether this floor manager will receive any warning, any training in customer service, no, absolutely no action taken to correct the problem. That is very disturbing to me that I have to go through such a degrading, embarrassing and traumatic experience and this floor manager will not even be reprimanded for his unprofessional behavior.

Two people in my party that evening were gay, my male coworker and his friend visiting from New York and we all thought that this is one of the reasons we were treated so rudely by all male wait staff.

The sad thing is when next day I told about my experience to my other coworker, he confirmed that his wife and him also had bad service at Escalante’s (Escalante’s Fine Tex Mex) in Highland Village . Again, this goes to show that this is not an isolated case of bad customer service, but there is something basically wrong with the service in this restaurant.

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