4 stars for the messy management and the inconvenience of being unable to make reservations(even when you're trying to plan a birthday).
I asked my Bf where he wanted to go for his birthday and he responded "The New Barrio Queen Desert Ridge!" So what baby wants, baby gets. After making the whole Facebook invitation and such I rounded up about 15 people and called Barrio Queen a week out for a reservation.. BAM "we don't take reservations". My heart broke.. i knew the day of the birthday dinner my whole day would have to be focused on extreme early arrival.
So fast forward to the day of the gathering: I arrived around 2PM(dinner was at 7:30p) to drop off a cake and some balloons and talked to the ladies in person.. still there was nothing they could do about any type of potential reservation. So I left and arrived back at 6:30 as they suggested(an hour prior to our desired seating time) and waited. As all of our guests arrived we noticed there was a nice smaller party/ banquet room off to the right and asked if we could just sit there. The room could probably seat like 45 people ok.. and there were a bunch of people waiting still also. So the employees said No and we continued to wait. By the one we reached 90 minutes of waiting, someone called my name... guess where they sat us? Yep you guessed it, in that same room. It took forever for us to get chips, salsa and the first round of drinks but our server ended up being super awesome so it was ok. I loved the food but the coordination was atrocious. I ordered shrimp tacos and the guacamole. I love the salsa and chips they serve and paired with a nice skinny chola marg is the best!
Barrio Queen: Please be a little more flexible with your customers and accept reservations for large parties... without us returning customers you wouldn't be in business. Otherwise, keep up the great food and ambiance, everything else was wonderful. See yo again soon!