The setting is interesting and unique. The food is okay, not great but good, with decent variety. But the service is so lackadaisical as to be almost non-existent. The only grown ups here seem to be the customers, with the staff comprised of unsupervised teenagers. They're not bad kids, but they haven't the faintest clue about customer service. And no one has taught them. And nobody is there to check on them. If this restaurant fails, they will have deserved it for not paying attention to the most important ingredients, the PEOPLE. And that includes both the customers they ignore, and the poor kids they inflict upon them. read more

Tried again. Terrible. 2 of the 5 orders were wrong (either the waitress is incompetent or the cooks can't read). The cook can't cook. Hot rods - hire a chef for your huge menu or simplify your menu. Chicken was burnt - majorly. It's not that hard to grill - come on. Other chicken had tons of salt on it. Everything was BLAND, there was nothing Southwest about the chicken sandwich, I tasted absolutely no chipotle mayo, and everything seems to come from a frozen recipe or is cooked in really old oil. And as the other reviewers said - even though there were only two other tables in the place for lunch it took 40 minutes for a few sandwiches. I don't want this place the close since there are barely any restaurants in the area but they really need to step it up. I suggest the owner hire a new manager and a new chef. read more

Food is the worst. Service is mediocre. Only cool thing about it is being able to watch them "work" on cars. This place has to be a tax break for someone, there is no way they are showing a profit. The last couple times we have gone there have been maybe one or two other tables in there. read more

Bad Food; Good Bar... They should seriously invest in a legitimate Executive Chef, and revamp the Food Menu. Otherwise, cool place. If you're a Gear Head, you definitely wanna come eat here. read more

My husband and I were pleasantly surprised by this out of the way Hot Rod Restaurant! A fun view of the shop while we enjoyed delicious food! read more

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The idea of the restaurant is that you can eat while watching people work on hot rod cars in the garage. We called ahead to make sure they would be working and were told they would be except from one to two, when they take lunch. We got there at 12:30 and they were not working. Disappointing, since that's what got us to go there. The waitress said they must have taken lunch early. As far as the food, it was fairly good. I got a Baja salad which i would rate just okay. Others with us got burgers and they said they were very good. So, food was okay, but don't plan on seeing any car work being done. They should be more professional and keep to a schedule for the customers if that's what they advertize. read more

The bling of the building is great. It was great watching them work on the older cars. Lots of TVs with several channels going on at the same time. You won't miss the game. Service started out really good. Then once we got our meal she disappeared and we did not see her for 30 minutes. The meal was just OK. I had the pulled pork open face meal and the BBQ pork was pretty good but the veggies and roasted red potatoes were very bland. My daughter had the pulled pork sandwich and she really liked it and loved the fries. I will admit the fries were pretty good. My wife had the southwest chicken sandwich. She said the chicken had a weird taste, and was blown away that it came with toasted white bread. She thought it would come on a nice roll. For dessert my daughter and I had shakes. The shakes were so over mixed it was like drinking cold milk with 1 or 2 very small pieces of ice cream. My guess is we will not be going back. I highly recommend the bike night. Went to it the night before and there were tons of cool bikes. read more

Family loves coming here. Only main concern is that they don't offer Gift Certificates anymore. May seem silly but I was sadly discouraged because I couldn't purchase a Gift Card for my fathers birthday. read more

Was there for lunch today. Must be run by pre-teens who must be former McDonalds employees. No evidence of any management. Almost an hour to be served. Two bowls of French onion soup delivered cold. Slices of cold swiss on top. Sent back and came back lukewarm. Salads delivered with no dressings. No silverware on table. Place should not try serving food until they get management and help capable of it. Interesting to see but pass on the food read more

Been here 4 times. Appetizers are good. The entrees on the other hand are not great. Have had the chicken and waffles (bad), French dip(not good), burger and southwest chicken sandwich were both OK. Service is pretty good and the beer has always been served in ice cold glasses. Hence the reason for 2 stars read more

Think most of the reviews below describe our experience there as well. We arrived around 9:00pm on a Fri and were immediately greeted with "kitchen's closed" upon entering the place. We were taken aback but said we'd check out the bar. The bar surface was filthy which bothered us more than the inattentive servers/bartenders/managers. We may give them another try but it'll be a number of months - assuming they last that long. Shame because we need more full-service restaurants on the SE side. read more

Omg....how embarrassing. This building is cool, but what a joke. The bartender only cares about finding a date at the bar. My family and I were the only people to sit in the resturaunt and were NEVER acknowledged or anything even thou the bartender kept looking at us. Surprised it hasn't gone out of business yet. It will. The bartender will probably do well working at Raiders Reef. read more

If you want extremely large portions of extremely mediocre food, this is the place for you. Very bland, previously frozen food. Unimpressed. read more

Hotrods Old Vail - Extremely large, and extremely mediocre previously frozen bland food. - American Near Me - Tucson, Arizona

The food was really good with large portions. The service was great. Overall good value for the money.

Second time eating here, food is great, nice menu. Full bar. Fun to look at the classic cars they're working on. Friendly service. Great place for car guys for sure! read more

The service is pretty bad... like smoking crack in the kitchen bad! The concept is amazing and the facility is beautiful. I just think with all of the time and money spent the owner would have a real restaurant staff in place. We waited soooo long I was about to walk out. I might go back for a bike night or car show, but not for dinner that's for sure. P.S. go to Hi Speed customs for the hot rods and Barrio brewery for the food! read more

Atmosphere gets 5 Stars Service and Food get1 or less... We were thrilled to know a new eatery/bar was opening near Vail and thought for sure it would be our new hang out. I am so disappointed in Hot Rods.. the food is mediocre, the service is crappy and the cost is high. The atmosphere is definitely one of a kind, just wish we could say the same about the food. read more

We moved to vail a few months ago and started going to Hotrods. We ignored the reviews, and I'm so glad we did because that place is soooo nice! The food is great and beer is good. I recommend it to everyone. The employees are very nice. Food sometimes takes a minute but most of the time it's pretty fast. Give it a shot & ignore the reviews. The reviews are pretty old too... read more

MAN is this place cool!!! Nascar inside,custom chopper inside, 2 full service bars full restaurant and events like bike nike and import night almost every night friendly service and a great atmosphere I WILL BE BACK !!!!!!!!! read more

With all the hype, and seeing the prices, I was expecting at least quality food. They can't cook a burger medium. The meatballs in the meatball sub were bland. The chili was overloaded with cumin and tasted nasty. And the grilled cheese was cold and had no flavor. But at least the wait staff was slow and inattentive. read more

We still love this place, but we don't go as often. We can't sort out why they can't seem to consistently offer great meals and great service, but it's obviously a management issue. Do they only hire relatives for the kitchen- and floor management, I wonder? Even though there's some obscure rule that forbids the upstairs over 21 bar from keeping mayo on hand up there, so my food gets cold while we wait. And wait. And wait. Because despite however many times we order it with my meal, it almost never comes with it. Last time we ordered our regular order - Calzone and medium rare Bacon Cheeseburger (Harris Beef) with a side of Mayo (for the fries) and honestly, the beef didn't taste like Harris beef at all. Frozen Costco burger without seasoning would be my guess. I have no idea what happened to that. . And we waited, and waited, and waited. My fries were room temperature by the time it arrived. Thanks for that. If I ever order that again, I'll order a new round of fries with the mayo as there's no prioritizing getting the mayo to the upstairs. Last time we were there, a very large group of middle schoolers arrived after an athletics event ( football, perhaps?) and were shrieking and running around constantly. We'd asked a passing Food Runner that they be quieted down and were told there was nothing that could be done. Really? Disturb an entire restaurant, including the upstairs over 21 bar and no one can take on a group of unruly patrons? Tell the team's sponsors and chaperones you're getting noise complaints - solution! We got up and left. After 8:30pm on a weekend, that's really too much. And of course, as we exited the elevator, 3 of them slammed into us. Thank you, Hot Rods. We really appreciated that last bit - bruises on the way out the door. Danica is still the best bartender, so we keep going. But possibly we'll only stop for appetizers and beer from now on. Inmates are clearly running the asylum. If this continues, I have no idea how they will stay in business without revamping the entire management given their reputation in the area is going downhill so fast! read more

This place has so much potential to be so much more! Great location, great idea...but the food and service was horrible. We gave this place a few tries because everyone has an "off" night--each time we had gone (three total) the service lacked horribly and the food was not that great. This will not be a place my family or I will be returning to read more

The food at this restaurant is actually quite good. I thought that the french fries were perfect! The atmosphere is obviously really cool. You get to look down on an automotive shop as you dine. I took my 3 and 5 year old boys here for lunch and they really enjoyed themselves. The kid's menu provides plenty of options for your little picky eaters. The service is the reason that I am giving three stars. We were sat immediately and ordered our drinks and then shortly thereafter we ordered our lunch. We then waited for what seemed like an eternity for our food. (Okay, I have two small, antsy boys. It wasn't an eternity; more like 30 minutes.) The restaurant was almost completely empty so I found this pretty agitating. read more

The food was pretty tasty, but the service was slow. However, we did come in pretty late with a large group. It was also just past the time where they'd normally close the kitchen, but they kept it open for us, which was nice. I had a chicken breast salad with cranberries and other healthy goodies. It was substantial and had a lot going on. To balance out the health food I had a local IPA on tap, which was also quite good. read more

Hotrods Old Vail has upped thier food game! Delicious and hot...great place for lunch. They hired a professional bbq chef all the way from SC! read more

Hotrods Old Vail - American Near Me - Tucson, Arizona

I wasn't impressed. Yes, the decor/atmosphere is unique (especially for Vail) but it wasn't for me. The menu is pretty basic, not much for a vegetarian. We started with chips, salsa and guac. The salsa was only ok... considering this is Arizona, less than yummy salsa is just sad. For dinner, I opted for the vegetable pasta. It was good and enough food for three meals. The service was pretty good, I think our waiter must have been a high school kid but he was attentive and had a sense of humor. I'm not crazy about old cars and certainly not crazy about their menu so I will probably not be coming back. In any case, good luck to the restaurant. Vail is lacking in just about everything so it's nice to see something like this coming in. I hope it can stay and make a profit, that building couldn't have been cheap... read more

Went for lunch the other day with several others and the food and service was great. I had the club sandwich and it was huge and delicious. I was very surprised since I had heard only mediocre comments in the past. I recommend trying this place. read more

Having been a waitress in the past at Apple-bees, my husband and I tip on service....and our waiter got a zero tip. The food wasn't any good either. We went on a Tuesday night. It wasn't busy. We both ordered burgers and my girls got a kids burger and a child's chicken tender. It took well over 40 minutes to get our food out to us. While we were waiting, my husband had drank his Dr Pepper. After receiving our food my husband had finished his burger before I was able to finally flag the waiter and ask for more soda. The waiter was too worried about his alcohol drinking customers. Also, without asking, he stole our Ketchup and gave it to another table. Our burgers, had it not been for the toppings, would have tasted like cardboard. The onion rings were tasty...I 'll give them that. The concept of this place is amazing...but with service and food backs the saying..."You can't judge a book by it's cover". Needless to say, we won't be back. read more

This place is an absolute waste of time. The food is worse than going to CIRCLE K or QT. I just witnessed two women asking for help that needed service. The bar tender/manager on duty was extremely rude to them and a few others. The women asked for the manager to complain and bar tender stated she was manager. They where asked to leave the property immediately for complaining. We all left and came to Chuys for lunch and A+++++++ service I wouldn't go back if it was free! Their supposed auto services and mechanics services are an absolute joke too. Stay away people! I wouldn't let them work on a bicycle or a lawn mower! I dont even give them 1 star but Yelp made me! HOT RODS SUCKS! read more

Never been here until tonight and I heard mixed reviews before going. After ordering for my two kids and I, we waited... Our server David came to the table to apologize that something went wrong with our ticket and they were working to fix it as fast as they could and that they would make it up to us. Honestly, I didn't think it was terribly long but I appreciated his honesty. They MORE than made it up to us. The manager Buck came to our table to me as well and was such an awesome person. We all loved the food and my two picky eaters ate all their food. We will definitely be coming back. read more

Hot Rods has a great atmosphere, good food and OK service. I like the variety on the menu, so it's easy to please almost everyone in your party. Another plus is the grass-fed beef hamburgers which are excellent and just as good as the gourmet burger places in town. I have also had the open-face roast beef sandwich and was pleased with the home-cooked diner type dish. The wife usually gets a chicken breast sandwich that she really likes and the kids usually go with a burger or chicken strips. I also like that they have great micro-brews from Deschutes. I say the service is OK not because of the servers, but because of the seating practices: Every time we have gone, we have to wait(up to 15-20 mins) to be seated despite numerous empty tables available in the shop-side dining room. I don't really understand this. The servers are always attentive, friendly and welcoming though. If you like the car/motorcycle culture or just want to eat someplace unique and fun, check out Hot Rods! Very kid friendly too. read more

Update: we visited HR 3 more times after this, each visit more disappointing than the last. At the time service & food were horrible. We haven't been back in a year but we may give it one more chance. Hard to say. ======= We took our son here for his 21st birthday -- so glad he selected someplace close to home ;) My son and I ordered the NY strip and my husband had the pulled pork. The portions were generous and my steak was cooked exactly to the temperature I ordered. EVERYTHING was very tasty - we shared bites. Our server, Ashley, was great - super sweet, fast, and attentive. The food took a little longer to come out of the kitchen than you would expect, but it was very good so we didn't mind. Besides, it gave us time to enjoy our drinks, order a 2nd, and just chat. Best part is we ordered the most expensive thing on the menu (NY strip) and it was only $17! What a deal! The look of this place, of course, is super cool and fun! -- especially if you are a car lover. We are definitely adding this place to our list of places we eat out. We're so glad to have another good restaurant closer to Vail :) read more

All the hype of this place left me seriously underwhelmed, it is like some rich kid decided something is really cool and nobody tells them differently because they are making money off of him. 1st of all there are only a few tables that have a view of the garage, I grew up working with mechanics it sounds a lot more interesting than it really is watching them work. I could get over the cool factor gone bad, but the service is slow, and there were only 2 tables with people at them. The food is marginal, nothing special, you might as well be getting a cheap meal a Denny's. I don't think I will be back unless someone else is paying , and even then I would try to talk them into going to someplace with good food, which is sorely lacking here. read more

This place is a pile of garbage. Horrible food and service. Unprofessional and staff is not knowledgeable and very in attentive. My family nor I will never go back to this place. Also very empty! No idea how this place is in business still. read more

Fun place to eat. Dining room overlooks an active hotrod mechanical shop with some cool rods. Menu is good with not too much to choose from. Food is excellent as usual. Service is attentive, friendly and polite. read more

The menu can be hit or miss, but I highly recommend the muffuletta sandwich with fries from the chef's monthly menu. I'm hoping they make that sandwich a part of the standard menu, but definitely check out the chefs monthly menu for something a little fun and different like the chicken and waffles. The service can be a little shaky, but for being so far on the outskirts of town it's one of the better options in Rita Ranch. read more

Hotrods Old Vail - Chicken strips and fries - American Near Me - Tucson, Arizona

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This place is great for happy hours (pre-COVID) but all the food was very average. Mostly fried food. Not terrible but there are better options. Nice open space for hanging out though. read more

As a resident of Rita Ranch I have had a love-hate relationship with Hotrods since it opened. I want to love this place, I really do, but every time I think it's turned a corner and redeemed itself for previous failures, it lets me down with cold food or terrible service. That being said, it does have a pretty decent bar that is open late (for the area). It has a variety of food on the menu. It has a fun theme that lends itself to cool car-based events. And the management does seem to take suggestions to heart (even if they are slow to improve on things). All in all, I keep Hotrods on my back burner when it comes to eating out, but will stop in if they're hosting a fun event or if I need to accommodate a large group. read more

I really want to like it, but, I can't. I seldom give anything but 4&5 star reviews because I want to see small business succeed. These people have a cool concept. Working shop you can view thru restaurant windows, see them restore hot rods. But not enough attention is being paid to the restaurant. Food is ok, service is so-so, kitchen is slow. Like seriously slow. So, if you must go, make sure you go between 9 and 5 on a weekday, so at least you'll be entertained by the work going on in the shop while you wait for that meal. read more

This place is cool, service was good, food was mediocre at best... We'll go back at night for dinner & drinks... Maybe there just not a lunch place read more