I am giving them a 3 star only because they are new. If I had this type of an experience at an…read moreestablished restaurant, I would have given them a 1 star. Perhaps things will improve over time.
My son and I decided to try out the new Mexican restaurant in Ferndale, and that was a mistake.
First for reference the restaurant wasn't that busy, they had 5 tables with customers (counting us), and 2 wait staff serving those 5 tables.
The first thing we noticed was that the service was really slow, then we noticed that between the two wait staff one of them was doing a really good job and the other was really slow and far less attentive.
The service was super slow to even take our drink orders, another group than came in after us had their drinks before our waiter even took our order.
After a while we noticed that the tables on the other side of the restaurant were getting chips and salsa, but not on our side of the restaurant. Apparently with our waiter chips and salsa were items that needed to be ordered, rather than just bringing them to the table at first contact like the other waitress did.
This really lacked any type of theme. The bar area had some Mexican tequila, but as far as the theme, it looks like a big warehouse that was converted to a dance hall that is now being used as a restaurant. For ambiance in the restaurant they had a TV with a message on it from Pandora saying "Are you still listening", which makes me think that they had some type of music on, but that Pandora timed out on the streaming.
My son (22 years old) described it as cafeteria style seating and that it felt like eating in a cafeteria, not a Mexican restaurant.
Perhaps that's enough, but next came the food. Looking around the restaurant as we were seated I notice that all the plates on the other tables looked like huge piles of rice and beans, and I wasn't in the mood for a massive pile of rice and beans, so I decided to order the Taco Salad. The salad was describe as this "Taco Salad: Lettuce, tomato, cilantro, and choice of meat topped with sour cream and avocado". Ok, that sounded really good to me, and there was even an option to get it topped with carne asada, or carnitas for a minimal extra charge. Yumm, that sounds good.
Well when it arrived, perhaps a better name for it would have been the rice bowl. It was one of those tortillas fried in the shape of a bowl. It was mostly filled with Mexican rice, and it was topped with a light sprinkling of lettuce, cheese, salsa, guacamole and ranch dressing. Now keep in mind that the whole reason that I ordered the salad was that I didn't want a pile of rice or beans, and what did I get, the salad "rice bowl" that was mostly rice, and barely salad.
So then I wanted to bring it up with them that I had not ordered the rice bowl, and that I was expecting salad items in my salad, and not a pile or rice. However it wasn't until after my son had finished his meal and we were ready to leave that they even came back to check on things.
When it came time to pay, they didn't seem to know how to use their credit card machine, and after fumbling around with my credit card for a while, they said that they could only take cash.
My rating (scale of 0 to 5):
* Atmosphere... 0, its a warehouse space.
* Service... 1, the service from our waiter was horrible, it appeared that the waitress did a good job with her tables.
* Cleanliness... 5, the area was very clean.
* Food... 2, maybe its just me to think that a rice bowl is not a salad.
Perhaps they need some time to work out the kinks, train the staff to be service oriented, improve the atmosphere and for the chef to learn how to prepare what is stated on the menu. Give it a while, but for now I wouldn't recommend Don Samuel Mexican Grill & Tequila Bar. Any of the other Mexican restaurants in Ferndale or Bellingham would be a better choice.