Frontera Grill - Birmingham

Although I am giving this place 3 stars, I am very surprised as to why the overall rating is already at a whopping 2.3 stars. The ambience was homey and the staff fairly nice, and my whole entire family enjoyed their meals. Starting off with the aforementioned variables, this place is bursting with color. They have traditional Mexican music playing at all times and it's not too loud. There is tons of space on the inside as well. This brings me to my first issue: I have a decently sized family and we often get placed in a booth in the corner of restaurants; we are fine with that and actually prefer it. However, we got placed dead center in the middle of this restaurant at two tables our waiter slammed together before beckoning us over to follow him a little strange, especially since the restaurant was by no means full. He left before we arrived at our table with lots of empty seats. Our waitress who took our orders was very nice though, but a little impatient. She kept our tortilla chips coming without us asking and we appreciated that, but she was constantly on the run and seemed too busy. I ordered the Chicken and Steak Fajita Dinner and it arrived pretty quickly, along with the rest of my family's orders. The portion sizes were great and we all ended up taking to go boxes. The rice, beans, and salad were really good, but surprisingly, the vegetable steak and chicken mix lacked bursting flavor not enough salt or pepper. There were also way more onions and peppers compared to the very small portion size of chicken and steak I received. The culture of this place and very nice and looks promising on the outside. I am one of the biggest fans of Mexican food as well. But, there are certain factors that need to be tweaked especially if they are looking to get their stars up.

The restaurant is decorated nicely. Lots of vibrant colors. It also gives off the feel that you're off in Mexico sitting outside in a court yard. Very cute! My mom had the chicken fundito which was delicious!!! Steak fajitas were yummy as well. Our water/ soft drinks never went below half full. Great service

It takes A LOT for me to leave a review. As a local to this spot, and a place my family would like to go, I will never return. I have never in my life dealt with worse service. Our waitress was extremely rude. We ordered queso, and she forgot. When we told her, she did not apologize even though we had waited over 30 minutes. She never smiled and was very blunt and rude the entire 3 times she came to our table. The only time she would come by is if we had to flag her down. When we did, of course we received an eye roll. (Earn those tips girl! They claim to close at 9pm. At 8pm which is very early, they started flipping chairs all around us. I felt rushed and devalued as a guest being there. Later, our waitress slams the check on our table! (This is the exceptional service that we all love to tip for. She says if you want to split check, do it up front. *turns around and walks off*. HAHA thank you so much!! You will never see me again, and I will continue to spread the word about never coming here to all of my friends and family. The chefs are great, but service like this, kills a restaurant. I 'll never forget this terrible experience. A re-evaluation of staff members needs to take place. Best of luck, as you 're going to need it.

I 'm not sure why the star count is so low here... but it kept me away for a while. It 's not 'fancy ' but it is quaint and a nice neighborhood Mexican place. It was also fast and hot. The portions were generous. The chips/salsa were both fresh. We didn 't order margaritas as we still had things to do that evening. But we did order the grilled chicken quesadilla dinner (with onions and peppers) which was huge and flavorful I 'll order it for myself next time... and the tampiquena which was like steak fajitas without the veggies. We 'll be back and hope others come as well.

It's very good! The prices are solid and the atmosphere is great. The people are always kind and service is very very fast. Definitely the best spot for the price.