Pancheros Mexican Grill - Mason City

I don't know how this place is staying in business. I ordered takeout the other night. I arrived on time for pickup, but had to wait 20+ minutes with my food getting cold on the other side of the counter because the employees were either cooking food or helping the other customers in line. When we got our food, one of the entrees, a burrito bowl that I paid $12.50 for, came with maybe a cup of soggy, virtually inedible food. It was ordered with tofu as a meat substitute since the recipient is vegetarian, but the employee who made it initially put steak on it and instead of making a new one, made a poor and largely unsuccessful attempt to scrape the steak off before adding the tofu, ultimately ruining the entire dish. Several side items were also forgotten. And I don't blame the employees one bit. There were only two of them working that night with me waiting for pickup and about 10 other customers in line. I could see the exhaustion and desperation in their eyes while trying their hardest to serve everyone as best they could, and my kudos goes out them. The issues I had were 100% symptomatic of an establishment that is grossly understaffed and incompetently managed. So this is a constructive criticism to the management and/or owners of this Pancheros location: Pay. Your. Freaking. Employees. A. Livable. Wage. And. Staff. Your. Freaking. Restaurant. Raising prices on your all subpar food, underpaying your employees, and absconding with (probably) record profits might seem like a great business model on paper right now, but I promise you're going to leak customers like a sieve if this is the way you keep things moving.

It’s my guilty pleasure to keep coming back but WOW every time I come I have to wait on staff to acknowledge me at all there has always been a shortage of staff which causes a delay on rice or meats. Sometimes I have to wait an extra 10 minutes because they haven’t made something there was one time they only had one worker from multiple hours that didn’t have any meat or rice, so I couldn’t order anything It’s unfortunate The Mason city location is going downhill.