Iron Cactus

I was excited to find a nice restaurant with a patio so close to our motel. But when I walked in the door to look at the menu, I was hit in the face with air fresheners. When enter a place to eat, I want to find the aroma of fresh bread, or simmering soup, or fruity desserts. I don’t want that perfumy smell. I didn’t bother after that. I don’t know how the food or service is. But there is plenty of parking and a nice patio.

This place has gone down hill recently. One year ago, you could not beat their drinks and food. The Mexican martini was the best in town! (Ok besides trudys…)
Everything has started to suck recently though. The happy hour is great, and the queso is still good, but everything else is horrible. The service is a joke! Our waitress kept disappearing for long periods of time, and then showing up with absolutely no explanation/​apologies. We had to go directly to the bar multiple times for our drinks. It wasn’t even crowded!
The drinks have even gone down hill. I seriously think they give you cheaper tequila than you order. The Mexican martini was horrible.
I wouldn’t recommend this place anymore. Which is so unfortunate considering what it used to be!

UNDERSTAFFED and TERRIBLE SERVICE. The servers have too many tables… add to that, most of them are slow, unattentive, rude and could care less about their sections. The food isn’t terrible if you can stand to stick around and endure waiting 15 minutes to be greeted, 25 minutes for chips and salsa, etc… even when it’s SLOW! After 5 negative experiences, we’re done with that place.

The wait staff has always been excellent. My wife works close by so we meet for lunch here periodically. The food is good and the drinks are really good!

We were regulars… And now we will never go back.
Long story short. A manger was so rude to is that after initially upsetting me, he continued to get confrontational with me while I was minding my business and talking to my friend quietly about how he had just been rude to me. I kept asking him to please leave me alone and he was literally saying things like «If you have a problem with me you should say it to my face.» And «You need to get professional help with your issues.» Seriously!!! I’ve never had any restaurant employee get confrontational with me! I worked in the service industry for 16 years and am so easy to please.
We actually had the opportunity to tell the owner, and he stood up for his manager! Telling me that the guy had never been rude to him before.
Well well well! I’m sure if the guy has half a brain he would never be rude to his employer. But apparently he has full run to be rude to staff and customers!
Don’t waste your money…

The only thing going for this place is the server. She has only been doing the job for a week, and she is very raw, but it’s clear she’s giving it her all.
Can’t say the same thing for the guy who looked like he was supposed to be training her. Or the kitchen staff. Or… well basically everything. Food took too long to deliver, and looked the worse for it. Food quality mediocre at best.
This is the first time I’ve been here in two years having been disappointed the first time. Ah well, perhaps I’ll give them another try in two more years. Until then, not remotely recommended.

Yuck. I had the worst chicken enchiladas ever. Aside from the amount of salt that seemed to be added for flavor, the Verde sauce was cold and sour. The beans reminded me of playing basketball in high school and catching a nice sweaty armpit to the face. Rice was extremely clumpy and cold. Queso was cold, and hard… oh, and the rather long hair was a nice decoration. Best part was the bun boy server for a nearby table. our server sucked, left to find him hanging out at the corner table in the bar area…
Being in the industry at a rather high priced place, I have no problem and understand paying more money for better and fresh food… you should pay for what you want, and get what you’re paying for… unfortunately, this was not the case. Myself and a friend for lunch, $ 65ish before tip. And yes, we still left a tip. We will not return. I’d rather go to chueys or something… atleast I know what to expect and get the quality of food paid for.

Had a great brunch here on sunday. Food was excellent and the mimosas were strong. Overall enjoyable experience.

After choosing to celebrate my girlfriends bachelorette party dinner at Iron Cactus. I can tell you that was the worst decision we made all weekend. After spending two hours of dealing with a very confused waiter who accused us of making drinks up that Iron Cactus makes. that are famous at other locations? (Texas peach margarita) We finally had enough when the checks were an absolute disaster. There was nothing complicated about the meals. Sure a few people split meals together, but this is the industry. And with more than half of the girls being very familiar with the restaurant industry because they have WORKED in it as well. Our compassion was running thin. The bachelorette decided to bring the manager in to express how things were just going horrible and we were getting frustrated. The manager then proceeded to add to the time we had already waited by confusing things even more. We were told to pay for a Queso that we ordered but never received. At the end of the night we were not compensated for anything what so ever. The waiters attitude worsened and the manager proceeded to just look helpless. While waiting for 7 of the other checks to pay we were told «I can give those who haven’t paid yet 20% off» what a slap in the face for those who had already paid when things were already so bad that that should’ve been offered already.
I am so disappointed because I have always had a great experience at the Iron Cactus in San An. This put us way behind in the night and the plans we had, the restaurant was closing and the bussers were having to wait on us to clean our table/​set up for the next day. And even more upsetting considering we are from a town four hours away from Bee Cave and really wanted some amazing food from Iron Cactus.
I really hope something is done to help the helpless manager and confused waiter for moving forward and learning from this terrible inconvenience.

I love the brunch here, waitress keep my cup full it’s a bit noisy but a good deal for my money

Iron Cactus may get a bum wrap because they are in the Galleria and the price and atmosphere may build unreasonable expectations. The food is actually not bad. It’s not the «same-​old, same-​old» you get from the hundreds of other small mexican joints around. It’s pretty good. In a town that puts such a huge emphasis on one-​off culinary experiences, I think Iron Cactus gets an unfair disadvantage because they are a ‘chain’. The Bee Caves location does a good job I think.
The vast number of negative reviews seem to be around prompt service… You need to measure that with a grain of salt. They are in the central anchor of the Bee Caves Galleria. If you go in there Friday evening at 6:30 — 7:00 pm you’re going to wait. Use your head. Don’t show up at prime time after the opening night of a big movie with a party of 10 and bitch about waiting 45 minutes for a table.

Fantastic Sunday brunch for a great price. Made to order omelettes, roast beef, pork loin, salads, pasta salad, tamales, fish, vegetables, on and on. Fruit and deserts. From 10 – 3. We love it.
We have always had great wait staff too. They also have a great outdoor patio.

I used to like to pop in here while shopping. I love casual Mexican food. Their food was always pretty consistent and good. You’d get the same menu as all other iron cactus locations but that’s no more. Now they have a weird menu of top dollar $ 22 – 30 entrees that sound completely unappealing. I had to ask if they gave me the correct menu. Their lunch menu had many choices of burgers and hardly any casual Mexican food. It was a minuscule lunch menu with odd choices. I just wanted a chicken burrito but they had no such thing. They should just change the name of this place. It’s clearly not an iron cactus anymore. Won’t be back.

Entering this place you expect that service is going to be exceptional, looks can be deceiving.
What a horrible experience, please invest on a water softener for your dishes or hire people capable of keeping your kitchen clean, our cutlery were so dirty that they even had mold on the ridges, totally disgusted to the point that my appetite completely went away, asked for water, cup was dirty as well, the napkins for the cutlery had a distinctive smell like they haven’t been wash in a long time. We ordered bloody Mary’s while waiting for the meal, what a disgusting experience, bacon was burned, tomato juice seems to be from a very cheap can, nothing fresh there, hire some people that can mix your drinks or don’t sell those.
I ordered a stuff avocado plate, it was just ok, avocado had black and brown edges, as it was seating out for a long time. asked for the cilantro lime rice, got yellow rice instead, server was very distracted, noticed that most of the servers are very much like that, no one seems to be enthusiastic about providing s great customer service.

Is there a no stars option? Tried to get a table on the patio and was told there was a 2 hour wait. There were 6 or 7 vacant tables and no one waiting for a table. The interior smelled like a sour mop. No thank you.

Came here as part of a very large crowd that was served buffet style from a limited menu.
The food was okay — found the seasoning to be lacking and the proteins overcooked as is common in bulk served food. The best item of the meal was the «Mexican doughnut» that one of their management team was quite proud of.
Service was disjointed, as it didn’t seem they were used to working a large party — or working together.

Thank you for ruining my birthday dinner with your horrible service. Waited 20min for a table when there were empty tables in the restaurant so I decided to order a dring at the bar. There were no Mexican Martinis on the menu so I asked if they had one and the server said that they could make any of the margaritas in to one. I ordered one with Patron and received the check for ~$ 15. It wasn’t worth it.
The waitress may been new because I occasionally saw people following her. She made two trips to our table before she was ready to take our order on the third. We placed the orders and continued to wait. The food was delivered to our table by another waiter. After receiving our food my wife asked if there were any birthday desserts and she said that they had a chocolate mousse and would put the order in when we were closer to finished with our meal. That was the last time we saw our waitress for over 20min.
The kids meals are overpriced at $ 7 and do not come with a drink, they do however come with a scoop of ice cream that you will most likely never receive.
After yet another waiter cleared the table my wife and kids got tired of waiting for the ice cream and dessert and went next door to Amy’s for ice cream. I continued to sit at the table until someone, I assume was a manager asked if I needed anything. I informed him that we gave up on the dessert and ice cream and could he just bring the check. He said no problem and he would bring out the dessert. I told him my family had already left and he offered the dessert to go. I said that would be fine.
The bill was ~$ 48 so I handed him my credit card. He brought back the slip to sign and it was for ~$ 55. I had to flag him down again to show him that I had been overcharged and the missing waitress showed up and said that she would fix it. I asked her if she was sure she was capable and she assured that she was. She brought the CC receipt back again and it was still .50 to much. I asked her why and she informed me that it was a packaging fee for the dessert that I had still not received. I signed it, left no tip and continued to wait. I finally got up and started looking for the manager when I saw her again and was asked what I needed. I informed her that I was continuing to wait for the dessert I paid to package up. She went in the back for a couple of more minuets and finally brought it out and proceeded to tell me «You have a nice day too».
Needless to say that was the first and last time I will go to the Bee Caves Iron Cactus, or any other for that matter.

This place pretty much ruined our date night.
The waitress took like 15 minutes in between bringing our drinks and taking our dinner order. I had finished my drink by the time she finally came by.
The waitress did not bring out water until I flagged her down and asked for it.
There was a rock in my salsa. Good thing I thought «hey this doesn’t feel like salsa, what is it» before I bit down.
My fries were delivered to me cold and I had to ask for the ketchup.
And after each of these mistakes, there was no apology, and no discount on the check.

Great every time! This is my 3^rd visit, every dish is delicious: Pescado del Mar and the Yucutan Fish Tacos (see photo). I love me some Chuy’s but Iron Cactus is a cut above with things like fresh table side guacamole and hands down THE BEST FLAN I’ve ever tasted– adding those carmelized bananas on the side was genius!!! Always good service, but one time it was really busy/​crowded and service was much slower, so I just chilled with a cold Martini and enjoyed the chips and salsa!

Gave this a couple of days. I never get high-​end Mexican restaurants. Keep it simple, cheap, good (and make your killing the ridiculously strong drinks you sling)
Went for an early dinner. Server was very good. Food was overpriced, not a lot of it, and not memorable at all.
Server dropped a drink on one of our party, and was VERY embarrassed. The management tried to make it better.
Everyone left — not happy

Over-​priced and not good. Blech!