Tempranillo Restaurant

It started with waiting 15 minutes to just find our wait person...but how it ended is much more distressing. After finally receiving our drinks another 15 minutes later we placed our orders. The food actually came out fairly quickly, but after a few bites of salad the horrid discovery was made...AN BEETLE IN THE SALAD peering back. This actually wasn't the most disgusting thing....after tracking down the wait person and showing him the beetle-like insect in shock, he showed it to the next door table where the owner was dining with his wife. He looked at the insect, then glared at me and glibly shrugged it off and said ""Well it is salad"" as if it was absolutely acceptable to find BEETLE in his food. Shame on you! After the wait person took the stomach-turning salad away we never heard a word from the owner, the wait person or anyone about the awful experience. We flagged down the wait person to finally share our utter disappointment - he seemed equally as unconcerned as the owner. I saw the owner leaving the restaurant a few moments later - glaring at me as he departed. I recently read an article about how hard this economy is hitting the restaurant business and the article described what is going to save this struggling industry. It wasn't specials, it wasn't discounts, it wasn't even the food - it was CUSTOMER SERVICE. From that article, I would say good luck Tempranillo. This whole situation could have been mitigated by a simple: ""I am so sorry, that is unacceptable. What can we possibly do to make this up to you"" They acted as if we were the ones serving the pest. So, shame on you Javier Gonzalez-Bringas! Pros: nice atmosphere Cons: PESTS in the food more

I love Basalt. Really, I grew up there and I think it's the best place on earth. Which is why, as a restauranteur, I love to see so many wonderful places to eat springing up all over the valley. I think that, despite the loss of those big beautiful trees, the new expanded patio is fabulous. The olives with the bread are perfect. I've also very much appreciated the fact that the owner always seems to be there. However, does he know he's in Basalt? Perhaps you can pull off the rude ""I'm doing you a favor by letting you come into my restaurant"" thing in a big city, but not in a small town. On my last visit there our waitress more than followed his example. Rarely have I had a waitress be so very rude. I asked very nicely three times for my particular brand of bourban while she stated very annoyed that they did not have it (I was staring at the bottle of it in the bar). When I pointed that out she said fine and got it for me. Our drinks took forever, as did the food. I would have been understanding if they had been nice about it though. Then, when our food did arrive, half of it was not ours, and what was ours was too cold to be enjoyable. Want salt with that? Or how about some coffee? Well you'll only have to ask for it 3 times. Not to mention the fact that they didn't clear the salad plates off of our very small table before handing us our entrees and walking away leaving us literally holding our plates wondering where to put them. I hope that they all change their attitudes (as well as service standards and knowledge) before it's too late. Personally I'll be spending my time in town over at the Basalt Bistro where the staff, and more importantly the owners, are friendly and always happy to see you. more