Reata Restaurant-Alpine, TX

We went twice during our vacation in west Texas, we are a family of 6, all older teens and adults. On our first visit, our server Lori gave me guidelines for my gluten free diet (Celiac), she was kind and unflappable during the busy after-hour service. She is fantastic. We left with the highest opinion of Reata, food and service. We decided to return before leaving town, but had a different server. We didn’t catch her name, younger woman. I asked about gluten free options and she short-listed the cheese enchiladas which Lori had said weren’t gluten free. When I questioned her, she said- oh yeah- they have some wheat flour in the sauce. BIG DEAL FOR ME. I will be sick for weeks. The rest of the meal was all confused. She rushed us to order everything. The wine (for 2), salad and soup arrived quickly. After maybe 20-30 minutes, the drinks for the rest of the table, the bread, and the entrees arrived. I think we spent 20 min trying to flag her down and felt ignored. Shortly after we began eating our entrees she visited the table a couple times to ask if we wanted anything else, rushing us. My husband needed a napkin, but she didn’t bring one until we asked again later. As we ate, she asked if she could bring the check. We said we wanted to order dessert after dinner. She brought the dessert menu as we were eating our dinners and asked us to order dessert halfway through eating our meals. Keep in mind our reservation was for 7pm. After we got our desserts, she immediately brought a check forcing gratuity of 20%. We asked to speak with the manager who said “all of our servers are excellent” in a huff. She removed the forced gratuity and gave us a $25 credit for a restaurant in Ft Worth, 463 miles away. Take home: food is great, service hit or miss.

So happy to find a place with a gluten free menu! My celiac kids loved the creme brulee for dessert! Very friendly and awesome little place!