I’ll admit it — the Iron Cactus has been pretty good to me. Their late-night happy hour can’t be beat, and I don’t think I can count the times I’ve taken advantage of their ridiculously cheap margaritas and $3 Texas martinis after 10pm on Thursdays. If I’m feeling up to it, I pair a house ’rita or four with the tres leches cake, a beautifully presented dessert that’s soft and sweet and melts in your mouth. On some nights, that dessert haunts my dreams and I wake up in a puddle of my own drool. That might be a sign of low blood sugar, I don’t know, but I’d like to think it’s because of that delectable cake made of three leches.
So you can imagine I’d suggest meeting up at this delightful establishment when my friends and I planned to check out the Velveeta Room’s open mic night and needed somewhere to hang, drink, and chat before the funny. “The Iron Cactus is our answer!” I sang, picturing the fabulous second-level deck. “The Iron Cactus has quite possibly the best and most beautifully presented tres leches cake I’ve ever tasted!” I wailed, dancing through a field of dandelions and blue-eyed infants. “Iron Cactus!”
They listened. And I can’t blame them for being suckered into this mess — the idea of a pre-show get together that offered dirt-cheap drink specials and a tasty dessert, an upstairs deck perfect for people watching, and a close proximity to the Velveeta Room sounded pretty goddamn perfect. But that’s the thing with perfect-sounding ideas. They always get screwed up somehow. You know, it’s just when you think that your life is getting back on track, when you’ve finally gotten those assholes at American Express to stop calling because you worked out a deal to pay back 70% of your balance before the year is over, when you realize that your father may not have hugged you as a child because he wasn’t hugged by his father as a child — well, that’s when things get all screwed up and you’re back where you started.
Anyway, three of my friends and I arrived at the Iron Cactus before the rest of our crew, so we decided to just go and grab a table on the deck.
When we approached the host stand at the top of the stairs, that’s when things started to fall apart. The host was way too busy to acknowlege us for about ten seconds because there was a really interesting tic-tac-toe game happening on the notepad in front of him.
“Hi,” the host said. He seemed to be surprised to see us.
“Hi,” I replied, waiting for the magic question. “Umm… we’d like a table. There will be seven or eight of us.”
“Tables are for dinner only,” he said before turning around to check out the open table situation.
Well, my friends and I weren’t eating dinner, but we were planning on ordering at least two drinks each, plus desserts. Let’s do some quick math here: Two drinks plus a dessert should be something like $13 per person. If were were to each order only a dinner entree from the menu, it’d be between $9 and $13 per person. So no big deal, right?
“We’ll be having drinks and dessert,” I told the host, just to be sure. He left to pull two tables together — as slowly as he could — and came back to seat us. “The rest of our group should be here soon.”
Our waitress rolled her eyes at our table’s empty chairs as she walked up and had trouble finding enough words to form a friendly waitress greeting. Really, her eyes and sighing did all the talking.
The three of us ordered drinks and, sensing her impatience, assured her that it wouldn’t be long until those seats were filled.
But then the text messages from our oh-so-punctual pals started coming in (“hey we r 5 mintes awy,” “cant find a prking spot,” “wheres the steel cactus bar?”). With each sip of our drinks, we caught a glimpse of our dear waitress’ red eyes glaring at us from across the deck, and we felt guiltier and guiltier.
Out of nowhere, our waitress appeared: “Yeah, um, we’re all here just kind of, um, wondering what you guys are doing here. These are dinner tables.” Imagine a very upset girl saying that with her hands on her hips as she’s being very, very serious.
“I’d like to order the tres leches cake.” I would have offered her my soul, too, but I was far too afraid to say any more. My friends stared at the table; one reached for a chip but quickly snapped his hand back to his lap when he realized she was still staring at us.
The gang and I took deep breaths when she eventually walked away and decided that when she brought the cake, we’d ask for the check, put down just enough cash, and get the hell out of there. This plan depended on her not murdering us.
What do you suppose our bill came out to? You’d be right if you guessed $44. That means that there were four of us total, and we ran up a bill from just drinks and one dessert that would have been about the same as if we had each ordered the cheapest plates on the menu. Yet we were still treated like trash. Had we received even mediocre service at Iron Cactus, we probably would have tripled that bill when our friends eventually found their way. And you’d better believe we would have tipped generously.
Bottom line: The hobos and drunk sorority chicks wandering around Sixth Street have the right idea. If you’re hungry, follow their lead and dig through the trash for some snacks — it’s worth avoiding Iron Cactus’ obnoxious waitstaff (who apparently doesn’t realize they’re on Sixth Street on a Thursday night). If you and your pals are looking for a place to hang, go somewhere else — unless you’d like to literally hang yourselves after being completely insulted and made to feel like morons by the charmers at Iron Cactus.
Comments
Iron Cactus has been on the Rayfes-ban list for the last 5 years because of service like this. I went with a few out of town friends and had the same experience. We were planning on having many rounds of drinks (no food) and they could have made plenty of money off of us.
I’ve thought about going back but why bother when there are so many other good places and even more with patios these days due to the smoking ban.
Screw them and their attitude.
They should ram that iron cactus right up each server’s ass before their shift!!!