Moe’s Southwest Grill ~ Restaurant Reviews

Moe's Southwest Grill Menu.

G’day, Everyone,

My meal at Moe's Southwestern Grill, Lenoir City, Tennessee.

This Moe's was our favorite stop for all things Tex-Mex. Sadly, food quality and service is a rollercoaster ride. We’ll have amazingly delicious meals one visit, and then the next 2 or 3 visits are awful. Yesterday’s visit was probably the worst. 

Five of us arrived for a late lunch. It was obvious to us that a large, long-lasting lunch rush crushed the place.

The tables weren’t clean, the servers seemed frazzled, and they were out of chicken and steak. Both types of rice were hard and dried out. They were understaffed by two servers, and the restrooms were filthy — worse than a nasty truck stop’s.

I complained about the restrooms being out of paper towels and hand soap. I asked the manager where the employees go to use their restroom and wash their hands. He sheepishly wouldn’t answer me. First time in ages that I threatened to call City Hall. Heck, the men's room toilet wouldn’t even flush.

Back to the food: Tiniest of portions. My homewrecker burrito was about 30% smaller than normal, while my wife’s Ear Muff salad was half its normal size. The servers and the food containers were blown away, but there was very little the staff was doing to restock. It took 15 minutes for chicken for my son’s burrito to be ready. 

The employees should have been better prepared for the lunch rush and post-rush restocking. Yes, they were short 2 people, but I used to work in restaurants, and the very first thing we knew to do was to restock immediately. Because Moe’s employees didn’t.

 We ended up with only a tablespoon-full each of guacamole in our meals — the same went for the queso in my burrito. My wife and I were still hungry after pushing through our lunches. That’s never happened at any Moe's restaurants we’ve been to in Arizona, Kentucky, Illinois, and Tennessee.

We sincerely want this Moes to succeed. It’s just difficult to justify spending $40+ for the 5 of us eating there and receiving such poor service, bad food quality and portions, and unsanitary working conditions. 

This particular location has a very high turnover of employees, and the food quality is suffering for that inconsistency.

I did attempt to complain directly to the manager, but s/he wasn’t there after all, and the employee I spoke with was unsure when s/he would return.

We will come back, but it’ll be a while. Probably give it a rest for a month or so while they hire & train more staff. Also, they’ve been warned to clean up their restrooms or I will file a report with the City.

BTW, this Moes location replaced a once-delicious “We’re Cookin’” restaurant. Eerily, it suffered identical problems, and within a year-and-a-half, it was out of business.

•     Tex-Mex, Mexican
      870 Hwy 321 N
      Hours: 11:00am-9:00pm
• 
  (865) 816-6637

 I rated my experience only a "2.0 out of 5.0".

Ratings Chart.

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Have a nice day.

~R.J.