On Thursday, July 26, we saw this restaurant while enroute to our hotel and my wife said it was listed in the AAA tour book, which usually means it's excellent. The restaurant also had a "Best of Taos" sign on their front window. So much for thinking these items guarantee a pleasurable dining experience.

After check-in at the hotel we went back to the restaurant, arriving shortly after 6pm and we patiently stood in line for almost half an hour waiting to be seated. The couple ahead of us were visiting from Texas and they just raved about the quality of the Mexican food at Michael's. We were seated at 6:30pm, after the staff rounded up two more chairs and a high chair for a party of four adults and one toddler. We were seated under an air-conditioning unit in the north dining room which blew cold air down the west wall and I sat in the draft the entire time. We then sat there at least 15 minutes without any staff approaching us to take beverage orders. I believe the gent seating people from the podium finally took our drink orders at 6:45pm and they arrived shortly thereafter. At approximately 6:50 a waitress finally took our food orders. I started noticing that people who came in 20 or 30 minutes after us were getting their food orders, while we sat with nothing to eat. After a couple of inquiries our food finally arrived at 7:30pm, one hour after being seated. My burrito order was lukewarm at best and almost cold. Since we wanted to see Taos before sunset I opted not to delay this miserable ordeal any longer and I ate the cold burrito without sending it back. The waitress thanked us for our patience when she brought the check but offered no explanation to my questions as to why people who arrived half an hour or more after us received their meals first. We had three Mexican meals plus one order of fried chicken; it wasn't as if we ordered Maine lobster and Argentinean steak. I intended to voice my concerns to the male cashier/manager when paying at 8:05pm (credit card receipt time) but there was a sign under the glass by the register addressed to grumpy irritable customers with a message about paying more if you complain or words to that effect. While I suspect that the message was intended to be humorous it stifled my complaint because I got the impression that they just don't care to hear complaints from their customers. Summary: the food quality was excellent, even if it wasn't the right temperature, but the service can be absolutely atrocious if you're seated in the wrong place and have certain servers. We won't be back to Michael's after this experience.