Dirty Al's Bayou Grill - McAllen
Star Rating: 2.0
The young rabbit character Thumper, when first introduced to the new fawn remarks that Bambi is “kinda wobbly.” Thumper is scolded by his mother, who makes him repeat what his father had impressed upon him that morning, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.” This moral adage is known as “Thumper’s Rule.” And so it goes; we’ve tried to live by these words and have deliberately left out so many reviews that didn’t get a thumb’s up in order to meet our baseline score of three.
Today’s review is a bit lengthier than usual, and we procrastinated writing it every step of the way. We wish to thank all our Foodie fans and those of you who still value people, regardless of age, with an attention span of more than five minutes. LOL 😊
Think about it! We’ve been writing reviews since 2019. So far, we’ve not been able to award a 5-star rating to even one restaurant. Correspondingly, we’ve only written a 1.0-star review, and that was awarded to Dimassi’s in Mc Allen. It was then that we decided to implement and practice Thumper’s Rule. In all honesty, if you’re not on our radar and we haven’t written a review on your restaurant – chances are there’s a good reason.
Ironically, at a time when the Rio Grande Valley is experiencing a period of unprecedented growth, we risk rationalizing excuses to justify our alpha male pride and stubbornness simply to deny that the winds of change are upon us. Consider these facts:
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Fact #1: US Census data for 2022 reported 1,402,340 persons now reside in the Rio Grande Valley.
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Fact #2: From 2010 to 2022 there was an increase of 11.19% in population change in the Rio Grande Valley - with most of the growth from non-Hispanics:
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A growing influx of educated professionals from the Republic of India.
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A Growing influx of educated professionals from the Philippines.
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A growing influx of educated professionals from the Middle East.
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An ever-growing influx of aerospace engineers and technicians from all over the U.S. being recruited to work for Space X in the Brownsville/Boca Chica area.
Note: this growth has not gone unnoticed by corporate America. Look at all the restaurant chains moving in and expanding their growth and sales reach – from a once questionable trend to a quantifiable business opportunity – reaffirming capitalisms place as the preferable ideology, regardless of Race, Color, National Origin, Religion, Sex, or Age.
Consider, the probable consequences that countless local mom and pop restaurants and their franchise counterparts like the Salazars family restaurant dynasty, will have to confront, outmaneuver and outsmart, just to survive and compete with these corporate behemoth chains that may ultimately dominate the region.
That said, who in the RGV doesn’t know who the Salazar family is? Who hasn’t heard of or been to any of their seven restaurants spread throughout the region? : i.e., Dirty Al’s, Dirty Al’s Bayou Grill, Dirty Al’s Seafood Market & Cajun Kitchen, Pelican Station, Liam’s Steak House, Josephine’s Kitchen, Senor Donkey Mexican Restaurant and Cantina – seven restaurants and counting. All owned by the Valley’s very own Salazar family; with humble beginnings starting out as a fishing stand in the 1980s. Alfonso Salazar, better known as Dirty Al’s, originally started shrimping as a young man with his father and 6 brothers. In 2003, he and his youngest son, Cameron, who graduated from Culinary School, transformed his bait stand into a restaurant where together they have been known for having The World’s Best Fried Shrimp!
So, why all the praise and just a 2-star rating?
Full disclosure: We’ve been eating at Al’s and have been loyal customers since 2010. Their reputation precedes them, and we’ve never been averse to driving to and from SPI or Brownsville just to get their scrumptiously delicious fresh Gulf Friand Shrimp with their in-house seasoning.
Mind you, the only reason we never reviewed them before was because their notoriety as a “foodie” destination is irrelevant at best. You either love shrimp/seafood, fine steaks, or Mexican food, or you don’t.
Of noteworthy mention, the following complaints solely apply to their McAllen location – the overall experience was apathetic and dismissive, to say the least.
On that particular day, we were running errands in McAllen, stuck in traffic on 10th. Street when we saw their sign from afar – suddenly craving for fried shrimp, we decided to stop. Why not?
Admittedly, we prefer dining in the restaurant, but since covid, and now that one of us is wheelchair bound, we’ve been doing a bit more curbside ordering. This was one of those occasions and we’ll break down our complaints in a four-bullet format:
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Service:
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We placed the order through the bar. Assured by the bartender that the order would be out shortly and brought to our car - parked in the handicap space.
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Cris went back to the car and we patiently listened to music for 45 minutes.
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Curious, restless, and now famished; Cris went back inside to check our order, only to find out it had already come out and was sitting behind the bar for at least 15 minutes – allowing the order to cool down to room temperature.
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We asked the bartender to reheat the order and the presumed manager and/or person in charge, was seemingly annoyed and bothered by the request.
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Food:
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As foodies, we normally would have been inclined to order something different, but not too different, like their Cajun shrimp. But we were craving what made us loyal customers in the first place – they serve the best gulf fried shrimp in all the valley, period.
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Here’s what we ordered: 2 Calamari, a 40-piece botana with fish and shrimp, a side order of cole-slaw and two large sodas to wash down what we anticipated would be an awesome feast.
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Instead, we painfully sampled lukewarm and poorly seasoned calamari, fish, and shrimp – with coleslaw that was unusually soggy and warm.
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But surprisingly, the fries (we love their seasoning) still tasted good, even after reheating and being served lukewarm as well.
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Quality Assurance:
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The maintenance of a desired level of quality in a service or product, especially by means of attention to every stage of the process of delivery or production.
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The three keys to earning a better rating from us are: Consistency in quality, recipe, and service.
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PR:
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March 11th, rgv2foodies added a "thumbs up” – “thumbs down” icon to our Upcoming Reviews post so that followers can easily and quickly know whether or not the restaurants listed meet our “Baseline” score of a 3.0
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March 12th Dirty Al's Bayou Grill untagged themselves from our post. See image in comments below. Instead of finding out what we had to say – chose to ignore us and hide this critique from their own audience.
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March 12th Dirty Al’s Bayou Grill untagged themselves again for the 2nd time. See image in comments section below.
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March 12th rgv2foodies created a PR 101 post and tagged all seven of Dirty Al’s restaurant locations to call attention to the tactics being employed by the McAllen location.
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Had Dirty Al's Bayou Grill waited to read their review, they would have received a 2.5-star rating, and used the constructive feedback as an opportunity to raise the bar for a parent company that owns and runs a family of very successful restaurants.
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March 26th after a 3rd and final attempt at tagging Dirty Al's Bayou Grill – the tag was left untouched. Clearly, a case of the wrong people managing their online presence or this locations management.
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Hopefully, Dirty Al’s Bayou grill has a change of heart and realizes that public scrutiny from “foodies” is our way of securing the foods we love, and the restaurants that serve us, in a symbiotic relationship that is mutually rewarding and beneficial to all parties involved.
So, what’s the most important take-away from today’s review? For Dirty Al and his family, your ambitions, your business, your family? For all of us who have a vested interest in the future of the Rio Grande Valley? It’s been said that timing is everything.
Whether we see the connection or not, we’ve been here before, history repeats itself; For most of us of Mexican or Mexican-American descent, there’s a love/hate relationship with (con) Los Güeros Americanos - Los Gabachos - an ambivalence that lingers to this day.
Ultimately, we can agree to disagree on the following 2 points when summarizing the annexation of Texas by the US in 1845 to become the 28th state.
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History is written by the winners.
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History is an argument without end.
By the 19th century many Mexicans wanted to separate from Spain and create a sovereign government that would act on behalf of their own interests much like the movement for American independence from British rule in the late 18th century.
Texas had been part of Mexico, but in that year a group of settlers from the United States who lived in Mexican Texas declared independence. Mexico never recognized Texas' independence. Instead, the Mexican Government considered Texas a rebellious territory still belonging to The Mexican Federation. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), was signed on February 2, 1848, at Guadalupe Hidalgo.
All said and done, a competitive spirit, a natural inclination towards individuality, while supplied with better resources gave the American government the upper hand in attaining victory. Committed, with plenty of cash for the war effort; The soldiers had good guns and uniforms, enough food, high-quality artillery and horses and just about everything else they needed. The Mexicans, on the other hand, were totally broke during the entire war and couldn’t afford the resources to maintain the vast region it had acquired from Spain.
A war of attrition it was, a war of attrition it will be. If we don’t bring on our A-Game to the challenge that lies ahead. As the RGV continues to grow and attract people from around the globe, our mission is to promote establishments that raise the bar and offer our community more than just a passing meal.
We believe that eating out should be a treat, and if you’re like us, struggling to live within a budget, your hard-earned cash should go towards eating something better than what you can cook at home.
In all fairness to the Salazar family, they’ve proven what one can achieve when we get passed excuses – the Salazar’s are one of the few RGV families that have led by example. The Salazar’s, without a doubt are another example and living proof that the American Dream is alive and well - ambition, dedication, and hard work still pay off.
In closing, our pledge to Public Service: To be benevolent and kind; we strive to live by the Golden Rule, help those in need, and seek to accomplish our journalistic objectives in a manner that causes the least harm and the greatest positive impact for the communities we serve.
Lastly, in no uncertain terms, this is a Paul Revere wakeup call to the Rio Grande Valley; Big Business is here – Big Business is growing – Big Business will not relent!
Con mucho cariño y respeto - El güero y su compañero.
¡Viva El Rio Grande Valley!
Dirty Al's Bayou Grill | McAllen Texas (dirtyalsbayougrill.com)
