El Camino Cantina The Rocks, Sydney — Restaurant in Sydney

As regular customers at this venue this weekend, my friends and I were there to celebrate a booked birthday but were extremely shocked at what we experienced and will not be returning. We were pulled out of the line after being next to be let in front of everyone and denied entry to the venue to eat solely because of their choice of hairstyle – a mullet.

Despite being well-dressed and respectful patrons, the security at the entrance deemed their haircut as grounds for refusal despite coming regularly, citing it as a “dress code.” However, when asked where it is stated or written down or why we did not get told this when we booked for a group of over 10+ people for dinner, we got told that we had no right to question, it was put into placement the day before and it was due to one instance with someone with this haircut in previous weeks. Now the venue has banned everyone with a mullet from eating at their venue due to this . This arbitrary and discriminatory judgement left us feeling ostracised and unwelcome as if our appearance somehow determined our worth as individuals, especially in front of others to eat dinner. When we asked to speak to management politely because we thought this was a joke, we got ridiculed and spoken to extremely rudely, and they all pointed to different security guards who were “management.” Each one pointed to another one saying they were management, telling us different things when we said we just wanted to speak about our booking. They told us they were not talking to us about our booking of 10+ people for a birthday even when we stated it was booked a month in advance. “Management” told us they do not care and to leave and they do not make the rules, “management” does, emphasising that they were not management and would not allow us to follow this through due to only purely an individual with a haircut. As we spoke to “management,” we saw another individual in the line from a different ethnicity get let into the venue with a mullet. When asked about this in pure disbelief, we were told that “management” can allow individuals if they believe they are deemed suitable. After this, we decided that this venue was disgusting.

Understandably, if a venue needs to refuse entry based on reasonable grounds, okay, but these grounds need to be justifiable and not based on discriminatory reasons. It is evident that this venue does not want a certain ethnicity, race, or class inside but knows that it goes against the Anti-Discrimination Legislation, Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986, and Racial Discrimination Act 1975, but is trying to mask it by a haircut style. This incident is not just about a denied entry; it is about the broader issue of discrimination based on personal attributes. It is a stark reminder that prejudices still linger and that appearances continue to be unfairly judged and used as a basis for exclusion, especially in a venue like this. I would love to follow up on whether such actions comply with these anti-discrimination laws. Disappointed is an understatement and this venue turned such an important day booked way in advance into a complete mess.

looking at the reviews as I upload this , it seems like this is a...

Well, it’s certainly a party! Loud and festive. Large drinks. Neon and brightly lit. 20-somethings sipping Gigantic margaritas. You know those types of Mexican restaurants that offer the big sombreros at the table, and everyone puts them on. Patrons are there to eat, but also to drink… a lot. If you love those places, you will love this restaurant.

We knew it was going to be this type of atmosphere when we came in, and, in fact, these places have their place. The vibe, the energy, the people, the loudness! It’s really fun to soak all of that up. This type of place provides a certain type of energy that is really refreshing and rejuvenating. So the vibe was not why we have a three star rating. The three star rating comes from the food and drink.

I ordered the burrito, with the confit mushrooms. I was wondering what they were going to do with “confit” with a mushroom, because confit is a method of slow cooking meat in its own fat, and mushrooms don’t really have fat, so did they roast them slowly in oil? If so, the mushroom should’ve had a deep, earthy sweetness. They did not taste slow- roasted. They didn’t taste particularly different, just like sliced mushrooms. The burrito was… OK. It wasn’t really good; it certainly wasn’t great, so a rating of three seems appropriate in this context. My husband‘s tacos were also… Good. Not excellent. Not great. He ordered three different ones, and he said they were all OK. Hence the three star food rating.

I ordered the really large Margarita with the Grand Marnier on top. And it was mostly a big cup of ice. And there was no Grand Marnier taste to be found anywhere. It just tasted like lime and tequila. I had heard this was the best margarita in town, and it was really underwhelming. Also three stars.

So overall, fun atmosphere, but the food and drink really lowered my rating to a three.

Also, my husband‘s tacos arrived well before before my burrito. I told him to go ahead and eat because they were getting cold, but he wanted to wait. We flagged down our server who said that the kitchen was behind. We continued to wait and I told him to go ahead and eat. And then he looked around and found we had no napkins and silverware, so we had to flag somebody down for...

Went for our Christmas party 23/12 The security guards spent the entire night accusing my staff of underage drinking and the older staff of supplying alcohol to the minors. One of the security guards said to one of my older staff that he got us on camera supplying to the minors, a blatant lie, when asked us to show us the footage to prove it they didn’t say anything At 8:45 we had not received our mains, the security came up to us and said we needed to be out by 9 because we had underage people with us, el Camino is a restaurant, not a pub or club, why do minors need to be out by 9?! When I brought the issue up with the manager they said they would give us more time, our tacos came out 1.5h after we had received our entrees. We spent the entire night on edge, being labeled as criminals doing the wrong thing. The security were bored and were trying to instigate trouble the entire night. We were excited all year for our end of year Christmas party and what would have been a good night was completely ruined by the atmosphere. I understand that it’s their job to uphold the laws but they took their authority way to far We ended up leaving early. We told the guards who were waiting out the front for us that they ruined our night, they started to kick off, one of the female guards started to staunch one of my staff members. The main guard who was harassing us all night was mouthing off to us the entire time we were leaving, made me feel so uncomfortable.

As for the food, brisket tacos were dry cold and tasteless, nachos had close to 0 condiments Wings & fish tacos were ok at best, both came out cold

$5000 I...