El Presidenté — Restaurant in Ankeny

I have very bad, celiac disease and got severely glutened at this restaurant. My fiancé and I went in for dinner to see their Christmas pop-up and it was slightly busy so we sat at the bar. Service was very slow, but we didn’t mind because it was busy. The bartender was kind of in his own world, but nice at first. I ordered the street tacos and my fiancé ordered the burrito. When ordering I asked if they were corn tortillas and he said I had the option of flour, corn, or hardshell tortillas. I told him I wanted the corn soft shell tortillas. And we ordered queso as an appetizer. We finally got our drinks and food came out after quite a while. The queso came out ice cold and normally I don’t complain about things like that, but it felt like that just taken it out of the fridge. The queso came out with my plate of tacos and my fiancé’s burrito had not come out yet. I would’ve thought the queso would come out as an appetizer like it did for the two people next to us but it never did which was odd. I looked at my plate of tacos and it did not look like Corn tortillas so I smelled it and it smelled like flour. When I finally got the bartenders attention, I asked him if he could reheat my queso and check if the tortillas were gluten-free. At that moment, one of the servers brought out my fiancé’s burrito with another plate of tacos. The two of them looked at both of the plates of tacos and couldn’t decide if either of them were corn tortillas. He then handed me the new plate of “corn tortilla” tacos, and said he confirmed with the chef that it was corn. I then asked are you absolutely sure I have celiac disease so we need to make sure they’re corn and he said he confirmed it with the chef. The bartender, then apologized for the servers actions and said he was new as if it was his fault when the bartender himself didn’t do anything to check on our order. He then brought my fiancé a free drink while mine was almost empty after it was my order that was messed up. After eating two full tacos, I ripped pieces of the tortilla off the third taco and my fiancé, and I tried it plain and realized it didn’t taste like corn. I then asked for the package of the corn tortillas To read the label and compare Them and we realized the tacos that I ate were flour. I told the bartender and all he did was take my meal off the tab not even the entire thing. I then instead of going to my friend’s birthday party went home and uncontrollably puked until midnight, went back and forth passing out multiple times, and went into anaphylactic shock. I had never eaten that much gluten in the 5 years I’ve been gluten free. The nearest hospital was 20 minutes away, and I was so sick I couldn’t reach my phone to call 911. I don’t know how many times we asked about my meal and told them that I have celiac disease. They clearly didn’t care. By the time our food came out it wasn’t even busy. If I wasn’t lucky this was a situation that I...

Was hungry and looking for dinner. We decided to try El Presidente. It was kinda slow tonight but the atmosphere was nice. We sat down and were given a menu. We were shocked it was very limited. Then we realized this was a bar that served good not a restaurant that served tequila. We decided to stay. I ordered the watermelon serrano. Wow that was excellent a very unique flavor. The serrano was flavor was very subtle but added a unique flavor. We ordered the queso and chips. The queso had a great flavor and the chips were warm and crisp. My wife asked if they had soda and the waiter said they had Pepsi products she ordered a Shirley temple. He suggested doing it with blood orange. That was a fantastic choice and an incredible drink. We then ordered food. My wife ordered the chicken tinga tacos and Spanish rice. I ordered the carne asada burrito. The chicken nachos were great the chicken tinga was fantastic. My burrito was great also. It was fairly large and had a great flavor profile. While not what we expected it was a pleasant surprise and we will...

We came here during Summerfest and had a disappointing experience. The restaurant itself has a cool vibe and the outdoor window was great for listening to live music. Drinks were fine, but like others have mentioned, queso was cold and chips were stale. Our server hovered around and lacked the ability to generate real conversation. Finally, we visited on a Sunday and there were multiple "Service Industry Sunday" posters around the restaurant posted, with drink and food specials, and no disclaimers about who qualified, showing a server ID, etc. When I inquired about this, the bartender rolled his eyes, told me it was clearly only meant for servers and they knew everyone who would be coming in for that purpose, it was an "honor system thing" and even though there were no disclaimers and they were posted publicly, they weren't meant for the average customer. He was incredibly rude and unwelcoming. How would he know a person's occupation? After that experience, we...