El Corral — Restaurant in Arizona

Oh gosh, where do we start? We made reservations (early in the day) for Friday night, and showed up 10 minutes early like one does. They told us there would be a "short wait, just a few minutes," which we completely expected. Unfortunately, that "short wait" stretched to 25 minutes PAST our original reservation. In fact we are pretty sure they forgot about us, because when we went in to remind them we were waiting they looked really surprised (and we saw some raised eyebrows between the young gal and the elderly lady at the maître d' stand), and they had to scramble for a few minutes to suss it out. We were eventually seated by the kitchen, which is not optimum but we accepted with good grace, being a busy Friday night. Well, the cushion of my date's chair was soaking wet, which she found out WHEN SHE SAT IN IT. The area around the table reeked of clorox, yet there were used napkins, meat bones and other food garbage just under the table (see photo after I kicked it away). Despite all this we stayed and ordered our meal, figuring we'd have difficulty finding something else at that point. Our cocktails were very poorly mixed and placed in highball glasses instead of rocks glasses. I never got the lemon twist I requested in my cocktail, but both were festooned with maraschino cherries like Shirley Temples. We joked that the owner's 14 year old nephew must be behind the bar. In retrospect we may not have been entirely wrong... We both ordered the prime rib. I ordered the El Corral cut and my date got the smaller (and less expensive) Petit Tucson Cut. Both were ordered as medium rare. When they arrived, my date's order was LARGER than my cut, clearly a better cut of meat (though it did contain an unusually large blob of fat in the middle), and was an actual pink "medium rare." My El Corral cut was smaller, much poorer quality meat, a MUCH larger blob of fat in the middle with the rest being full of sinew, and clearly NOT "medium rare." The au jus was cold on both plates. See photos of the comparison between the two cuts. They were supposed to include the "famous tamale pie" but instead there was a corn fritter. The mashed potatoes were really good, at least. The rolls were bland. The salad was mostly iceberg with what seemed to be bottled dressing. Meh. Both of us left nearly half our "prime rib" on the plate, being mostly fat and inedible sinewy meat. On our way out not a single employee, most especially the ones at the maître d' stand, said good night or thanked us. We definitely felt like they could not care less. We are locals and prefer supporting local businesses over chain restaurants, but sadly in our experience El Corral does not live up to the local hype; the meat is poor quality, there doesn't seem to be any consistency or quality control in the kitchen, the greeters and wait service were bad -- actually our waitress was pleasant enough but clearly inexperienced and too distracted to give good service. They said at the front that they were "short staffed," by way of explaining letting us shiver outside for just under half an hour, but that certainly does not excuse the rest. That's a result of chaos. We considered complaining but the general attitude of disinterested anarchy turned us right off, and frankly even if they offered us a free meal voucher as an apology neither one of us is terribly anxious to come back. If you go back and look at earlier comments note the "response from the owner" is always the same stock answer, just short of auto-generated, going back a year or so. Doesn't seem like issues are getting...

So I've been eating at El Corral my whole life. It was my mom's favorite and we would go atleast every couple months. The food has always been phenomenal. I can't say enough about the Prime Rib. I've never had a bad piece of meat in all the years I've been going. This last time was the first time I had been there in about 5 yrs. Walking in it instantly brought back memories of my mom and all the family dinners we had. The smells, the sounds and ofcourse the scenery. It's a fantastic restaurant. I brought my girl who had been coming with her family most her life as well. Neither of us had been in awhile. So we got an appetizer of spinach artichoke dip and she got a dirty martini. We split the large cut of Prime Rib and she got a her own side of mash potatoes. Now hers my issues with this visit. 1st off the spinach dip was great but the chips are very stale. We tell the waiter he apologized and took the chips to get us more. He was gone for quite awhile and when he came back he gave us another batch of chips which were warm like he microwaved them, idk for sure, but the chips were still stale. In my opinion I think he should of tried a chip just to make sure but he didn't. At this pointy girl still hadn't received her drink either. So I mentioned it to the server and again he left the table and was gone for a long time. The drink order was a dirty gin martini with extra olives. When she finally got it it was a vodka martini with 2 little olives. So more than anything it was the service I had an issue with. When the Prime Rib came it was absolutely delicious as usual. Taking the first bite I savored it. So many pleasant memories from that 1st bite. All in all i would've given 5 stars but like I mentioned the service was lacking. My girl is to nice of a person and asked me not say anything else about the chips and not complain about the drink so I didn't. I even tipped well for her. I understand people make mistakes and maybe our server was having a bad day. Idk. But I'll always come back and eat at El Corral. The food is just to good and the memories of my late mom warm my heart. I absolutely recommend eating here. It's a Tucson staple and whether you've lived here your while life or just visiting Tucson, you have to eat here. If you love Prime Rib like I do or just meat period this is the...

I always look forward to going to dinner with my local estimator who picks the restaurant and he never lets me down. Last night was the exceptional The atmosphere of El Corral was nice, rustic and very Tucson. We arrived at 5PM so they were just starting up for the evening. The wait staff was great all night, the food portions were good but the well know Prime Rib was a complete disappointment. We ordered it medium rare which was suggested on the menu. My wife and I had very rubbery meat which required non stop cutting to get through all the fat layers. The flavor was just about non existent and the meat was so chewy that it took quite some time to eat each piece. My wife only ate (not swallowed) two bites and the rest was on her plate except the bites that she put in her napkin and then purse and threw them away at the hotel. No one ever asked her if there was a problem with the food when they could clearly see she had almost her entire Prime Rib intact. The cold rolls were very boring, perhaps picked up at the local grocery store with clearly margarine instead of butter. The salad was unimpressive on a small plate instead of a bowl and the presentation was just so so. The baked potato was good and the tamale pie was a little disappointing based on the buildup of its reputation on the menu. My wife was still hungry and ordered the Apple cobbler to take to the hotel. Once again very boring, doughy crust, not made by someone trying to impress their customer. She did not finish it. The waiter asked if we wanted doggy bags, my coworker had plenty of his prime rib left and he did take it home. We are staying in a hotel so that was not an option and my wife did not want it anyway. Not a lot of pleasure to show for a $150 bill. Usually my coworker and I are thanking each other for picking a great restaurant and me paying for his meal. He was unusually quiet so I know he must have felt there was not much to be...