El Jefe - Leña y Mar — Restaurant in Aurora Township

I don’t typically leave reviews I’m in the food industry so I understand how out of control it can be but honestly, I will not be returning here. The vibes are great. The music is fun, but from the second we walked in there was no hospitality. There was bad vibes at the host stand I understand we had kids with us and we had a large party, but we spent a lot of money so they should be happy about that in a matter of two hours we spent about $800 I literally had to convince my family that it was fine because my whole family was wondering why we keep getting looks I basically had to gaslight my family that it was in their heads when it very obviously wasn’t and if they’re gonna make you wait for a table there should be seating. we spent a lot of The server and the bussers made the experience a lot better. She was great. We had a lot of people so you could tell she was pretty busy. She was a great server. The wait times to order then to receive the stuff was crazy and my daughter was waiting for both her drink ( a Coke) and her food (one taco) for a while both times everyone else’s stuff came out and she’s begging me for food or drink, I understand it was a big table but kids food should be priority as well as soft drinks. I had to ask a random girl for her drink after a good hour, once the food came everything was fine until I got up to help clear the table (they weren’t clearing The mountain of plates we had) we had just ordered her bday surprise and wanted to table to look nice for pics so as I was up cleaning up the table Really they took away my plate full of food that the other end ! I came back and was like what they refunded it but as a server you never take away a plate unless you ask or it’s being handed to you or in a pile, my brother next to me said he had to snatch back his very expensive plate that the server had thrown used napkins from the table right in all his food he wanted to take home, the crazy part is he even asked him for a to go box! so he disregarded him and tried to take his food and ultimately ruined the remainder of his molcajete, finishing up I had to rip up my 12 year old nieces number out of a server book from a 18 year old boy. I understand he’s younger but that’s literally illegal he needs to learn that the first thing you ask is how old are you. I should not have to watch out for weirdos while celebrating my nieces golden 16 birthday. When I told the manager this they didn’t really know what to say. Thennn to end it all of me and my sister (the two people who ordered the most and the most expensive dishes ended the night throwing up with food poisoning. Literally all night throwing up the food we paid hundreds for. We honestly think it was the margaritas since we both had that and we were the two to get sick. I remember saying that mine tasted nasty but I thought it was them using cheap liquor, on top of being sick because of it we were charged 18 instead of 9 for the frozen margs because the server upgraded us to large without consent. I find it crazy that people who ordered margaritas with top shelf liquor ended up paying less than I did for my nasty marg that didn’t even look XL. my niece got a fancy drink with a big Pina on it and it was literally only two dollars more than the extra large margarita If I knew that’s how much they were charging would’ve just gotten the fancy drink. I understand this server needs to make her money, but if she literally would’ve just upsold me and told me to get that, I would’ve. All of these things alone are understandable all together is ridiculous throughout every part of our evening, even after we left, there was issues and I would not ever recommend anyone to come here. Please train your servers not only to get the food out but to do it in a way that makes sense. Make sure they’re touching each table more, make sure if they can’t handle a big party to put more than one server on, teach your hosts the meaning of hospitality because they did nothing but make us feel unwelcome and uncomfortable, and teach the men there that they are...

I have been to El jefe once for a drag me to brunch and once again for a drag me to dinner. The brunch was more fun. I think it's because we're at a better table. The dinner show was terrible, mostly because where we were seated. There's so much stuff hanging from the ceiling that we couldn't even see the Queens on stage. Queens look great, but that's about it. They barely lip sync and they're dancing is minimal. They just walk around with their hands out taking your money. The brunch had five or six queens and the dinner had I think three, maybe four. I don't know because again where we were seated they barely came over to us. However the wait staff didn't miss an opportunity to come around with buckets for tips for the Queens. I felt that the dinner show was just a cash grab for the entire restaurant. I also have never felt so rushed to order in my life. Our table wasn't even there and we barely had our coats off and the waitress was asking us what we wanted. We told her not everybody was there and to give us a few minutes. She came back in 2 minutes. We reminded her that we were still waiting for the rest of our table and then she told us told us that if we don't order soon it take a while to get our food because they get busy. Well maybe El Jefe shouldn't sell that many tickets if they can't handle serving that amount of people. The menu for the brunch and dinner is small I think and extremely overpriced for the portions that you receive. Tasty, but not worth the cost. Never seen such a small serving of nachos in my life. You get more in the portion size at Taco Bell with the nachos Bell grande. It's definitely not enough to share and for the $16 or $18 that it was, I felt ripped off. The birria tacos were delicious, but you get two small tacos for $17. Served with a side of diced onions and jalapenos... I'm not sure who eats diced jalapenos and onions as a side dish. Maybe I was supposed to peel apart the already falling apart soggy tacos. And of course you get the greasy dipping juice. Which again the tacos are already soggy and falling apart so not really quite sure how you're supposed to use this because it definitely isn't great to eat on its own. One good thing about the overpriced drinks is at least they are strong. The service was okay, like others have said, you order and then they can't even remember who the food belongs to. We must have been brought about 10 things that didn't belong to us. And in hindsight, we probably should have just taken them instead of saying they don't belong to us. We had five people in our party. With every ticket you purchase, it tells you that there is a mandatory 18% gratuity added to your food and drinks. I can't stand when a mandatory gratuity is added either. Which it is when you go to the drag shows. Maybe El Jefe have a should pay their servers a living wage instead of demanding that their patrons do it for them. I understand tipping. And I usually do it very well and don't have a problem with it. However, I really don't appreciate when a business demands it. It should be up to me and based on the service I receive. Again if you're not paying your workers a living wage you shouldn't make your customers do it. After going there twice I don't think I'll be back. We'll go somewhere else for...

I’m no expert but travel all over the US regularly for business so have been to many many places. I normally don’t review places, but their menu asked for reviews (albeit on insta which I don’t have), so here’s my blunt and honest review about my experience.

This place looked like a home run online before I got there, so I was ok with paying the prices I saw online. The outside is not much to look at and the parking lot is not exactly welcoming. Serious lack of lighting at night. Luckily the interior really makes up for the exterior IF you decide to stop and IF you decide to go in.

Walking in at 6:30 pm I expected a semi-full restaurant but was met with a ghost town. Not a great omen, but it was the day after a holiday so I suppose this could be normal.

The first impression is their chips and salsa that’s served while looking over their small menu (see pic) which I’m guessing has been reduced due to covid. The chips look like they’re house made. Normally this would be a good thing, but they were oily and hurt my stomach after a while. However the salsa that came with them was fantastic.

Ordered a classic margarita because I couldn’t justify the more than double the price for their El Jefe margarita (though I really wanted to try it). Wish there was a Nino margarita that was affordable but tastes the same. Would have paid $10 for that easily. The margarita’s presentation was 5 star, but the drink itself was about a 4 out of 5. They use Tajin for the rim which was a nice touch. Just a little too sweet for my taste, but I’ll bet many will love it. No shortage of alcohol in it like sooo many other places I’ve been to too. Respectable.

Some menu items were not really clear what you get in their description. Had to ask my wonderful server, and ended up settling on their smaller steak plate. Asked for it to be cooked medium, but when it came out it was well done. No pink whatsoever. The cut was just ok too. Whatever, I ate it because at least it wasn’t raw and didn’t want to be that guy to send it back. It came with a couple tortillas and grilled veggies (see pic). Again, presentation was top notch! I probably would have enjoyed it if it weren’t for the team of flies (see pic) swarming my food and drink throughout the meal. So annoying!!

I also spotted some turn tables and mixer by the door and some club lights over the bar so maybe this place is more lively during the weekend as a club or something. Saw some reviews hating on the club vibe. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a family restaurant either, more targeted at the 23-35 age group. But it more added to the atmosphere for me and I quite enjoyed it.

Overall I don’t think I’d be back for their food unless a friend really wanted to come. Might come back for a drink at the bar as their service was pretty good. The cooks/recipes I think are the weak spot for this place. Marketing, atmosphere, service and drinks seem to be carrying the team. Full of potential and disappointing that it fell a little short of a rare high end Mexican restaurant experience.

3.5 stars for flies, quality vs price,...