El Arroyo — Restaurant in Austin

TLDR; Extremely rude management and consistently terrible service.

After 5 years of dining at El Arroyo, I am disappointed (but unfortunately, not surprised) to have finally had an experience with their customer service that will prevent me from going back. I have always enjoyed their good food, good drinks, and even better prices. Who can resist those dollar margs?

However, the customer service has often left much to be desired. Whether it's inattentive waitstaff when the restaurant is not even busy or being regularly understaffed on a regularly busy night (Thursday nights of course). They also would often be out of very basic things like tequila (at a Mexican restaurant famous for its margs???). I've had many frustrating experiences there, but I always just kinda dealt with it as I figured it was worth it for good food and cheap drinks.

Last Thursday, unfortunately, was the last straw. We were seated and told a waitress would be right with us. After 30 minutes, we had still not seen her nor did we have any waters, chips, etc. Finally, 35 minutes later we had our drink orders taken and 10 minutes after that we finally had a round of margs to satisfy us. We saw our waitress 3x more in the over 2 hours we were there: for our second drink order, to give us our tickets (without even asking if we were done), and to promptly collect those tickets. We never had our water or chips refilled, and we would have ordered some apps had we actually seen our waitress more than once in the first hour.

She brought us our tickets at 10:20pm even though we didn't ask for them and would have actually liked to order another round. She told us they were getting everyone's checks out in prep for closing which wasn't until 11pm. So, we paid and sat around talking for a bit to figure out plans for the rest of the evening.

All of that wasn't exactly out of the ordinary for an experience at El Arroyo, so we grumbled a bit but weren't overly displeased. While were talking to figure out our next move, a man (who I assume was the manager or owner) walks up to our table and asks if there were any issue with our service. Being polite, we all shake our heads no thinking that'd be the end of that exchange. He then starts shuffling through the receipts in his hand (which turned out to be ours), and starts mumbling, "Well, uhm, it seems like, uhm, there was some sort of issue."

We look around confused before realizing collectively that he was implying we all tipped poorly. Now, we all had tickets that were around $4.50, because it was dollar marg night, and we each got 2 drinks. (Upon talking later, we all tipped $1-$1.50 which is 20%+ for everyone.) We would have ordered more making it a larger ticket for the two hours we were there, but that was out of our control. One of the people in my party says that she's sure we all tipped at least 15%, so she wasn't sure what the problem was. He just kind of makes this face while again shuffling through our tickets. At this point, I'm very annoyed, so I get honest with him telling him how it took us 30 minutes to even get service, we never got our waters refilled, and would have ordered more but didn't get the chance. He begins to excuse that by saying there were only 3 waitresses, and it was really busy. To which I respond with a suggestion that they stop understaffing on nights that are regularly busy like Thursdays with $1 margs.

I have never experienced such rude behavior from restaurant management. Had we actually tipped poorly, then fine, ask us if there were issues with service, but to actually thing you will have any sort of positive response by accusing your patrons of that is asinine. Time to find a new Thursday...

My favorite niece came down from Virginia for a visit a little while back. I took her to see where her great great grandparents house on 9th Street. It's called "The Petmecky House"and is a State Historical site. The Petmecky House is directly across an alley way from "The Pillow House", which faces 9th Street as well. We got hungry and I asked Dianna what she'd wanr for luch. "Mexican food!! We can't get good mexican food in Virginia." I thought for a minute and drove us straight over to El Arroyo. And we happy THAT happened! Dianna said she didn't dare think she'd get anything close to the home made chilli rellenos her grandmother used to make; but, the waiter was extra friendly so we bagan to ask him about the chilli rellenos. He immeadiately began to rave about the chef, promising that THIS chef "can do anything, and will do anything to get our wants cared for." Two orders of Chili Rellenos Dinners, coming up. BEST CHILI RELLENOS I HAVE EVER HAD in a restaurant, bar none! And I will order them at least once at any quality restaurant I go to. I must say, the way my mom would coat the fresh poblanos with whipped egg whites just before dropping them into 3/4 inches of manteca in an 18 inch cast iron skillet; MAN! Like Heaven, baby! [Won't find much manteca in most modern big city mexican restaurants anymore. Shame] Not to fear. Our waiter's word was true. Chef actually knew how an authentic home style chilli relleno was made - pinion (pine) nuts, raisins, whipped egg whites,and all. Absolutely made her trip!! Perfect ingredients. Perfectly seasoned. Cooked to perfection and served piping hot with spanish rice and refried beans. My mouth is watering just thinkin about it. CHILI RELLENOS at El Arroyo were the BEST 'store bought'chilis I have had in all my 72 years. Right On El Arroyo! And thank you from a satisfied costomer and very happy...

Food and frozen margaritas are great! Only reason I gave this 3 stars is because the customer service is horrible. To start, this was my first time here. We came in on a Thursday which is apparently $2.00 frozen margaritas night (we didn't find out about that til after we got our margaritas). Apparently there are several sized frozen margaritas which I didn't know about. When we ordered, we were not asked about any size but ended up with 2 large margaritas and a $12.99 tab. Remember me mentioning that is was $2.00 frozens? Yeah. As we are being walked to our table, we see a sign that says the specials for frozens are $2.00 on Thursdays. So basically they took it upon themselves to assume we wanted the larger, more expensive margarita versus the special... no. That is not good customer service and made me feel like we were taken advantage of. Not only that but literally majority of the staff was sitting around the bar like they were customers. When we questioned why we were charged so much on the specials night, their response was like we were idiots and they said that we ordered the larges which we never stated a size. So now they are lying too. After reading other reviews, I'm not surprised that this was our experience. If this place is hurting for money which is what it seems to me, customer service would be a good start. I doubt I come back to a place that took advantage of my lack of knowledge about what you guys offer.

To add: This all happened when we walked in the door before we had seen a menu. We were at the bar waiting on table so they offered...