El Chile Café y Cantina — Restaurant in Austin

I’m going to start this off by saying I usually have a lovely experience at El Chile. The food is delicious, drinks are great, and the service is usually wonderful. However, I had a reservation I made days ago for Saturday evening inside for two at 6pm. This day was going to be 105 outside, and it was miserable at that time of the evening. When I showed up for the reservation the hostess tried to sit us at a table outside. I showed her my phone - that our reservation was for two inside, she tried to tell me that there aren’t “indoor or outdoor” options. We showed her that on the reservation system it does show standard, outside, or bar. We had a confirmed reservation for two standard for 6. She got the manager. His name is Michael McClure (sp?). He basically said that there is no room for us inside because the open tables (that I could see inside, empty) were for reservations for 4 people. They blamed it on their “system” and after arguing with him for a bit on how they are empty tables, we have a reservation inside, just put us at one of the empty tables because no one was even sitting there, my best friend realized we just needed to leave. It was clear he was prioritizing these future reservations with two more people in the party over our reservation that we were physically present for. El Chile is a restaurant we’ve been going to for almost a decade, and what we were most frustrated about was how he didn’t apologize or even seem to care that there was a problem he needed to solve. He didn’t offer anything like a free appetizer or some compensation for the error for our next visit, he was completely apathetic even though this was their error. I eat around town multiple times a week at new and old restaurants, and I’ve never had this happen before. I live nearby El Chile and it was a frequent go-to spot for me. I won’t be going back there because of how he handled this situation. Own up to your mistakes when either you or your system make them, try to solve them, and if you can’t in that moment, offer the person to come back and make it up to them then. I’m quite sad about the entire exchange, and upset that the interaction ruined a...

Ordered through Uber Eats. Very disappointed with the quality of the food and also on the miscommunication on Uber's menu selection.

Ordered the Steak and Chicken fajita option. The steak was cooked well done, but I guess still edible, however the chicken breast was very very dry. The fajitas had minimum flavor other and sweet vegetables and charr. Minimum to no salt/seasoning.

The charro beans were, again, bland and had a raw vegetable taste. Like the peppers or onions went into the batch at the very very end and did not have the time to blend in the flavors with the beans.

Now, with the fajita plate. After checking on El Chile website, the menu definitely states that the plate comes with a guacamole salad. However, the Uber menu simply states guacamole. So, I was surprised, and a bit ticked off when I saw the .75oz of guacamole scoop in my plate. But again, that one is on Uber.

The plate does not come with salsa, or atleast my order didn't. So dry food, with no salsa, and tiny scoop of guacamole, it just made for a very dry meal.

Again, on the miscommunication with Uber, the Pozole Verde does not come with a description. However, given that I am very well aware of what pozole is as a dish (hominy soup in a chili broth with CHICKEN or PORK..... mexico or tex-mex, always been one or the other). Turns out this was a VEGAN pozole which is not stated on the Uber app. Again, huge disappointment. To finish it off, the fried tortitlla strips that come with the pozole were thrown into the pozole container, so yeah, turned my "pozole" into Tortilla Soup. No flavor other than tomatillo, not worth the $6 for a cup of veggie...

My friend and I with her 2 kids in tow after working nearby stopped into this place to grab a bite to eat and a drink. The restaurants online info said they closed at 10pm. We arrived at 9:15 and were greeted by Carlos G who was reluctant seat us. I told him look we have kids with us and we will be quick, we were reluctantly seated. We were handed our menus and what I found strange is that there were at least 2 other tables who had not even placed there order so why was he stressing over us being seated. We then waited about 10 mins before Carlos G came over and took our order. He placed our order in a toast device so imagine my surprise when only one dish came out correctly. How do you do that? The kids ordered the bean and cheese burrito and got chicken that had so much spice on it they could not eat it. I ordered Flautas and my beans were cold and the rice was hard. My fried asked for water the first time and never got it. We had ordered a few margaritas when we ordered our food when I went to order a second one I was told the bar was closed. No last call or nothing just we close at 10pm so we don’t serve any more drinks. So I said well can we at least get some water to have with our dinner? No one asked us how are food was or anything we had to tell them about the kids food and he did take it off the bill but the serve and just an attitude if we don’t need customers is ridiculous. So when my portion of the bill came I tipped 10% because as someone who works in hospitality I would never treat guest like this and expect them to tip me. I hope this review gets back to the management...