El Toro Mexican Restaurant - Garth — Restaurant in Baytown

About a week ago, my wife and I wanted to celebrate our 40th Wedding Anniversary together with our kids and grandkids. We had planned to go to the west coast and watch the Astros play, but feeling a little guilty about not celebrating with the family we changed our plans. We can always follow the Astros to watch them play out of town at another time. Also, we were celebrating my daughter-in-law birthday. Due to the boys work schedule, it’s always hard to get all the family together. With that being said, we decided to stay close to home instead of going to Houston, because some of the kids had to work the next day. We were looking for a restaurant that could accommodate all of us. El Toro on Garth had a back room, away from the normal seating section that would be nice, close to home. So, my wife called and made reservations two weeks in advance to sit in the back room. They said we were good to go! We left for the restaurant early to make sure everything was good to go, needless to say when we got there the seating lady told us the room was full with two parties. Jana explained to her we made reservations two weeks in advance, so the waitress said let me get my manager. The manager explained to us if you don’t pay to reserve the room that they couldn’t guarantee we would get tables in the back room when we got there. When we made reservations no one explained that to her, which wouldn’t have been a problem. The look on her face just broke my heart!! I was pretty mad at this point, I really let the manager have it, explaining to him he didn’t understand this was a special day for us, our forty year Wedding Anniversary, then he said we could put you in the bar section. Wow, eight little grandkids along with their parents, along with my wife and me, packed in the bar area! What a way to celebrate a special day! That wasn’t going to happen. Finally, leaving the restaurant, my wife was upset crying, asking me what were we going to do! Remember this was not only our special day, but we were going to celebrate one of our daughter-in-law’s birthday! As I was backing out to leave the restaurant the manger was standing at the passenger side of the car. Jana rolled down the window, the manager said we could put you on the patio. It was raining at the time, we said that’s OK we’re leaving. So we called all the kids, telling them to met us at Olive Garden. Hopefully, this would work out for the best of a bad situation. At this time, I was praying for some divine intervention to help us with this situation. As we walked into Olive Garden along with all the kids and grandkids, bags of gifts and two cakes and bunch of hungry grandkids, My wife was explaining to the manger what had happened. The manager said we had a back section of the restaurant y’all could use, but it would take about 20 minutes to set up. Also, it was shift change at the restaurant so they needed to ask a couple of waiters to stay over to help serve our party. We had the whole back section of the restaurant, two fantastic waiters, one taking care of the grandkids and the other one taking care of the adults. I can’t say enough about how Olive Garden made our evening special! Several times I have driven by El Toro on Garth, every time I see the sign my anger resurfaces knowing I probably won’t ever eat there again. Here again there’s a great restaurant down the street from El Toro that has fantastic food and a great group people that can make your day special!!! I can’t thank the manager enough for how hard she worked to make our day a...

I was going to avoid placing a public review and reach out internally but was unable to find contact information directly for customer service. When I came to Google to try to find something, to my surprise, 5 days ago, another customer was posting my almost exact experience at the Garth location. I want to say before I explain the bad experience that our wait staff, Keaton and Winter, were ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! As for the bad experience, I called Wednesday to make a reservation for 24 people at 5 pm on Saturday to celebrate my daughter's birthday. I also received confirmation as well the day before the event which was the usual as my family and I have attended and reserved special occasions multiple times and never had any issues. As Saturday 5 pm approached, on the way I found out that 4 ppl were not going to make it due to a stomach virus in the family. My sister had also called me saying that almost everyone was there but not being seated and confirming what the reservation was under. When I arrived about 5 minutes after 5 pm, 16 of the 20 were waiting in the lobby and in the way of being able to service other customers. I approached the hostess to let her know that I had a reservation at 5 pm and began to explain that the 24 was now 20 and that we had 16 waiting to be seated. The extremely rude hostess, with long reddish hair, telling me that we couldn't be seated talked over me in a very condescending way when trying to explain the situation and that I was never told that we wouldn't be seated till all 24 people were there. It was quite a bit of back and forth including her saying, and I quote, "ANYWAYS", till a co-worker next to her suggested to get a manager. Shortly after, a manager with long hair and glasses came out and I explained the situation again. By this time, absolutely upset because of the treatment, 18 of the 20 ppl were there and still pleading to be seated. I was told that one of the reasons it was the way it was, note that this has never happened before at other parties/events we’ve had there, due to having stragglers coming in and throwing things off like drink orders. Explaining again that now we were only missing 2, who then just walked in, I was still getting kickback. He finally said to give him a moment and walked to the back and returned. He returned explaining a new issue of seating 24 vs 20 now because of tables, which at that point extremely fed up, I told him whatever was easiest and that we just wanted to be seated and he then walked away. Finally, we were approached and seated by another unpleasant hostess. I have never felt such an inconvenience and not wanted as a customer. It will be a very long time IF we go before we eat at El Toro again. Again, if it wasn't for our AMAZING waiter and waitress, it would have been very hard to change the mood from what had just happened to what we wanted which was a special family dinner...

We arrived after lunch,so not super busy. Monday, May 13th around 1 oclock. Walked in and the hostess ( I believe her name was Jessica) did not acknowledge us at all. Turned her back and dealt with a stack of menus for a bit. Still has not welcomed my mother and I. No "welcome in" or "I'll be right with you ". Then she grabs 2 menus and starts to walk into dining room ( still saying nothing or even looking at us ). So we are still standing there and she finally turns around and just looks at us, still no smile, words. I looked at her and said I'm sorry, are we following you? Because so far you have not even said hello or would you like a table or a booth? When I asked if we could have a booth, she said we don't have any open. We could literally see 2 open booths. She then said " I guess I can look". She returned, grab 2 menus and we followed her to booth. She puts menus on table and walks off. My family has been eating at El Toro since the original Baytown location was opened. We are very friendly, nice people. This was my 84 year old mothers lunch for Mother's Day (she likes the day after due to less crowds). It was so bad, I asked to speak with a manager. Not sure of his name, thin Hispanic with glasses. He was very nice. I don't know if they've had a management change or what but the vibe of the restaurant just wasn't the same. Our food took longer than ever which didn't make sense because the restaurant was not crowded at all. My mother is a sweet woman and El Toro is her favorite place to eat. She said something has changed here, there isn't a good feeling anymore. Maybe that's why nobody is here? Word of advice to the owners from customers who have been with you since 1960's...employees can destroy your business. They represent you. This young person is the first person people see when entering your business. From one business owner to another...she is not a good fit! Sad day for these die hard El Toro...