El Norte Mexican Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Blaine

I understand in this time we are having a “job shortage” aka not willing to pay your employees. But this was inexcusable. We arrived about 5pm and didn’t leave until 7pm. The wait staff purposefully went to lengths to ignore the customers. The table next to us had a woman wait at the counter about ten minutes and the wait staff looked at her and did NOT talk to her. They were they longer than my party. They were upset as many other tables were. My party (of four (4)) didn’t get any attention until two of us went to leave. As soon as the two of us were leaving we magically got the checks so we could go.

As a former store manager this was inexcusable behavior. It would be different had someone acknowledged us and acknowledged that they were busy. But none of that happened. In Europe they take better care of their customers and they get paid a proper wage to do so (I’ll add it is different service, but I had better service in Europe than I did at this place). Do better and acknowledge your customers.

Edit: Your reply is honestly a piss poor attitude towards the employees actively ignoring customers. You as the owner need to step up and and talk with your employees. What you just replied told me every thing I need to know about your business ethics and as well as how you treat your employees. You as the owner need to do better. And the fact you IGNORED my entire complaint just do make it about “no one returns or shows up” really speaks volumes. It’s not the employees it’s a horrible...

The WORST restaurant experience in my life. My party of 4 was there for OVER 2 HOURS because they refused to give us our check. We were never given menus upon being seated, and our waitress never checked in with my table after getting our food (the food wasn't bad, but nothing special). When we asked for our checks and boxes, that's when the restaurant staff went to great lengths to ignore not only my party of 4, but all of the other surrounding tables as well. A woman from a different table went up to the counter to also ask for her check, and was ACTIVELY IGNORED BY THE STAFF FOR 10 MINUTES. After waiting for 30 minutes, one of my party also went up and asked for our check AGAIN, only to be told, "No, you have to wait. It will be another 5 minutes." My party started to get up and just leave, and we were magically able to get our check after they threatened to call the police on us for wanting to leave. My party left a review on Google, only to get a response from the owner saying, "Sorry you had a bad experience, but it's not our fault nobody wants to work." Totally unacceptable business management and experience. I understand being short staffed, but you have to at least ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR CUSTOMERS and not waste peoples' time. I hope this restaurant...

We really wanted to like this place....but, it was freezing inside, its impossible to have a conversation as it's so loud (think Chipotle but must worse), the server was nice, but obviously too busy as the service was so slow. We sat for 10 minutes without anyone coming to check on us after we were seated. The food looked beautiful and stops there -- I'm very sad to say. My dinner came with rice and beans, but I don't what those beans were...bean soup maybe? Never seen it like that before - watery. The verde sauce was thick like a cream. I would say the best part was the chips and salsa, but who can mess that up? Oh, and the guac was very good, gotta give them props for that. We had enchiladas and burritos, whole family agreed we won't be back. All Circle Pines has is mexican places, maybe they need to branch out because there is better down...