El Rincón Cocina y Tequila — Restaurant in Boulder

Absolutely the worst group experience I've ever had. My first job was a host in a Mexican restaurant and the service here was abysmal.

First they did not give us our own table. They pre-set two long tables and tried to seat us on a table CONNECTED to another group already eating. Then the manager even tried to move us to booths because he thought we weren't part of the reservation... totally unorganized. The waiter also gave us dirty menus from another table with customers presumably still using them.

I maybe saw our waiter 3 times over the course of a hour and 30 minute stay. Waters were not refilled, orders were not taken timely, etc.

Food was alright, but you could get better chips and salsa from the Safeway just down the road. When we ordered appetizers for the table they took over 10 minutes in getting us small plates after serving us the appetizers. We were about 15 of the 30 patrons in the restaurant so absolutely no reason to be so delayed.

Lastly, they refused to split checks for any group over 6 people. Totally unfriendly to groups. We even asked to have checks split into say groups of 6 or what not and they still refused. We are a collegiate associated group and can cover appetizers on our group card but not alcohol so getting cash/venmo and trying to figure out tax and gratuity for each of us was a nightmare and took way longer than it would to split the checks, we even saw the waiter sitting at a table and texting while we were struggling to get it all together in a timely manner. They marked this up to some sign they had on the door saying they couldn't split checks in groups of more than 6 people. This was not discussed when made reservation over the phone, a poor misjudgement. My guess was that they wanted to preserve their automatic gratuity, but we've been other places that still add the gratuity when you split checks so there (should) be no excuse. Our meeting prior at Backcountry Pizza across the street was very accomodating in splitting as many checks as we wanted and we were happy to tip well in addition to the automatic gratuity. Not here, we will never return as a group, nor will I personally and will recommend that my friends and family avoid it as well.

Mind you I repeat we were about 15 of only 30 or so patrons on a WEDNESDAY night. Some of the issues could be marked up to mistakes on a busy night, but this was just blantant...

Just ate at the Nederland location and the food was great! The waitress that helped us was SO awesome and really made the experience genuinely enjoyable. The only complaint I have, and it's not a small complaint, is that there is a severe lack of vegetarian/vegan options in terms of burritos. I've never been to a Mexican restaurant before that didn't have at least /one/ vegetarian burrito, which is easy to make vegan. The poor waitress, though she took it in stride and with humor, had to write a small paragraph for my order when getting the burrito because I had to get a chicken burrito with no chicken, white rice instead of Spanish rice (the Spanish rice has chicken broth, not uncommon), and sub veggies instead of the meat. Nederland is a hippy dippy community in large and a lot of the people up here are either vegetarian or vegan, so it would make tons of financial sense to have at least one vegetarian option for every single category of food, because the flavor was exquisite and it had the best green salsa Verde I've ever had. SUCH good flavor, but in this day and age there should always be at least some vegetarian, and preferably some vegan, options on the menu, so I don't have to stress the poor waitress and cook with a super complex unique order, or go somewhere else that has vegan options. Nederland has a huge vegetarian percentage so it would definitely bring in more bucks, without having to add/remove any ingredients...

We ordered a margarita each. Our server asked if we wanted a large one. Upon glancing around the room other patrons had a “large” margarita that appeared to be a reasonable size. So we ordered it. Out came a GIGANTIC sized margarita. Woah. But the entire, massive drink was just chopped ice. After sipping down about 1 cup of liquid we were left with a full glass of just ice. There was maybe one shot of tequila in the drink. When the bill came, we were shocked to find those glasses of Ice were $18 each. We shared a burrito which was good, just your standard rice, beans shredded beef and some pico, guacamole, sour cream and some lettuce and a not particularly noteworthy red sause. The burrito we shared was $16. It was not the best, not the worse and if we had not gotten $18 glasses of ice, our bill would have been hardly anything. When our bill for one burrito and two drinks came to around $70 including the tip, (we don’t stiff servers) we felt totally ripped off. I get that businesses have been struggling due to the pandemic, but the upsell to “giant” margaritas that were 90% chopped Ice was really lame. Do yourself a favor and go to any other Mexican restaurant in Boulder. There are some good ones that at least put some alcohol in your...