Hacienda Don Manuel — Restaurant in Brookfield

This place is really great! I went there on Valentine's day with my GF, she had been telling me how good it was. She wasn't kidding!

For Valentine's day the restaurant had a mariachi band walking around and playing music. They were a duet, and very very talented musicians! The leader introduced himself to us; his name is Machito. The leader played a bass-like instrument; he was well versed on the instrument. He was able to do these extremely well timed and executed changes on the instrument and they always made me smile. He's also a great singer! His voice carried extremely well other the instrumentation, and he sang very clearly. The other had a more supporting position and played a small guitar. This dude was great as well; he would make vocal harmonies, vocalize, and make really cool noises, for example, he'd do these awesome wistle sounds!

Back to the food. They give you chips and salsa; both were delicious. The salsa was sweet with what I think were mango pieces, and the chips were sturdy (came in handy later). We ordered some guacamole, and it is made table side. This was very well made! The chips were able to support the chunks of delicious guacamole, which some places do not succeed at (looking at you Chili's). We got medium sized margheritas. They were what I was expecting, great! Pretty strong too. I had guava, and she had mango. When it came for dinner, I had pollo molle, and my GF had flautas. We greatly enjoyed them both! The beans were refried, but they were much better than many other places I have had in the past. The rice was also good, eating both the beans and the rice of course complemented each other. The mole was amazing! I have never had mole before, but this was quite the introduction; it had a mild spice, and it's flavor was just great (I can't elaborate on it too much, considering the margherita lol). The chicken was killer!!! Extremely tasty, and tender, not dry at all. It had a grilled kind of taste to it, or it could have been pan fried on cast iron (probably the latter).

Hacienda Don Manuel is a great restaurant. The service is great, the atmosphere is fun, and the food is even better than those! I highly recommend. God...

I’ll start out by saying the food here is very good. I’ve been here twice. The first time I had no service issues. I just went to try to take advantage of their happy hour, which I had every intention of doing on a regular basis, and the service was to a point that it made me so angry, I felt the need to write this review. So, to start, I was told I had to sit in the bar, which I guess is fairly common for happy hour, so I couldn’t sit outside on a beautiful day. Then, their happy hour menu says you can get a giant margarita for $12. I had gotten one the first time I went and it was an extra 2 bucks to get fresh juice instead of mix, so I asked if it was possible to pay an extra couple of bucks on top of the 12. The waitress said she would ask, and a waiter came over to take her place. He told me it wasn’t possible, but that I could get a “top shelf” giant margarita with fresh juice and top shelf tequila for $16. I actually prefer El Jimador to top shelf tequila, but I figured I’d pay the extra 4 bucks and get fancy tequila. I asked if it was possible to substitute steak for chicken in the happy hour quesadillas ($5) and he said no, so I said ok, I’ll just do the chicken quesadillas. He brings me the margarita and I once again learn that I don’t like top shelf tequila as much as El Jimador. Then a young guy brings me my quesadilla and I try them and I can’t believe how flavorful the chicken is. The waiter comes over to see if I want anything else and I say no thank you and remark about how good the chicken quesadilla is. He says “Oh, that’s steak. You asked about the steak, so I put it in as steak.” I asked how much that was going to be and he said “I dunno, 10 something?” I wasn’t happy, but I said “OK”. I finish and he brings me the bill, and it’s $18 for the margarita and $13 for the steak quesadilla. So in addition to bringing me a dish I didn’t order, he charged me 5 bucks more than he told me it was. So that 5 bucks was his tip, and I’m done. It’s a shame because the steak quesadillas...

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If you’re wondering why some people have reviewed this place below 4 stars, here’s why.

The service is most definitely lacking. Our server only attended to the Spanish speaking family to our right and the two Spanish speaking young girls to our left. My mother and I went together (we are both Latin but were speaking English) where he immediately was less personable with us in comparison to the other tables. He consistently passed by us while tending to the table with the girls specifically (we had dishes piling up). One of the only times he stopped was to ask if we were ready to order, in which, he had already taken our order 30 minutes prior.

Apparently the server knew the two young girls since they were speaking about my mother to him in Spanish as though we couldn’t hear/understand them. My mother then asked to speak to the manager to report the lack of customer service and the untimely matter of our food. The manager/owner came out, didn’t seem concerned but offered to check on our food, came out to tell us our food was ready, and then we didn’t see him after that. He was neither concerned nor apologetic.

We were so uncomfortable that we decided to pack our uneaten food and finish at home.

It’s quite unfortunate that this was our experience seen as the food was good, but their service made us feel very unwelcome.

In all, I would not recommend this restaurant seen as there are many other Mexican/Latin restaurants in neighboring areas. My mother and I would gladly take our business elsewhere, and so will our family...