EL Toro Mexican Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Cape Coral

I hate to take ratings away from a great restaurant in regards to their food and wait staff unfortunately their management is absolutely awful and will cause this place to lose customers they would rather make themselves look good rather than allowing customers to have a positive experience. I actually think it’s funny i’ve personally been in this industry for 5 plus years and i’ve never seen incompetency like this. Policies are absolutely necessary I agree, i’ve been part of them and the one enforcing them yet somehow I didn’t quite feel as if this was just simply an enforcement of policies it was more of an attack, and for better understanding lack of customer service skills. Truthfully I believe it’s a shame this restaurant has so much potential to be great but with the way it’s running i’ll be surprised if it’s there in a few years.

It’s disappointing to see a response that completely ignores the core issue and shifts the blame onto the customer. Policies are important, but they should never be used as a shield to deflect criticism, especially when management’s handling of the situation clearly left a lot to be desired. Instead of addressing the concerns raised, your response dismisses them with an implication that the customer’s feelings are invalid. This type of attitude from management is exactly why I stand by my review—great food and wait staff can only take a restaurant so far if the management continues to alienate its patrons with such condescending and dismissive responses. It’s worth considering that perhaps it’s not just about enforcing policies but how those policies are communicated and upheld that makes all the difference in customer experience.

It’s disappointing to see that your response not only fails to address the core concerns I raised but also attempts to shift the narrative by introducing an accusation of racism, which I never mentioned or implied in my review. My feedback was focused solely on the management’s handling of the situation and the negative impact it had on the customer experience.

While policies are indeed essential, their enforcement should never come at the expense of professionalism or respect. The issue here was not the policy itself, but the manner in which it was applied—coming across as more of an attack than a standard procedure. Deflecting valid criticism by suggesting that my concerns were somehow rooted in a misunderstanding of your policies misses the point entirely.

My intention was to highlight areas where improvement is needed, particularly in customer service, which is crucial for the success of any restaurant. A great dining experience requires more than just good food; it demands respectful and effective management. Ignoring this will only hinder the potential of your establishment. It's unfortunate that you seem to be misdirecting your energy toward defensiveness rather than focusing on constructive leadership within your restaurant. Perhaps your time would be better spent improving the customer experience rather than engaging in unnecessary confrontations with patrons who are providing honest feedback.

It's concerning to see that you’ve assumed I was part of a larger party, which was not the case, and it speaks to a broader issue of stereotyping and misunderstanding your guests. Additionally, I never accused your establishment of racism, yet your response seems to be focused on defending against an accusation that was never made. This not only misrepresents my review but also diverts attention from the real issue—how your management’s actions made me feel mistreated.

Instead of assuming and generalizing, I would encourage you to focus on addressing the actual concerns raised in my review, which center around the manner in which I was treated. I hope this serves as an opportunity for reflection and improvement in how you engage with all...

Let's first start with the presentation of the 20% gratuity added to every party of 4 people or more, yes 4. We would expect 8 people, because that makes the sever very busy and can eliminate the number of tables they can work in a smaller venue. This information was written on the glass in light pink marker behind a lighted Christmas tree. Not the best place. I understand these are tough times and we always tip at minimum of 20%. So if your going to add it, then give us top notch service. When we go into a restaurant, atmosphere is my least important gauge of the restaurant. We want great service and great food. Some of the best restaurants are family owned and can sometimes be eccentric. We are ok with that. So moving on to the food, the queso dip was runny like a soup, not stick on my chip cheese. The flavor was lacking, so I added the salsa to it, but no matter what, it just poured off of your chip. Not impressed. The dinner food came out fast, but my taco salad with shredded chicken in a crunchy bowl was so extremely wet. The shell collapsed before I made it half way through the meal. It looked like a rice soup with no chicken. My wife ordered the chicken fajitas, which she liked. The toppings were lacking, like no cheese or chopped tomatoes, but there was plenty of that runny rice and refried beans. The food was tempeture hot, but lacked flavor. I'm saving the service for last because it was by far the worst I think I've ever had. As far as the atmosphere, it was Mariachi band night. The music was great, unfortunately in this small space it was extremely loud. We had friends from Tennessee visiting and wanted to catch up. Unfortunately, that was nearly impossible with the music and the band moved about the restaurant most of our meal, so there was no escaping it. If this was an outside venue in a beautiful garden, the music would have been perfect. So, on to the service. Our waiter, Juan was extremely lacking in communication and training. Not for the lack of speaking English. Our friend from. Tennessee loves Long Island ice teas. He would have probably had 5, but no. Juan was so busy doing laps around the restaurant and never stopping at the tables to check on anybody, we couldn't find him most of the night. Our friend ended up with 2 drinks and chased down Juan for the second. Our friend orders top shelf, so probably $20 a drink. Juan knew he was getting a 20% tip no matter what, he should have been pushing the drinks, that's lack of training. He refused my drink 1 time and nobody else got a refill. We had a party of 5 and arrived separately and Juan knew this because they had already ordered an appetizer before our arrival. When we wanted our check, we had to wait nearly 20 minutes for it to get the table and again we had to track down Juan. When he came back, he just walked by real fast and dropped it on the table and took off. Never saying a word. It took another 15 minutes for him to come back and never once did he ask if we wanted to split the check. We found out later that the Manger was the person who brought our food out. She never stopped to ask how we were doing or how the meal and service were during our meal. Unfortunately I did notice that she stopped at other tables around us and spoke with the customers. One thing they all had in common, was they were Hispanic and some tables were speaking to her in Spanish. So if you plan to visit this restaurant in the future, don't go on Wednesday night if you want to talk with your family and friends, don't expect good food, good service or be greeted by the manager unless you are Hispanic. We will not be going back and both my wife and I have been in Lee county since high school and for me that is over 40 years. To many other restaurants around to have extremely...

El staff increible, la comida increible, la animacion increible, pero las reglas y el manejo de la manager mejor ni hablar. Cuando entras no te puedes sentar hasta que no llegue la ultima persona aunque teníamos dos niños de 9 meses y 3 anos, pero eramos 11 y habia que esperar, la cuenta no se puede dividir tienes que pagarla de una sola vez y dividirla a partes iguales en tu casa jajajajaj. Los mariachis llegan tocan 4 canciones y se toman un receso jajajaja, y al final la manager te pide que te vayas del lugar, aunque te falte por tomar tu cerveza, porque tiene otra fiesta esperando, la verdad es una pena porque hay un equipo de camareros, cocineros, bar man etc que mantienen el Lugar a un nivel alto pero luego llega la manager y la echa a perder…y baja el lugar a niveles 0, no es justo!!!!! Monarca seria un buen lugar para tantos buenos camareros !!!

This is the response we got from owner

Let me explain We visited Toro last week for a birthday party and manager explained to us to book online next time and we did, we were not expecting to have to reconfirm, but it looks like you guys call us from an unidentified number addressed in Sanibel how are we going to imagine is Toro calling? Why we have to reconfirm a confirmed reservation?

The water spilled were not three glasses of water, the water spilled from a jar you gave us to put our flowers we brought for the party and they spill by themselves because flowers were higher than the jar, do your restaurant do not have a vase ? We advise you of the spill, how should we be blame on this?

3 You are suggesting you ask us to leave for over drinking ? What a disgusting response, but if this was the reason why you mentioned us literally “to finish drinking get drunk in another place and leave, because you had another party to seat and you needed the table”. So we all left with our drinks at half ? Are you serious?

By the way I did not mention any racist profiling in my comment.

Definitely you are not customer oriented and your rules are not for a restaurant, but this is for other customers to judge our party was the second time and the last one.

Hopefully other people will read !!!

We appreciate your feedback but there are certain things that were left out of your review. At first a lady in your party claimed you had made a reservation yet it was never confirmed because she was unable to follow the procedures and protocols that are listed before requesting a reservation. We called her 5 times to confirm and left voicemails without a response, and we were still able to accommodate you and your party on one of our busiest nights, but we have certain reservations that are already confirmed and people waiting just like you. We have a plethora of people who want to dine with us and we want them all to be able to experience our establishment and that is why there is certain policies put in place. To ensure faster service for example we don’t allow tables to split the check especially if it’s a larger party like yours (stated under our policy’s) also under our policy’s you will find that we allow a 90 minute table limit, which your table had exceeded. We do also want to add that your table spilled 3 glasses of water which isn’t an issue but under Florida law we do also need to account for people and when they have exceeded a drinking limit. Not sure where the racist comment is coming from but not following policies and being reminded about the policies has absolutely nothing to do with race or “profile”. Hope any misunderstanding was cleared up and we appreciate your patronage along with everyone else’s.

Thank...