El Jefe Texican Cantina — Restaurant in Charleston

**Don't make my mistake. Always keep your receipts when dealing with this shady restaurant.

Visited El Jefe on a Saturday night, bill was ~$45, couldn't have been more than $50. Upon checking credit card transactions 4 days later, I see I was charged $112.

4 days after visiting the restaurant: I called the restaurant immediately after noticing the overcharge and spoke with the hostess to kindly inform her of the error. I'm told something along the lines of "management will be in within a couple hours and will call you right back" .... no call back

Day 5: I call again for an update and this time speak to a manager. I'm told that the managers can't look into the error and only the owners can look into old receipts, but the owners will either be in tonight or tomorrow afternoon and I'll get a call back. * Is it really this difficult to pull up an old receipt that's not even a week old? Managers aren't allowed to do it?? Seems sketchy.

Day 6: After not hearing from the owners within the given timeframe, I call again for an update. I am put on the phone with a different manager who gets very nasty and says I need to wait for the owners, but that it will be faster to just file a dispute with my bank. She can't even give a rough estimate of how long it would just take them to pull up the old receipt and rectify the error. She hangs up.

I've of course filed a dispute with the bank (which is a 2 month process), making this a much longer process than necessary to fix such a simple mistake. I very much question the organization and ethics of this restaurant. I look forward to a response to this review from the owners of this restaurant, since they're apparently so hard to get in touch with!

On the subject of food: I'd give it a generous 2/5 on a good day. Had a chicken burrito bowl, 2 tacos, and 2 beers. Taco Bell would have been far more cost effective and actually pleasant...

I had an incredibly disappointing experience at El Jefe in Charleston. I ordered a grilled shrimp corn tortilla due to my gluten-free dietary restriction, but the kitchen mistakenly brought out a flour tortilla. After taking a bite, I immediately noticed and informed the server, who was very kind and understanding. When my order was remade, it came with chicken instead of shrimp, which I couldn’t eat as I am pescatarian.

Things escalated when what seemed to be either the manager or owner approached our table, asking to know why I didn’t eat the tacos. When I explained that I had originally ordered shrimp, he snapped at me, saying, “Take it up with your server.” His tone was hostile and unprofessional, which took me by surprise.

Later, when we had some leftover food and drinks, we invited a friend of ours to help us finish them. Before he could enter, the manager insisted that one of us personally vouch for him. When I went to the front to do so, the manager immediately started yelling at me, somehow calling me by my first name, and aggressively demanding, “Either get out of my restaurant or get inside.” He got uncomfortably close to my face, which made me feel genuinely unsafe.

When I returned to tell my friends what had happened, one of them went to the front to speak with him. At that point, the manager physically grabbed her and told her to leave. She was visibly distressed and crying, yet he showed no remorse whatsoever.

The only positive aspect of our experience was our server, who truly tried her best despite the hostile and unprofessional behavior from what seemed to be management. However, the way we were treated by the manager or owner was absolutely unacceptable.

I would strongly caution anyone considering dining here—especially if you have dietary restrictions or expect even a basic level of respect from management. We left shaken and appalled by how we...

The absolute worst meal I have ever had at a restaurant in my entire life. We had just driven into Charleston, and this was about the only place open. We ordered the corn dip and a burrito to split plus 4 drinks. After getting the chips and salsa, I almost vomited after eating the first chip. It was literally caked in salt. I asked the server to please get us more chips because these were smothered in salt. I like salty chips but these were so salty you could hear the salt hitting the table when you picked one up. The server was decent. The corn dip was actually the only good thing about the place but it was a tiny ramekin maybe 4 ounces (at best) and less than full. He brought us new chips and somehow these were saltier than the last. I literally had to spend 45 seconds scraping off the salt to make them somewhat edible to eat my $10 corn dip. Then, the $19 Coronoarita comes in a tiny plastic cup. I was honestly in shock. I’ve never paid that much for a Coronarita/Margarona (normally $12-15), and I was just flabbergasted it was so tiny and served in plastic. Then to make matters worse, the burrito was just horrific. It was smothered in rotel type cheese and the steak was so tough and dry. We split it open, ate a couple pieces of steak and left well over half of it. That’s what we got for $18. 1 beer, 3 drinks, a burrito and a dab of corn dip was $108. Had the meal and drinks been even halfway decent, I wouldn’t be writing this review. If you’re going to be outrageously expensive, at least be good. We went to Rarebit down the street and had fabulous drinks and good food for less than what I spent at this just horrible, horrible restaurant. I just can’t express how absolutely terrible it was. There are such fabulous restaurants all over King Street. Do yourself a favor and...