El Azteca Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Claremore

TL;DR BE SURE TO CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK YOUR RECEIPTS, THEY WILL CHARGE YOU FOR ITEMS YOU DID NOT ORDER!!!

Ex-Claremore local here! I lived in Claremore for a little over five years and we just recently moved a couple of months ago! We always loved El Aztecas, the food was great, the staff was friendly, and the drinks were almost always on the stiff side!

My husband and I were repeat customers. When I mean repeat, I mean we were there 3-5 times a month. With both of our busy lifestyles, neither one of us have much time to cook so we eat out a lot. We had befriended many of the waiters there, all of them were extremely nice. We had always tipped 20% or more, being an ex-waitress myself I know how difficult of a job it can be!

Unfortunately everything there is handwritten and the person who normally keys in the information up front at the register is the Manager (Owner?) He sorta looks like Pablo Escobar but less cool. Normally restaurants have POS system's (point of service) where they ring everything up on a computer and the prices are not adjustable. When the staff hand you a receipt, it is all chicken scratch written down by the server and sometimes was not a print out receipt from up front, where in as a well ran established chain or privately owned company, everything rings up strictly on the computer and there isn't much room, if at all, for any "mistakes".

One night we get our receipt per usual, about the 5th or 6th time before we stopped going there, (and the receipt gets pretty confusing if you order more than one alcoholic drink and we would normally order on average three a piece) my husband Brandon started noticing extra charges here and there. I told him I thought his math may have been off or maybe they charged us a dollar more on some of the drinks because they always made them a little more "stiff" for us. He definitely had started bringing it up to my attention though that he felt like anywhere between $5-$10 was being mismanaged somehow in the receipt. The second to last time we went after dinner and drinks, he told me the next time we go in, no alcoholic drinks and we should just order water and dinner.

The last time we went to this restaurant a couple of months ago, it happened again except this time we were more wise about it. No drinks. Just water and both of our dinners and no appetizers. When we get our receipt which should have just been two items, somehow "magically" on the receipt printed up front stapled to the hand written receipt, had a platter neither one of us ordered that we were being charged for.

At this point I was flabbergasted and completely appalled. They took advantage of our good will and our money. So my husband calls over our server and points out that there is a plate we did not order on our receipt. I could tell our server who is an older fella with a moustache was super displeased and went to the manager/owner with it. As we watched them converse in Spanish, the Manager looking like a cartoon fool, slapped his head and went, "Ohhhhh!" In the most sarcastic way possible, like almost an over exaggeration of "I know what I did but I want to play it off in front of them that I had NO IDEA I added an extra plate to their receipt!" To make matters worse, he didn't even come over and APOLOGIZE. He handed the server our corrected check and the server dropped it off to us.

We have not been back since and no matter how much I crave Cowboy Fajitas or Cameron Ala Diabla I will never support someone who thinks it is okay to steal from customers. Especially repeat customers who had happily spent so much $$ in their business. Fool me once...

Ok so we were passing through on our way back to Tulsa and stopped here for dinner after reading all the great reviews. We were definitely not impressed. We were seated right away, the server was great. Kept our drinks full, didn't have to ask for anything etc ... My beer was cold and refreshing and my wife had a strawberry daiquiri which she said was pretty good. The atmosphere was really nice and cozy however the food left something to be desired. We got the double steak fajitas. The portions were HUGE.i always get extra meat because you never get enough but Don't get extra meat here because it will be way too much lol. Not a bad thing. It was lacking flavor though. The meat was so under seasoned I had to put salt (which I've never had to do with fajitas) just so it had some flavor. The rice wasn't great but the beans were ok and the guacamole was pretty good. The chips were fresh but the salsa tastes like it's from a jar. Just my opinion. My wife said it was ok. The spicy salsa was not good at all. Very very vinegary flavor. . I seen other dishes come out that looked pretty good but the fajitas were just lacking much needed flavor and a Mexican restaurant should be able to nail fajitas. They were sizzling when they came out but not too much. I think the cast iron needs to be hotter. Nothing better than when some onions and meat caramelize and get kinda crispy. I don't like leaving bad reviews but I'm also not going to lie about my experience. If we are ever back in the area we might give it another chance and hopefully it was just a one off night or something but as of now it definitely isn't worth a drive from Tulsa just...

My Wife, Myself and my 2 boys just pulled up about 10 minutes ago to grab something to eat (8:58PM). Went to go in but the doors were locked. So I thought I misread there Open/Close times. But I double checked and they do close at 10pm on Saturdays. So I call and finally someone answers. I ask them what time they close. He said "We are closing at 930" I said 930? He replied with "Yes" at this time another couple tried to go in as well. So I said if your closing at 930 why are your doors already locked? He said "Because he is wanting to be done and heading home by 930"

So I asked again if there hours changed for the summer. He said "No, sometimes we close early depending on how business is" So i told him that i can understand that and that they should change there closing time to 9pm(Pending on Business). But I said "Ok well that's fine. I guess we can just start calling ahead of time before we decide to come there to eat"

He said "Ok fine, we still have people in here eating. You know what you want? You wanna come in and order? I told him "No cause at this point we had already put both kids(Under 2yrs old) back into there carseat and ready to go. That he should have offered to do that when I called and he literally was looking at me from inside as I was talking to him right at the front door"

But anyways. I just figured I would share this experience with whoever decides to read this. This isnt meant to try and get people to NOT eat here. Just meant to share a situation/Experiance that we...