El Burrito Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Cleveland

I want to preface my review by saying I spent a decade in food service and so leaving a negative review is not something I take lightly. Things happen, and often times it takes one off night with the wrong customer to lead to a bad review. I debated leaving a review at all but after reading multiple complaints here, both new and quit old, addressing the same issue we encountered, I feel like the management is purposely ignoring what people have been telling them for years, and so my complaint is warranted.

We’re from out of town and were spending the night in Cleveland on our way home. Was looking for someplace local to eat and this place was near our hotel. Were seated promptly by an extremely friendly server, and our drinks, chips and salsas arrived at the table immediately. A few things on the menu raised my eyebrow, (“gravy” on enchiladas??!), but my wife and I ordered things that we both assumed should show up as we would expect them to at any other Mexican restaurant from here to Timbuktu. My wife specifically ordered a Chicken nacho. She wanted everything on it except jalapeño peppers. Now the online menu I could find after the fact shows that the chicken Nanchos come with tortilla chips, chicken, lettuce and tomato and jalapeño. When her plate arrived it had no lettuce. She immediately questioned this and was told the nanchos did not come with lettuce. Neither of us are the type to make a fuss, so she just went with it. Unfortunately, the worst of this plate wasn’t the lack of lettuce, but the lack of flavor in the chicken itself. Older reviews describe the chicken as “boiled and tasteless”. This is exactly our experience. This was huge chunks of boiled, unseasoned chicken covered in shredded cheese. I’m not sure how any self respecting Mexican restaurant can roll out, night after night, year after year, apparently, this type of bland, frankly disgusting meat. My wife literally ate 1 bite and couldn’t stomach anymore. To the restaurants credit, and our server, we were not charged for the nacho. Normally I would leave it at that, but the server did comment, when my wife told her the chicken was boiled and unseasoned, that “that was a frequent complaint, but that the meat definitely was seasoned.”

I can not stress this enough: when a restaurant continues to hear the same complaint over and over again, the only acceptable remedy is to fix the issue. Comping food is nice and warranted, but at some point you have to accept that what you’re doing is not working.

Clearly they’re doing something right I suppose. They seem to have been around quite a while, and have a very respectable rating online. Resting on your laurels, however, often is the beginning of the end for any business. The people of Cleveland, Tex. have deemed El Burrito a 4.1 star restaurant, and as an out of towner I suppose it’s not my place to disagree with them. I have, however, in my 43 years of life, eaten enough Mexican food from places near and far to tell anyone, that you do not put unseasoned, boiled chunks of chicken in nanchos. El Burrito would be doing their loyal customers, and customers simply passing through like my wife and I, a great service to listen to years of feedback, and remedy this VERY easily...

Ordered food over the phone from the Cleveland El Burrito. I asked for an extra red sauce to be included in my order. The lady taking my order proceeded to ask me what size extra red sauce I wanted. She mentioned half-pint, pint, half-quart, quart, etc. I thought since I was getting an extra one (and I thought at the time it was no charge) I might as well take the bigger one so I chose the quart. I specifically asked her, "Will there be a charge for the extra red sauce?" and she told me "No mam".

Well, when my husband gets home from picking up the order, sure enough there is an $8.49 charge for the extra sauce. So I call them and talk to the lady who took my order. She tells me a story about how she meant there would be no charge for the first sauce that comes with my meal (which I already knew). Then she goes on to tell me how they would be a charge for the extra, and just said she misunderstood me when I asked her if there would be a charge for the extra sauce. She then puts me on hold for 10 minutes and never comes back to the line. When I call back and advise her she left me hanging on the phone for over 10 minutes, she replied she had other customers to take care of!!!!!!

To make a long story short, I was interrogated like a criminal about how many times I've eaten there, have I've eaten the sauce yet, was this my first time to place an order over the phone, etc., etc., etc.! They would have a manager to call me to discuss what they were going to do about my situation......and guess what.......3 days later and I'm still waiting!!!!!!

Don't go there! Their customer service sucks!!!!! They are willing to lose customers over a mere...

This was our first time dining here & it was pretty good. My husband had the Enchilada Dinner & my son & I opted to split a large order of Nachos. The flavor of the nachos was good but next time I will ask if they will serve them deconstructed, since we pretty much had to take them apart & reconstruct them. The meat was piled very thick in spots & thin in others. The chips underneath quickly became very soggy. We ended up using the chips provided with the salsa to scoop up the right ratios of meat & cheese. We added a drizzle more cheese from the queso when we started to run out of the cheese on the pile & we both agreed that it was much better with that. All 3 of us found the jalapeno slices to be very good. Not too hot nor too mild.

I am also one of those people who does not like to have their cool sour cream & guacamole suck on the hot food until I am ready to use it. The sour cream tends to melt in & loose all it's creaminess. So I wished that they had not piled it on the nachos. I quickly scooped it off. The guacamole needed more lime & salt to suit our tasted. My son who didn't see me doctor it up was raving that they should be famous for theirs. If you are wondering I mixed what came with both meals together added 4 slices of lime, some of the chopped tomatoes from our nachos & some salt.

The service was very good which is one of things that pushed this from the 3 to the 4 star rating when it sort of teetered in the middle. That & the food had good flavor even if it was hard to manage. In the end this a place that we will very likely return to if we are...