El Zacatecano Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Colorado

Service was shockingly terrible. I worked in food service for 18 years so I actually have a lot of patience, understanding and empathy for servers but this was hard to believe. We sat at the bar, ordered drinks, no one offered us menus, water, or even ask if wanted to dine. We waited around for 20 minutes before able to get an order in, we watched staff stand around us on phones, watching the football game, and two ladies working there literally had a very loud conversation over us… as in one standing behind the bar and one standing behind our seats shouting at each other as we were eating our meal. Ive never seen waitstaff act that way and I would never do that to patrons at my place of work. Also Never was offered chips, water, or checked in about food and drinks.

So now the food- small, overpriced, low quality and not authentic. The only thing we enjoyed was the margaritas.

Overall, will never come back and do not recommend. After looking at other’s reviews and seeing similar complaints, the lack of accountability, apology, or attempt to correct any of these bad experiences is absolutely laughable and appalling. Please don’t support this business, there are so many places to dine in the area that actually respect and try to correct bad experiences with their patrons. The management sounds incredibly entitled based on their responses here and that toxicity has apparently infected their staff as well. Not one review about food poisoning have you had the courage to respond to. But you reply to others to correct them about other complaints. Get out of the service industry, you clearly do not have concern for others. Shame on this place....

I visited this establishment twice during a weekend at Copper Mountain with friends. The first time, we came by for margaritas and queso in the afternoon. The server arrived with a huge margarita for one of us (the rest were all normal-sized). When my friend said he did not order that size, the server argued with him, insisting that he had in fact ordered it.

I thought this was a one-off experience, but my friends and I returned to El Zacatecano a couple nights later, again just for margaritas and appetizers/desserts. I ordered a small margarita, and the server recommended a different margarita in the medium size. I told him I'd be happy to go with his recommendation but that I wanted a small (I think he expected me not to catch him upsizing me). He argued with me and pressed me to get the medium. I held my ground, explaining that I'd already had a couple drinks elsewhere, which I shouldn't have had to to. He should have just respected my choice. My friends were quite uncomfortable with the incident.

It's really not okay to pressure people into drinking beyond their limits just to get a few...

Casa Sanchez in Copper Mountain has closed and El Zacatecano has opened in it's place. If you liked Casa Sanchez you'll like El Zacatecano, but if you didn't like it the same will also be true. Reason being that I didn't find any differences between the two.

Aside from a new sign out front, the space looks identical on the outside. And absolutely very little has changed on the inside. The same booths that are badly in need of repair are still there. There does appear to be a fresh coat of paint on the inside, which does help brighten up the space.

Inside I couldn't tell that much had changed with the food either. The place my food was served on was the same blue plate I had a year prior. The rice was the same, and the beans too. I had a medium combination plate with a chimichanga and an enchilada ($12.99). Pretty average tex-mex food here.

There aren't a ton of places to eat in Copper, and this is the only Mexican around, so there isn't a lot of competition. I just had hoped for more when I heard that the Mexican place had changed, but then I soon realized that not much had...