El Jimador Taqueria & Grill — Restaurant in Cookeville

First visit to El Jimador and probably my last…👎🏻

We all know times are difficult but unfortunately El Jimador is failing at some of the simplest of guest service tasks. Pros and cons of our visit that lasted no more than 15 minutes on April 15, 2022 @ 7 p.m.

Our group consisted of 2 Adult Couples and 1 single adult ( 3 separate checks, 1 Small Group)

Pros: Clean restaurant Good Atmosphere Seated quickly on the deck

Cons: seated, salsa and chips hit the table and we never saw a server again No drinks offered not even water One worker had their 2 children (Approx. 5 to 7 yrs old) at work, jumping and stomping on the dining deck while patrons were trying to enjoy their night Two other tables seated after us, both families received chips, drinks and service while we waited to be noticed

After 15 minutes of being ignored despite trying to flag down severs that we’re passing by, my friend lit up a cigarette on their nonsmoking dining deck to attempt to get the attention of the staff…nothing.

We got up, said nothing, left our table with the chips and salsa they brought us and left. Not a single word was said to us as we walked through the restaurant, passed the Manager that sat us and departed.

We went to El Magueyal where we were greeted by a friendly staff, our waiter was very polite, our food order was perfect and the pitcher of top shelf Margaritas was great. We enjoyed ourselves and left after 45-60 minutes. (We did have to wait 5 minutes for the staff to clean and reset dining tables from a large group that left when we arrived. But this was no problem at all for us and the staff did a fantastic fast and thorough cleaning for us and the other tables)

I hope the owners of El Jimador read this…you lost customers this night. Your server missed out on a multiparty group of 5 hungry people that stayed less than one hour and tipped $30 to the polite waiter at El Magueyal.

**Note No one in my group has a problem with a dedicated worker needing to bring their children to their job. Everyone is struggling, we are all parents and understand how hard it can be.

Unfortunately, the children’s undisciplined behavior detracted from the server effectively doing their job and caused serious disruption in...

Wife and I thought we'd found another Mexican restaurant we could go to, that's not the case this time. We went in for dinner and upon coming in all these tables had what remained of other people's meals, not a big deal understand people get busy. There was only a handful of people in the restaurant so we thought I guess this was something that we just missed rush of some sort. Well we sat down and eventually a waitress came by she took our order then she promptly went over and started talking to some of her friends that had come in. They were chatting away and she never took our order to the front. We sat there for like 5 minutes watching her talk to her friends and then another waitress came up and she said she would be our waitress. We told her that somebody had already come by taking our order but she was standing there talking to her friends. She said oh no she's not even working she says. Okay meanwhile the other waitress is still chatting with her friends none of the tables are cleaned off. Well our food eventually arrived and it was barely edible. The food was overcooked to dry and really unpalatable. Seriously doubt will be back. To the credit of the waitress when we brought the food issue to her attention she did give my wife's meal for free. It truly was hard to eat. And they weren't busy...

I've been to several Mexican restaurants throughout Overton & Putnam counties in hopes that I find “the best” tasting Mexican food within 30-40 from home. So far, no luck. Recently, someone suggested we go to El Jimador Mexican Restaurant in Cookeville. They said: Great outside patio atmosphere. Good service (it was). Real Mexican food (it isn’t). THE FOOD WAS AWFUL! On a scale of 1-10, my rating is between 4. NOTE: Restaurants cut corner's to save money by purchasing less expensive food from their food supplier's; ready-made canned foods and vegetables for a quick & easy heat & serve, salsa's, sauces, and cooked-processed frozen foods. Some Mexican restaurant's are cheeky enough to claim their food to be "authentic". Hmph! I thought that meant home-made. One more thing, unless you like the taste of cloudy, dirty water margarita's, request that your margarita be mixed with one of the following tequila's: Jose Cuervo Especial or Tequila Ocho Plata or Herradura Silver or...