El Loro Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Coon Rapids

This was a very disappointing visit. El Loro is me and my husband's favorite Mexican restaurant and visit it quite often, but this visit was by far the worst experience we have had at El Loro, and it definitely has us questioning if we will ever return. Where do I begin, as we were seated at the table that was dirty and full of hair also was out of place so we had to not only clean the table we had to adjust the table so it could fit against the wall. She just threw the menus on the table and walked away. She later returned asked what we would like to drink before we could even finish saying what we wanted she was walking away. That was the first glimpse of her bad customer service/ rudeness. She came back with our drinks about 10 minutes later. We ordered our food asked for two plates. And also ordered a extra side of beans and extra side of rice. This is where it gets really bad. The the rice and beans come out first. The plates were hot but the rice and the beans were ice cold and not just cold the rice was hard you could look at it and tell it was old. How does rice come out freezing cold on a hot burning plate? Lol now we still have not gotten our entrees. So if they weren't cold they were going to be cold by the time our food came.. so our food finally makes it out. When it arrives we did not get the second plate we asked for but not only that are chicken was cut into pieces. We got chori Pollo if you don't know what that is it's chicken breast with chorizo on top and cheese. Are chickens cut up in pieces, all the years that we have been going here it has never been cut in pieces. And not just that you could look at it and tell that the chorizo was old and dry. It had charred marks on it , it was very dry. There was barely any cheese. And if there was cheese we couldn't tell because everything was already cut up into pieces. After our food came to our table are server never came back to our table. We needed refills we didn't have any napkins. And if we did need anything else we were not accommodated. She was nowhere in sight. As a server the rule is you always check back after the food gets dropped off at the table. To make sure everything is okay or to see if the customer needs anything else. So even if we wanted to ask for remake of the food we couldn't because she wasn't nowhere to be found. So instead of complaining we just ate. I decided to leave a review and contact them through email. We have been going to El Loro for years. We have NEVER had a bad experience! So this was really upsetting as it being our favorite Mexican restaurant now we don't think we would want to go back. How do you drop off food at a table and never appear again to check on your customer? The food has always been great every time we go. But this time it's like the plates was reheated the whole thing. Nothing was fresh everything was dried out. As you can see from my review 2 months ago about this place it was great I gave it five stars. If it was just one thing I may not have complained. But for the food to be horrible and the service to be even worse I have to complain. It's like a double whammy. . It's always a big let down when you look forward to going to get some of your favorite food and you leave full but not satisfied full. And you think about how you just wasted your money on food and service that wasn't worth it. I believe they knew that food was not acceptable and that's why they cut it in pieces. So we could not see how dried out it was. But I could go on and on about how upset I am I'm actually really more let down and disappointed like I said it's one of our favorite spots. Now we look at it a total different way. But I wanted to let my friends on Google know to be aware her name is Maria. But the receipt says Elena. So just watch out for both if you get her as a server. My grandma now they will be getting an...

I have been going to El Loro for 15 years and today will be the last visit for many reasons. We came for dinner and from the moment we walked in the door to the time our food was served, we had 6 different people help us and not a single one seemed to know what the other was doing. We were sat by one person, our drink order was taken by another, our food order by another, our food was brought to us by another person (who screamed and yelled for the food she forgot over the bar into the kitchen for about 30 seconds then came and slammed it down on our table), and we asked for chips and water from another - who apparently did not relay the message because no one came before or after to help us, despite the the restaurant not being busy and not a one of the six people who came to our table previously could be seen helping other tables. Sadly, the most helpful and polite person was the little girl who gave us our chips - who sadly looked like she wasn't even old enough to be working. The very last straw cam just before we were seated. They turned over the table where we were sat, but left a napkin in the corner by the condiments. I reached for it and was stabbed in the hand with a dirty toothpick. I was done at that point, but extra done after the awful service.

In the past, I have visited with groups of people and family and have always been treated very poorly and abruptly by the taller, thin server. He is dismissive toward women and very confrontational and rude. He acts almost as if he feels inconvenienced by the simple fact that a patron expects a minimal level of service (the example that I'm thinking of specifically is when I visited with a group of girlfriends and there was a hair in our queso. He said "well it wasn't there before" - as if we had schemed to put hair in our own food - and refused to bring out a new bowl. He also put a lime in my friend's beer even though she asked him not to because she was allergic to them, and when she asked for a new one without even drinking any he pretty much told her she was a liar and to pick it out. Despite all of this, he responds to my husband less coldly, but with less contradiction and superiority...).

That being said, I have never experienced a bad meal there. The food is always good. I have ordered take-out frequently because I simply don't want to deal with the chaos and unfriendliness that is there waitstaff.

However, there are many other Mexican food restaurants in the area with comparable food and prices, that might periodically check in on the table to see if anything is additionally needed after the order is served, and quite possibly - I know this is a stretch as a customer to expect this from the the service industry - act with tact and courtesy. If you ask me, I'd say skip them. Their service is about as dead as the occupants of the...

My family had been to this El Loro before, but the past 2 times we went the service was just atrocious. Both times toward the end of our meal we simply no longer could find our waiter. The first time this happened, they told us he had gone to the store.... We had literally waited 20 minutes before asking someone else where our waiter was. At that point they handed us the check without asking us if we needed anything else. The second time, all of a sudden a woman came to our table and asked us if we wanted our check. This was while we were still eating. We told her that we actually wanted to ask our waiter for fried ice cream when we finished eating. It was at this point that she told us he was no longer there and she would be helping us. Well, she didn't help us at all because even after we had mentioned wanting fried ice cream she forgot about us for another half hour before coming back to ask if we were ready for our check. How do the waiters keep disappearing at this place? Our visits were a couple of months apart, and I just can't believe this happened to us twice. We will never go back there. Both times this happened, our original waiter was fantastic, then all of a sudden we had awful service and were...