El Patron Grill — Restaurant in Elizabethtown

Let me first start off with my experience in food. I’ve worked in the industry for quite some time and now own a successful chain of restaurants. I’ve never had worse service at any restaurant than at this one. I tried to work with the staff members, particularly Raul.

He was a very aggressive member of the staff who spoke broken English. When I realized that, I tried to compensate by speaking Spanish. I’ve spoken the language for around a decade now and have worked with many members of my restaurants who only speak Spanish, as well as Spanish-speaking clientele. Raul, however, would not have it. He told me to stop trying to speak Spanish and claimed I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was taken aback and apologized, but he brushed it off and told us to order our food or leave. I asked for an appetizer, which he reluctantly wrote down before walking away. We never received any drinks. I even asked another member of the waitstaff for some water because it was a warm day and my wife is pregnant. She was eventually given water, but by that point we had already been waiting thirty minutes to order.

A couple of other staff members asked if we were ready to order or if they could help us, but we politely declined and said we were waiting for Raul. I felt bad for him, as he looked very upset when he came to our table and, in an unpleasant tone, nearly yelled at us asking if we were ready to order.

I asked about our appetizer — the El Patron Fries — and he rolled his eyes and walked away. About ten minutes later, he returned with the fries, which were cold, and walked away again. We took a couple of bites and decided it wasn’t our favorite, so we set it aside.

Eventually, Raul came back and we gave him our order: I asked for the Special Number Fifteen, and my wife asked for the Special Number Six from the lunch menu. He told us they weren’t serving lunch and that it was dinner time — at 2:30 PM. I was confused, as I’ve never been to a restaurant that stopped serving lunch that early.

We asked what they were serving instead, and he replied with something in half-Spanish. I believe he said something vulgar, and then asked for the menus. Thinking he was going to show us something, I handed him mine — and he took both mine and my wife’s menus and walked away.

We weren’t rude at all, and my wife had barely said anything beyond “please” and “thank you” to Raul the entire time.

We eventually asked another waitress for our check because we had decided to leave. As we were getting ready to go, Raul abruptly stopped us and asked where we were going. He began accusing us of making a mess at the table, which we absolutely did not do. The only thing left was my wife’s glass, which we had placed at the edge of the table by the basket of fries for easy pickup.

He told us we hadn’t paid for our meal and said he would call the police. By that time, the waitress told him she was checking us out and that everything was okay. He stormed off anyway. We asked the waitress if Raul was alright, and she simply said, “He should be fine.”

Eventually, Raul came back with a receipt demanding we pay $30 for the meal — even though we only received the fries and a glass of water. The waitress at the hostess stand fixed the ticket, and we left. Unfortunately, we did not leave a tip for the service or the food.

We will not be returning to this establishment. We were visiting family and are just grateful that we didn’t bring any of them with us, as this was a miserable experience.

Raul is a poor example of customer service, but we did appreciate the rest of the staff. They were kind, helpful, and checked in with us often. I am giving one star solely due to Raul’s behavior. I hope anyone considering going to this location reads this and thinks twice — especially if Raul is...

We never in my life come here again . I’m from a big city . My husband is from this small town. I see why he acts they way he do when coming back home . I came in alone to get a late lunch . Trust me I only came cause my husband say this is a good place to eat if you like food more from my country . I have it a try . When coming I walked in and the place was empty . That’s not a problem for me cause I don’t like a crowd . I was greeted barley but was greeted . I was instructed to sit where ever I liked . I was given a menu after 10 mins of walking in . An couple with 2 children walked in around that 10 minute make . They ordered after me ma some how some way these ppl received they food before me . I only ordered a soup and an side lol . This is where I see why my husband don’t like coming home let’s just say those certain people that they fooled way before me and they were treated very different. I guess I’m just a little too brown for them. Food was cold I was told soup was being made from scratch. This is why my food was being given to me late when I received my food, it was room temperature, so it’s no way it was being cooked in any type of way. It was literally sat there cause whenever you get soup whenever you order soup and it’s lukewarm that means it’s been sitting my brown skin offends them. I guess that’s what North Carolina is about especially this town would never come back here again, nor waste my money to eat here from. Whoever this guy is greeting and serving ppl is very racist . Either they need to hire another person or get the business together. The fact my own Latino ppl would treat me like this is definitely crazy and weird . Hope he enjoyed the good tip I left for him, even though the service was trash and the food was not at all close to home. All I have to say if you have a tint to you DON’T GO HERE!!! You’re better off spending your money where...

My visit here had my feelings conflicted at the beginning because we went in and were seated and then we ordered our drinks and got those and placed our order and while we were waiting for the food we asked our waiter for a refill on the salsa and he walked on like he didn’t hear us then he came back later and sat it down and kept walking without saying a word or seeing if we needed anything else ( we did ) our drinks were out but we waited then asked him again when he was walking by and he again walked on like he didn’t hear us and came back when he felt like it to give us drinks then the food arrived and after that I had burned my finger on the fajita plate and was hurting like nobody’s business so I stop the man and asked him did he have something like soy sauce to put on my finger and I explained what happened and he said no but sour cream I’ll go get you some and he did quickly and I must say it immediately took the burn out and idk what happened in that time but the whole attitude of the place changed and we didn’t have a single issue beyond that point best thing though was the food it was so good I would highly recommend this place to...