Guapo's Restaurant — Restaurant in Gaithersburg

Please avoid this place at all costs, there are plenty of better restaurant options at Rio that are worth your money and of actual quality.

I came here with 4 friends on Sunday night and the entire experience from start to end was utterly awful. First of all, I know the demand for this restaurant is quite high, but that does not mean you shove a table in every inch and corner of the restaurant seemingly possible. It was an extremely uncomfortable and inaccessible environment. Bumping into other tables and waiters that had to narrowly pass by holding trays of foods and drinks felt like a completely unacceptable safety hazard.

Our waiter Ulisses was also so incredibly rude from the start to finish of our service. We had not even been sat for a MINUTE and he came to our table to take our order, and showed an attitude that we were not ready to order yet, we were also still waiting for another party member to arrive. He never once greeted or introduced himself like all waiters I have had in the past have done. It felt like he just wanted to just rush through having our table. He came around again maybe 15-20 minutes later to take our order, and we did not see our food for maybe close to an hour. Now I understand that the restaurant was extremely busy, but again a good server will usually check up on their table to make sure everyone is okay and will let them know that that the food should be coming out in x amount of time.

The food finally came out and everyone at my table noticed the poor quality in their dishes. Nothing was tasting no where near the worthiness of the price we were paying. What really struck us all was the Chips and Queso a party member ordered as an appetizer that was brought out with our dishes so late. This chips and queso was cold, and immensely lacked a taste/flavor. Noting the restaurant’s busy status, we were a bit reluctant to explain to our waiter that the queso was not good by any means.

Towards the end of our dinner, we finally decided that it worth mentioning to our waiter and asked politely for compensation as the dish was barely touched, but also noted that it would be fine to accept the dish as it was if nothing could be done. At this point, Ulisses showed a disgusting attitude and spat that he had been constantly visiting our table and asked rudely why he had not been told before about the queso. The truth is, he came to our table maybe twice at best and was not friendly at all, so no one wanted to complain. He continued to ask if we wanted the queso warmed up, which I believe is an unacceptable solution. A proper waiter would have offered to have it freshly remade, not “warmed up”. That is so cheap and unprofessional, especially coming from a restaurant as as busy and profitable as Guapos. We declined to have the queso warmed up and he removed the dish from our table without saying anything.

Finally, our separate checks come to the table and we all notice we are charged a 20% large party fee. I’m sorry, since when are 5 people considered a “large party”? We asked Ulisses about the charge, and he said it was his tip that he included on his own without permission and offered to remove it if we wished. Upon reviewing our checks, we noticed that the chips and queso were STILL on the bill. We were expecting him to bring out a new and fresh order, thus we paid for it. When we asked where the queso is, he put words in our mouth and said we asked him to remove it from the table since we did not want it rewarmed. At this point I am beyond furious. How on earth is he expecting this to be paid for despite removing it from our table, again almost completely untouched and without permission?! We simply asked for it to be removed from the bill IF POSSIBLE, and he completely misconstrued our request. Since the dish was paid for at this time, he was refusing to give us our rightfully owned and paid for property.

He started to fight with us over nonsense and BS excuses he was making on the fly. He deserved zero tip and needs to be held accountable for his poor service and actions...

The food here is honestly very good 90% of the time. I have come here with others maybe… over ten times at this point? Once in restaurant, and the rest of the time getting takeout. We have been consistently getting the Pot O Grande, which is a lot of food and solid value.

In terms of dining in restaurant, I personally wouldn’t recommend it. For me, it was incredibly busy— and loud as a result. While we were there, there were apparently THREE birthdays, which results in drums and singing and genuinely a deafening experience. If you get overwhelmed by noise, I wouldn’t come here. Additionally, it took REALLY LONG for our food to come out. Like, at least 30 minutes. We were starving, of course, and requested more chips & salsa twice— the second time, the waiter was like “are you sure? The food will come out soon” like YES I AM SURE I am so. hungry.

The pot o grande itself is great. I really enjoy the fajitas, but PERSONALLY I don’t like the ribs at all. Half of the meat on the ribs is tough and hard, and the meat that is soft is bland and flavorless. This is just my opinion, since my boyfriend seems to enjoy them. I also do really like the bacon wrapped shrimp. The one time we came in restaurant we also had another appetizer— I don’t know what it’s called— and it was pretty solid.

Now for the reason I’m rating it only four stars. The amount of toppings you get with the pot o grande is incredibly small. It’s enough for maybe two tortilla wraps, and if you ask for more? You get charged. Genuinely… what??? I’m actually tired of restaurants constantly citing price hikes and covid-19 as reason to raise their prices AND ALSO still expect you to pay extra for other things. Like the greed… is real. I just want to note that at Uncle Julios, when getting fajitas, they don’t charge you for extra tortillas or toppings (the last time I went).

Additionally… there is some inconsistency whenever we get the Pot O’Grande for takeout. There’s supposed to be six shrimps, but more often than not, we get five. Sometimes we don’t get enough veggies on the bottom. And sometimes we get a lot of toppings (yay!!) and sometimes we get barely any. Also, the most recent time we ordered, the tortillas were hard and also messed up, which I didn’t appreciate.

Next, when we were in restaurant, we were served this smoky salsa that my boyfriend really enjoyed. When picking up our takeout, we have sometimes asked for a small serving of the smoky salsa, and it’s like $5. I don’t understand why this is extra. How much does it cost the restaurant? Maybe 50 cents in materials? Sometimes, the servers/workers look soo giddy when they say you have to pay extra. I feel like this should just come included… we are already spending 80 bucks.

TLDR: pros: food tastes great most of the time! cons: crowded (could be a pro), inconsistency, slow service when crowded, have to pay for extra toppings...

Hello, I ordered here several times and I get the chicken burrito bowl. I am a disabled Customer and when I go to Guapo to eat or to do pick up orders, I feel like I am ignored or unheard and treated dismissively. Including Other restaurants just because of my disability I believe this is unfair after I’ve paid money and they still treat me that way and I don’t accommodate any of my request that I asked for and I believe that my request were accommodated today simply because I ordered it over the phone and they were not able to tell that I was a disabled person that was gonna come in.

Also approximately maybe two or three years ago, I came in for a burrito chicken bowl, but they gave me a Chicken burrito and I’m not trying to be disrespect for anything but when I call this restaurant, a lot of the staff have Accent and it’s hard to understand them so they must’ve misunderstood me which the manager Upset about for them messing up my order, even though it wasn’t my fault. And I believe That set the negative attitude for the staff Work there towards me and I believe that This is totally unfair.

Normally, I don’t write reviews, but I don’t feel like the manager would listen to me anyway. And I’ve always wanted to Somebody else that doesn’t have a maybe heavy Spanish style accent I felt like I couldn’t say anything because I don’t wanna be treated further I kept it to myself, but because I continued to treat me in an ignorant dismissive and unheard manner, I felt I had no choice but to write a review since I can’t express how my experience was with the manager since he already gave me a negative attitude and showcase negative behaviour simply because it was their mistake. And for anyone that claims, if you don’t like it, don’t go there then all the restaurants have a negative Just because I’m disabled so it’s...