El Coyote Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Gurley

2 (closer to 2.5) stars, with the caveat that this is really not the type of Mexican food I typically enjoy.

Came here for lunch with a bunch of my co-workers before attending a continuing education opportunity. There were, I wanna say, eight of us in total. I dunno if anyone tried to get a reservation beforehand, but even if they hadn't, they weren't super busy at 11 on a Thursday, so I don't think getting a table would've been a problem either way.

This is sort of what I view as the "standard" Mexican restaurant, at least in the Huntsville area. Mostly some variation of burrito, taco, enchilada, etc. is served with rice and beans and communal chips and salsa. A few other items, like fajitas, taco salad, or flautas are also available. They do have a fairly large, reasonably priced lunch menu, or at least I thought so. Drinks and additional dips add up quickly though, so I learned.

Service was friendly and polite, but kind of slow and inattentive, especially considering they weren't busy. It took a long time for anyone to ask what we wanted to order, and a long time for anyone to ask if we wanted our checks. Drink refills and condiments were also slow. Checks did come out quickly once we requested them, so that was nice enough.

I opted to get the chicken and rice from the lunch menu. I really did want to go something a little more adventurous, but I also wanted to save $$ and it was the most appealing item on the lunch menu to me. I had a Pepsi to drink and ordered a small cup of cheese dip just for myself, as I was recovering from the sniffles and didn't want to share my germs with anyone else on accident.

The food was pretty much exactly as you'd expect, although I was honestly pretty surprised at how bland it was. I mean, granted, chicken and rice isn't necessarily ever an explosion of flavor, but the chicken just wasn't seasoned much and the rice was mushy and not at all flavorful. The cheese dip did have the tiniest hint of heat, so at least that was enjoyable.

A big point of frustration for me was the price / unclear receipt. It was not AT ALL clear whether an automatic gratuity was added to the receipt for our large party. I guess I should've just assumed it was, since that's somewhat common practice.

Don't get me wrong -- I always tip, and I WANT to tip. I genuinely do not mind if there is an automatic gratuity. But it feels confusing and a little manipulative when it's UNCLEAR whether there's an automatic gratuity. I wound up tossing on a few extra bucks just to be sure our waiter got a tip (despite fairly blah service), but thinking back on the price (a little over $24 for what I thought was going to be a fairly cheap lunch), in retrospect it seems almost impossible that there wasn't an automatic gratuity. And if I'd known 100% that I was gonna be charged that, I probably wouldn't have added on more tip. I dunno, I guess it's also partially on me for not asking, but it still left me feeling miffed.

Personally, I highly doubt I'll return here, but I understand options are a little limited in the area, and they do have some fun sounding specials like bingo or trivia night on certain days. Just watch out for...

This place is normally a great place to eat but not for us tonight. We ordered our drinks and then food. My son was eating the chips and salsa while we waited on our food, but it was taking a little longer tonight which is fine but we asked for more water for son and the waiter passed us up several times and about 10-15 minutes goes by and still no water, so I just yup and went to some other host and asked and got it right off.(reason son’s mouth was burning from salsa) We got our food and mine was missing the white cheese sauce that I ordered extra. I didn’t say anything cause I’m like whatever I can eat it without. My sons fries were cold and I found a about 2-21/2inch black hair in my food. When the waiter came around he looked at me and asked if everything was ok and I quietly told him there was a black hair and showed him, he looked up at me and looked straight at my hair. Definitely not mine,(I have long lighter colored hair) he then asked me do I want more food and I’m like no I’m good and that it kind of turned my stomach. (It would with anyones even mine) We went out to the car and told the person that paid to make sure they don’t charge extra for the cheese sauce and to see if they would knock off some of the price since it couldn’t be eaten.(most places does) but the waiter said that there was cheese sauce and it was put on top but I know for a fact there wasn’t and charged the full price. I guess if I raised a scene and got loud where a lot of people could here that they have hair in food maybe they would have given a discount. I should have stayed in when it was time to pay since we were in a group, but we definitely will not be back.it costs way to much to go out and eat to have hair in food...

My wife and I went to el coyote at 02/25 at 2:45 pm. We were served by a bald headed young man(owner/manager?) My wife ordered #4 lunch special and I tried to order the burrito mano without the green sauce. The man told me in semi-broken english that the red wasn't as spicy so I said ok. He brings out my wife's #4 and my burrito mano with green sauce on it after the discussion we'd already had on spicy sauce. He attempted to tell me I ordered it that way and when I said no I ordered the red on your recommendation, he said no the red was spicier. I told him I didn't want spicy as I had told him before when he took the order. We agreed on cheese only, he begrudgingly agreed and took my burrito mano back to the kitchen. He came back out to our table with the same burrito mano he'd taken to the kitchen previously. He'd just scraped as much of the green sauce off and had tried to cover it up with cheese. I showed him and after he finally admitted what he'd done, I told him that was a violation of the health code to serve food that way. I explained if food leaves the table you cannot bring it back out to the customer. I told him I was going to pay for the #4 my wife had and we would be leaving. My bill was $8.98. I hope this kind of deception isn't the way they do business but if someone will deceive in one form they'll usually attempt it in another. My wife and I used to be customers but...