El Metate - Knoxville's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Halls Crossroads

We went for dinner and had margaritas and vegetarian food. It was a complete disappointment in EVERY way. We had a waitress or waiter, we're not sure which, named Alex G. who kept us waiting for every single thing. We ordered skinny margaritas and whoever made them didn't have the first clue how to make a skinny margarita. They were horrible and definitely not skinny! When we sat down, we waited for awhile for our waiter or waitress person. We waited forever for the drinks, then we waited for this Alex person to come back and take our order, then we waited forever for boxes, which it took us getting up to find this person to ask several times for boxes and when we found her or him, she or he was laughing with another employee instead of doing her job. There was almost nobody in the restaurant, so we didn't understand what was taking so long for everything.

Also, there are signs everywhere saying "We ask for ID no matter what and how old" (or something like that), but they never asked for our ID's! Granted we are in our 50's, but still with signs everywhere saying that, you'd think they'd do it. Alex G didn't ask for any ID. She was nice, and took the correct orders, but she was hard to find during our stay. She also never checked to see if we liked our food or not. She kept walking away when we would ask her for something and it was just a mess. How about when we ask for something, look around to see if there's anything else that's needed, ask the customer if you can get anything else so that you're not wasting your time running back and forth for small things. It's called time management.

The food was decent. It didn't wow us, but it wasn't horrible either. It was decent.

The atmosphere is cold and dingy. Whoever decorated didn't know what they were doing, the floors were dark and dirty and nothing matched. But whatever to that. That's not the most important thing, but if you're looking for a place based on atmosphere, you won't find it here. The bathrooms were absolutely horrible. I went in the bathroom and there was an employee in there who had come out of a stall, didn't flush and never washed her hands!!! Glad she wasn't my waitress!!!!!

In conclusion, the service is horrible, the drinks are horrible.... the worst actually, the atmosphere is very dirty, cold and dark, and the food is decent. The people were nice, yes, Alex G. was nice, but very inefficient and not a very good waitress. They don't wash their hands when going to the bathroom, so be careful. That's just unsanitary and gross! So, there you go. An honest review. Take it or leave it.

There are PLENTY of Mexican restaurants that actually have great food and drinks, wash their hands, and have way better of an atmosphere, so we will continue to go there, but we will NOT...

The food was good. The service was HORRIBLE. We will never eat here again. We didn’t receive the appetizer we ordered, we were missing one side of rice, I got beef on my tacos when I asked for beans and my husband never received a refill on his drink. None of this bothered us, until management questioned us when we politely asked to get the appetizer and side rice taken off our bill. I didn’t even mention getting the wrong tacos and never getting refills. I get that mistakes happen, and we would have been back to try again had I not spoken with management. All I wanted was the $9 worth of food that I never got taken off. She was rude and she actually went over to our table and came back and said “we will take the appetizer off, but you did receive rice, I saw it on the table”. I told her my meal and my husbands meal was supposed to come with rice and then we ordered my toddler some and that we only received rice on my husbands plate and one other side of rice. None was on my plate so I assumed that was my side of rice that came with my full priced meal, as I should expect. She gave me a look like I was lying and again repeated that she checked my table and the small plate on top was rice. I’ve never been questioned by management over a $2 plate of rice. I told her to charge me whatever she wanted and I would never be back and she didn’t even apologize. That’s not the way you treat customers if you want to stay in business. My friends and family will be warned of the rude service here. And I hope anyone reading this might choose somewhere else with similar food and much...

Worst food I have ever eaten, manager has an IQ of -5. We ordered a bowl of queso, came out cold. Chicken nachos were worse than dog food, I have had canned chicken that tasted better than that garbage they tried to pass off as edible. The ground beef is clearly frozen and old, with zero flavor. Chimichanga was equally disgusting with gallons of grease pouring out, the sad thing is the grease was the only thing that had any flavor. Also the drinks were 90% water. When I talked to the manager he offered no price cut, and tried to say no one had complained it was just me, and was beyond rude and did not care at all that a customer wasn’t satisfied with their experience. The people who have given this place 5 stars have no tastebuds or was absolutely plastered when they ate there. Overall terrible place to eat, take your money anywhere but here. I didn’t even take the food home to feed it to my dogs( we only ate a few bites and decided to leave because it was so awful) if that tells you how disgusting it was. Also the bland and undercooked chicken made my girlfriend get sick because of their terrible preparation and overall garbage quality. Honestly could’ve went to McDonald’s and gotten better service and better quality food than at el metate. That’s pretty sad when a McDonald’s has better service and food than a so called “restaurant” if you want Mexican food around the halls area, drive an extra 15 minutes and eat at don...