El Limon Havertown — Restaurant in Haverford Township

Very Disappointing Father's Day Experience with Poor Service and Cold Food

We chose this El Limon in Havertown for a Father's Day (early) dinner with our family of six, and unfortunately, it turned out to be a huge disappointment.

To start, we were seated quickly, which seemed promising, especially since the restaurant was not yet busy at all. However, things went downhill fast. We sat at our table for 15 minutes before a waitress, who frankly looked quite unkempt and disheveled, finally came over. She dropped off only two menus (for six people), didn’t ask for our drink orders, and didn’t bring any water. Despite having four servers walking around, none of them paid any attention to us. We had to wave someone down just to get water.

It continued to go poorly from there. We had to call the waitress back just to place our order. Because everything was taking so long, we didn’t even get a chance to order appetizers first—we just went straight to mains to avoid more delay. Even so, our food took forever to arrive.

When it finally did, the problems kept piling up. My parents’ tacos came out incorrectly. They had specifically asked for tacos with beans, but the kitchen replaced the beans with rice without telling us. We flagged this, and eventually the beans were brought out. But then came the most frustrating part—my husband’s fajitas never arrived. We waited, asked about it, and the waitress suddenly reappeared with them—cold. It was clear the dish had been sitting around and was simply forgotten. We sent it back.

Shockingly, when the fajita dish was returned, it was still cold—so cold, in fact, that my husband could hold the bottom of the cast iron pan with his bare hands. We sent them back for good. No apology, no offer to replace the dish, no manager involvement—nothing. We had to involve another server just to order something else. That person was polite and tried to help, but gave a half-hearted excuse that the staff was "short-handed and very busy." That’s simply not true because when we arrived, the restaurant was clearly not busy, and there were plenty of staff around doing very little.

As a result of all this, my husband left without eating a meal, just nibbling on the nachos and salsa we had ordered for the table. My father was so upset by the situation that he didn’t finish his own food either. We were trying to enjoy a special family dinner, and instead, we left frustrated, disappointed, and still hungry.

To make matters worse, we had to repeatedly ask for basic things like napkins, spoons, water refills, straws and the sauces that should have automatically been served with our meals.

It's clear that this location prioritizes take-out orders over customers dining in, which explains the incredibly slow and inattentive service. Between the cold food, poor communication, lack of accountability, and complete disregard for basic hospitality, this was one of the worst dining experiences we've had in a long time.

We will absolutely not be returning to this location, and I cannot recommend it to anyone seeking decent service or accurate orders. We decided to try this location because it’s larger and closer to home, but unfortunately, it was a disappointing experience from start to finish.

In contrast, the El Limon on Montgomery Avenue has consistently provided much better service and food quality. We took a chance on this new spot for Father’s Day, hoping for a nice meal, but instead ended up with a frustrating experience that genuinely ruined the day. That’s not something a restaurant should...

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