El Chaparral Mexican Restaurant - Helotes — Restaurant in Helotes

Update- OMG! Now this is the restaurant I came to love and enjoy. They under promised and overdelivered tonight. The staff was friendly, the food was delicious, but still no manager came to our table. The bean soup was on point, the rice was seasoned perfectly, and all the food was spectacular. Even though you don't know who I am, other than another customer, keep whatever you did today, going. We will definitely be coming back regularly.

-------------------------‐---------------------------------------------- I called to see how long the wait time was and the person that answered stated it was 30 minutes, but that I should go on yelp and be put on the wait list. I proceeded to yelp, but the waitlist was closed on the app. I called back, someone else answered, I informed them about yelps waitlist, and she proceeded to tell me, "It's first come, first serve" and hung up. Approximately 10 minutes later, when I arrived, the host seemed bothered by people checking in. When I signed in, she told me it was an hour wait. So far, this has been a ridiculous ordeal. Hopefully, the rest of today's visit will turn out better. Update 1- the chips tasted stale and the side of beans, which is always delicious, was mostly water this time. Went from 2 stars to 1 for now. Update 2- our waitress hasn't returned. Not for refills. Not to see if our order was correct nor to see if the food was good. Update 3- our waitress finally stopped by and asked if everything was OK, as she placed our ticket on the table. She didn't ask if we wanted dessert or another beverage. Quite a disappointing visit today. Update 4- adding pics of our watery drink, not full drink, and outlet at the table. Update 5- our waitress took approximately 10-15 minutes to return for our card to pay. The manager on duty usually stops by at least once. Not this time. Today's visit will remain a 1 star. ‐------------------------------------------ After arriving with a positive and hopeful spirit, El Chaparral struck my hopes down. After arriving with the expectation of waiting the usual 30-45 minutes, the time past and I went up to the front to ask about my wait time. They stated I was already seated. The hostess apologized and rectified it rather quickly. They gave out table away to another person by the same name. Not a big problem. She found a table and we were seated within 5 minutes. Our waitress came and took our drink order. We told her we knew what we wanted to eat and were ready to order as well. She told us to hold on... and walked away. Fiveminutes later, she brought our drinks, chips and dip, and walked away again. Another five minutes later she returned and took our order. She walked by several times without saying a word. To us, she seemed bothered to be our waitress. The table next to us must have been her friends, because she spent most of her time with them... until they finished and left. An9ther ten minutes and she walks by and said, "ok. I'll check on your food." At this point I was ready to ask for someone else to take of us. If not for our favorite drinks and delicious fajitas, we would never return. Even when we tried to pay, we were ignored. Such a conundrum... We've gone from having weekly date nights, monthly family dinners, and occasional get together dinners here, to maybe quarterly...

TLDR: Service was so bad I didn't even order or eat.

Detailed Explanation: show up around 2pm on my way in to San Antonio from the hill country to grab some take out. I entered the to go entrance to find no one there. From that position you can see into the restaurant, and in to one of the service stations. The server responsible for the area closest to the take out entry was an older man probably in his late fourties or mid fifties. Short silver hair, pear shaped body, glasses, and bad knees. He saw me, made eye contact with me a few times, and never said a word. He walked around getting stuff for his tables and putting orders in and still no acknowledgement. After about ten to fifteen minutes of waiting with still no employee at the To go counter I asked him "excuse me sir can you let someone know I'm here?" And he just said " yeah he's coming ". About five to eight more minutes pass and and during the wait I witnessed two different servers go into the service station and reach into the baskets of chips that they're giving to customers (they have several lined up under a warming lamp) and then dip the chip into the salsa bowls that are also being given to customers and eat it. Another server brings a burrito on a plate (shift meal I guess) to the service station, sets it right by the chips and salsa for customers and begins eating it. It wasn't wapped up properly and I could see the food falling out on the back end. At this point I flag down another employee and ask them for the manager. They go to get them, the to go kid comes back, I tell him what I saw happening and that neither of the three servers who had seen me had greeted me or asked if I had been helped. I also asked him to get the manager. He brings a manager, female, late 30s to early 40s up and I proceeded to explain both the lack of professionalism if not greeting the patrons, and then two servers eating out of the very same baskets of chips and bowls of salsa that they are delivering to their customers.

I have been in the service industry for 25 years I explained and absolutely none of that is acceptable. I told her that it was essentially her fault because it is her responsibility to make sure the staff is both professional attentive and following proper food handling practices.

Absolutely disgusting. I have been in San Antonio for 11 years and finally decided to give them a try because I had heard from family the food is good but after seeing that I will absolutely make sure that no one I know makes the mistake of eating in such a disgusting place where the service staff are feeding you food they've eaten out of, are eating right next to your food, and don't have the common decency to at least say 'hi have you been helped' or 'someone will be with you in a moment' .

Proper practice would have been to take my order and go give it to the guy or put it in for him since he was prepping a massive order.

Do yourself a favor, go somewhere that cares where the staff...

Rarely leave a review but had to do it, hoping someone at the restaraunt who cares reads this.....been here many times, typically for convenience. Have always enjoyed the beans, spot on. Never came for breakfast until today. Walk in, hostess seemed half asleep, but it's cool, it's a Saturday morning at 9am, whatever. Sit down, takes about 5 minutes for my server, I ask for a margarita, guilty as charged. The server has to ask manager if it's OK since it's just after 9am. Comes back and says as long as I order food, which was already in my gameplan. Maybe this place is different but everywhere else in this magnificent city it isn't an issue or discussion on a Saturday morning.......whatever. that really didn't bother me.......but what did bother me was my plate of food. I ordered what I typically order for breakfast at every Mexican restaurant, huevos rancheros, eggs over easy, wasnt asked if I wanted bacon or the red sauce, it is what it is.....Get the plate.... beans, potatoes, eggs. Ok.... Cut into the eggs, well done, no runniness, no juice, just jelled up stiff yoke. Beans were crusty and dry like they were leftovers from the day before, potatoes were your typical. No flavor on the plate. Like I said I order the same plate everywhere I go and I always get eggs with runny yoke, fresh beans and potatoes, typically asked if I want a side of bacon and red sauce on top, I really do....didn't get that here, first time ever, I swear on it. Again, don't leave reviews, don't complain. We as a family go out to eat alot and we either return to the establishment or we cross it off our list if we have more than one bad experience. I've come here alot, many times and had great times, especially outside on the patio, probably 50 times for dinner for the past 20 years, but never for breakfast. If I have a bad experience somewhere I always give it a second shot and I'm gonna do that, I'm gonna return for breakfast and gonna leave a review after I eat, only seems like the right thing to do, give it a second shot. I like this place, I hope the huevos rancheros are awesome the second time around. Gonna leave 4 stars, hoping my next review I...