El Torito Cafe — Restaurant in Henderson

I have heard all types of hype about this dump at the end of boulder highway for years from my in laws and wife. I’ve driven by it for even longer thinking that it looks like a dump a and for some strange reason, I decided to go there for Father’s Day with my wife, kids , and my father in law (because that’s where he picked) . We had made reservations prior and upon arrival were seated promptly, but getting our drink order and then food orders in took an absorbent amount of time to say the least. For starters, two of the drinks came wrong and one was missing.once corrected, while eating stale and store bought tortilla chips with bad tasting salsa which clearly came from a store bought bucket ,it took fifty minutes to receive our food (which came spaced out for about ten more minutes) some in our party of five started to eat so their food would not get cold while the rest of us were forced to wait ) when my food came I remember thinking to myself “this enchilada sized $15 dollar plus Chile verde burrito tasted nothing like any pork chile verde that I have ever had and was shredded instead of being chunks was an insult to Mexican food” . I sent it back and watched everyone else finish ,except for my son, who had a tamale that was for sure from a box bought in the frozen section at the local super center. I let him not eat...lucky him lol. After this, the unfriendly head of the restaurant who took our order adjusted our bill to reflect the food that was sent back. Upon receiving the bill back, I noticed that they had charged us an “ automatic gratuity charge” .There was no way that I was going to leave a full tip after our experience. When I asked about it, she said there is a mandatory charge for parties of six or more. Besides us only being a party of five, this was not posted anywhere in the restaurant.They finally corrected it and before leaving I took my kids in to use their restroom which was smelly and dirty. They had a filthy rag stuffed into the ceiling fan and a toilet seat for the wrong type of toilet installed on the comode . We held our breath and went to wash our hands when we found that there was no soap.think about the staff preparing your food with unwashed hands... never again will I go to this vile...

Cannot recommend. Went there for dinner tonight, they were a little busy when we arrived but only had to wait about 10 minutes before being seated. Staff seemed friendly enough, were served chips and salsa and our drinks and placed our order. Husband's soup was brought out and then, nothing. After 30 minutes our waitress whizzed by and said she would check on our food. In the meantime we ate some of the chips and salsa which was nothing exciting. Chips were bland (how about a little salt?) and salsa had no heat whatsoever. After another 40 minutes our food finally showed up (the waitress never came back after she said she would check on our order), and at this point the amount of patrons in the restaurant had greatly diminished, not busy at all. The tacos are horrid! Extremely greasy, the shredded beef has no flavor (again, adding some salt while cooking would be a good idea), was chewy and tough and then the pre-grated, thick industrial American cheese on top was disgusting. The chicken tacos were the same, disgusting grease and cheese and flavorless chewy tough chicken. The only item that seemed to be okay was my husband's green chile pork stew but I didn't taste it so I can't vouch for it, that was his comment (at least it had some spice, per him). Oh, and the meatball was rubbery in his soup. Overall it took over an hour to receive our food after ordering which is not acceptable when they were not that busy. I've had way better Mexican food elsewhere and cannot recommend this place. Go elsewhere. Oh, and the seats in the booths need industrial steam cleaning ASAP, a bit disgusting to sit in. And to finish it off, they asked if we wanted take away boxes for the uneaten tacos and we declined and the waitress seemed a little miffed that we didn't want the leftovers....

I’m really not sure how someone can eat here and give 5 stars, unless you’ve never eaten Mexican food before. I’ve been curios for a few years now to try the place. I know it’s been around a long time and seemed to have a good reputation behind it. I didn’t expect the world from it but I at least expected some good authentic homemade family style Mexican food. I was kind of shocked what I got. Chips and salsa that was straight from the grocery store. Tasted and looked like Tostitos chips directly from the bag , along with salsa that tasted exactly like store bought picante. How do you serve that at a supposed “authentic” place. I was tempted to leave, but thought there was no way the meals would be like this. Food came and exactly as I had feared. EVERYTHING tasted like it was straight from the can. Bland, flavorless and overall just not good. There was nothing fresh about it. The beef for the enchiladas was overcooked and inedible that it wasn’t even funny along with enchilada sauce that made my stomach start to turn.

The only somewhat positive I can say was that the crunchy chicken taco was passable, and the server was pretty friendly. When we said it was not good and barely touched he didn’t hesitate to take care of the meals at no charge so I do give credit there. Maybe if it was a fast food place at half the price my opinion wouldn’t be as harsh but this was...