El Palenque — Restaurant in Houston

We have been going to this restaurant for about 20 years and tonights service was the worst I have ever experienced at any restaurant that I can remember. Our server seemed confused, frazzled, and completely un-interested in making sure our table was taken care of.

First, we asked for queso flamedo.... our server brought out a big bowl of queso. When we told him that is not what we asked for he started arguing with us and said he also had the queso flamedo coming out. We told him we did not need two big bowls of cheese and to take the queso away since we didn’t ask for it and he seemed extremely aggravated.

We knew we were on a time constraint and wanted to put our order in with our appetizer but he would never stay at the table long enough to take our dinner order. We finally managed to order three plates of papa nachos. We understand it takes about 20 minutes for this dish. We have ordered this countless times over the last 20 years. However 45 minutes later we still did not have our food. It was a Friday night and the restaurant was not completely full and our server had several small tables but he didn’t have any large tables that would have pushed our order to the back. After we had been there for an hour we asked him to put our meals in to go containers as we didn’t have time to eat at the restaurant since the food never came to our table. Then we had to asked several times for our check. There were no apologies from our waiter at any time. He never came back to the table to ever refill our water glasses.

I think what bothers me the most is when my husband went to go speak with a manager about this horrible service the manager started arguing with my husband and told him if he didn’t like it then he didn’t need to come back—-Mind you we have been coming to this restaurant for longer than that Manager has been old enough to work. I have never been so insulted at a restaurant before....and of all places....a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant.

We had legitimate reasons to be upset and this manager did absolutely nothing in the way to try to smooth things over. When our server saw my husband talking to the manager he ran over there to interfere with the discussion and further complicate issues. We were having to argue with management at this restaurant about the poor service we were given.

We will indeed follow the instructions of the manager and never go there again. And I will make sure everybody knows about our experience so they will not patronize an establishment that clearly doesn’t care about rectifying...

This was the first time I have eaten here. My son took his Dad and I out for my birthday dinner and told us this is his favorite Mexican restaurant. He kept telling us that we wouldn't be disappointed...he was right! Our waiter Mario was phenomenal! Highly attentive, professional, sweet and made us feel like we were his only table he was waiting on. The chips and salsa were amazing...that's a huge indication of how the rest of the food was going to be. The salsa was fresh with just enough kick without burning your mouth. The chips were also fresh and colorful. Red and green tortilla chips were mixed in with regular tortilla chips and that's something I don't see often so that in itself was a nice change. I don't know what type of tea they brew, but I wish I did because I'd make it at home. Omgosh...the chili con queso...off the chain good. I'm skeptical about jalapenos, I could handle the jalapenos that were served alongside the queso. My son ordered his favorite entre called Steak Mexicana. I tried it...again, he wasn't kidding about how good it is. I had the Hugo Fajitas/Plate....it came with a perfectly seasoned and cooked skirt steak, 3 jumbo butterflied shrimp (I think seasoned with Ancho Chili 😍), laid on top of a sizzling skillet with sauteed onions, borracho beans and the best Mexican rice I've ever had (and I've had a lot of Mexican rice). My honey had the El Tejano....we all shared and practically rolled ourselves out with a soft serve ice cream in hand. I highly recommend coming here for amazing Mexican food at...

They refused to seat us because one person in our party asked if she could enter without a mask due to a medical condition. They stated no, so she went to her car to find one to put on long enough to be seated and waited patiently outside until it was time to walk in. 2 of us were waiting inside with the young kid to keep warm, they sat 3 parties ahead of us. We asked what the issue was and they proceeded to get into a screaming match with a friend of mine. She was being calm, just asking. 4 girls up front PULLED DOWN THERE MASKS and YELLED at her, stating that they were told to refuse us a table. When a few minutes earlier, they took our name and party down and told us it would be a few minutes. If they didn't want to seat us because we asked a question, they could have just said so and we would have found somewhere else to eat. They deliberately watched us sit there with a 3 year old for 20 minutes and knew they weren't going to seat us, OVER A SIMPLE QUESTION. We followed their protocols to be seated, we were calm about everything and waited patiently our turn to be seated. We frequent this location, at least once a week or more, but no longer! It's one thing to say you have a protocol. It's a whole other thing to start a scene and SCREAM at your customers!! They just lost a lot...