Casa Real Cantina & Grill — Restaurant in Illinois

Making this review for my parents and I had been here before but will never again. This is my mother's review but she doesn't use Google review and I feel people should know about the experience my parents had here.

I don't normally do this, but I have a restaurant review to share. Dan and I had to run by Lowe's to pick some stuff up. Afterwards, we thought it would be fun to celebrate Taco Tuesday by stopping at Casa Real (next to Barnes & Noble). I ordered the Table-side guacamole, as usual, before looking at the new items on the menu. And here's where my review starts:

The table-side guacamole was fantastic, but the atmosphere was far from it. Apparently the owner's toddler is allowed to use the restaurant as his personal jungle gym. It's bad enough he was jumping from one bar chair to another, but we decided to leave when we saw him crawling, literally hands-knees CRAWLING, back and forth along the entire top of the bar. And did I mention there were patrons seated at the bar?!?! Nope, that was too much for me. I went looking for the manager, and ended up speaking to the owner (the child's father). I explained how unacceptable the situation was. The owner replied by asking "So what's the problem?" Really? That's how you handle complaints? Nope, check please. He brought our check, which included the items we had ordered but hadn't yet received. Nope, not happening. We explained we weren't going to pay for food we never received. We did pay for our drinks and the guacamole, but that's it. We won't be back."

Edit to reply to owner: Jose Lopez jr. if you would have read this post I stated that I was making this post for my mother. But it is highly unacceptable and disgusting to allow your child to be on a surface that your customers are supposed to eat from. Where was the child at before climbing up there? The bathroom, stepped in dog poop who knows? I used to love coming to your restaurant but after I heard about this plus the way you treated my mother I will never come there again and I will do whatever I can to ensure none of my friends or...

Came right after they opened yesterday for lunch. I used to love Casa Real and this is the first time I’ve tried them since they moved. They changed their salsa and their cheese dip, and they’re both just bad now. The cheese dip had such a weird taste, almost like cardboard or something, and it was barely even warm. The food was okay but it also came out just lukewarm. Their menu is also incorrect, they list one meal that says it has shredded chicken in it, but the waitress said they don’t have shredded chicken. There was also a picture of a burrito and my mom asked the waitress if she knew which burrito it was because it didn’t seem to match any of the descriptions, and she said it wasn’t any of them because they don’t put lettuce in their burritos? The waitress said something about they’re waiting on new menus, but I’m just really confused with how delayed their opening was, why would they not already have correct menus? But for me half the reason I go to Mexican restaurants is for the salsa and cheese dip, and I really wish they hadn’t changed those from how they used to make them. After tasting those I wanted to just pay for the cheese dip and go get food somewhere else but I decided to give the food a shot. I got a chicken quesadilla off the lunch menu, and their chicken literally tastes like the frozen kind you can get from the store that’s precooked and you just heat it up…it was chewy and just not good. I really don’t think that’s how their chicken used to be, but overall nothing really tasted good at all, which is super...

The place was really decorated fun and well. The waitress was super friendly. The bathrooms were clean although the women's room was out of soap and the paper towel dispenser clearly hadn't been working so the paper towel roll was just set on the counter. The reason for the rating was the food. It was a little pricey but not crazy when we ordered I felt like well it is sit down. The problem started when we were served the food. The kids portion was SOOOOOO small. We ordered chicken tenders and got popcorn chicken. Fine my kiddo loves it. We got 6 pieces. My daughter doesn't eat a lot but the portion wasn't even enough for her. The steamed veggies on the side was mostly carrots and cauliflower and maybe one broccoli. Pretty sure I get bagged veggies from birdseye in the microwave section that taste better. My son said his tacos were fine but no spice. My husband called his burrito bland. My salad with grilled chicken read beautifully on the menu. When placed in front of me the presentation was nice with the sliced avocado. The small container of avocado lime dressing was disappointing due to it's size but it didn't matter because the flavor was SOOOO boring. The chicken had no spice and I don't even like spicy but this didn't even have any flavor! The salad was mostly just greens which is okay but really there were only a small handful of black beans. I think I found like 10 kernels of unflavored corn. The food left us very disappointed. We...