El Ranchito Restaurant — Restaurant in La Quinta

Food was decent, but service was racist! They seated others ahead of us, until we spoke up. A waiter came to take the hispanic group’s order immediately after they were seated. We had already been seated for over 10 minutes. After taking our order, the waitress ignored us for at least 30 minutes, while the table next to us received top notch service with repeated visits from at least 3 different employees. Employees greeted the people next to us with enthusiasm and respect. The waitress initially spoke to the individuals next to us in English, but changed to Spanish after I asked her why we were not receiving the same level of service. She began laughing and chatting with the individuals at the next table, while ignoring us. I asked for the manager or owner. A man finally arrive who said he was the owner/manager. Rather than being polite and concerned about our horrible experience he harass and yelled at us as we tried to get up from the booth. He offered no apologies and seemed to revel in the fact that we were mistreated. He was nasty and rude from the start. I asked him to leave us alone as we tried to get up from the table. He kept on yelling at us as we tried to leave. He stood close to the table and blocked me from getting up. He finally moved away from the booth so I could get up, after I said I would call the police. He followed us to the door and stood on the front patio staring at us as we waited for an Uber! Yes, he stalked us as we left the restaurant. To get away from him, we changed our Uber pick up location to across and down the street. If that weren’t enough, the restaurant and men’s bathroom were filthy. Every empty table was a mess of dirty dishes. My frozen margarita glass had not been washed, and had grime and finger prints from the previous customer. Refer to pictures of the unidentifiable item in my margarita. Tables were only cleaned when another party needed to be seated. The restaurant was extremely understaffed, but is no excuse for disrespecting and treating customers badly. Health...

Not sure what the bar is on these reviews but the El Ranchito in Old Town LaQuinta is a 2 out of 5 at best. The place is filthy. Was seated at a booth by the entrance and as I was seated on a material covered seat that looked like it has been used as a napkin for quite some time and the table was sticky. I look to see where the back of the booth hits the seat and there was caked up dust and dirt on the seat on the floor near the baseboards and dust, food and what not on the old wooden chairs directly across from us which was next to an old dying tree/plant whose pot had been used as a trash can or catch all- everything from old toothpicks to lemon rinds in the dirt. The tiles in the ladies bathroom looked freshly mopped but there is what looked like food splattered on the ceiling. toilet paper covering as hole in a broken door and over-all , surfaced clean but hey...you don't eat in there so... Menu is in a heavy folder which was greasy and had cilantro particles stuck to it. Figured ya can't go wrong w/ a burrito,,, it had ( very little) shredded beef and seemed to have lettuce and tomatoes that had just been rinsed as it was watery and sitting in what looked like- water. Stuck w water to drink- asked for a straw as after all this I didn't want my mouth on the cup. You would think after being shut down for so long these establishments would have scrubbed, painted and made simple repairs but- here's one that did not. I live in the area, had not been in in a few years, it's "off season" and this place is one of very few open right now. If pressed for a place to eat and you pick El Ranchito in Old Town....eat outside, they do have misters and after a few margaritas...perhaps you won't...

Food was good, however the management and serving staff leaves a lot to be desired. Communication failure on El Ranchito's behalf, left a terrible taste in our mouths (pardon the pun). When asked if my burrito came wet with cheese, we were told yes. Burrito arrived dry and no cheese. I ask the server about it and recalled our conversation at the time of order. She apologized and returned with a wet topping and non melted cheese. Ok, melted cheese is customary.. but all is good. All was good until we recieved the bill. They added an extra charge for the cheese and $3.25 to make it wet. I brought the discrepancy to the server which she in return brought a manger. Ater 10 plus minutes of run around, the manger admitted their fault, yet wouldn't remove the extra charges 🤔. Completely baffling. I wasn't trying to get something for free... nor discounted. Just wanted what we ordered and what was told to us (at the time of order) what was included with the printed price.

Despite the decent food, we will not be returning nor recommending El Ranchito on the sheer fact that they do not appreciate their patrons, nor their time. Between bill discrepancies (also did not apply the happy hour discount) and wrong order delivered...they wasted 20 minutes of our busy afternoon. Their failure did not justify arguing with us, making us wait AND still overcharging us. We paid part of the overcharge just so we could leave and not be any later to our afternoon...