El Itacate Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Lacey

Walked in about 5p on a Monday. No other cars in the parking lot. Walked into the bar door, nobody around. I could hear a kitchen crew singing along with the music. Walked into the restaurant portion. No other customers, no wait staff visible. Walked back to the bar, since it's closer to the kitchen and the employee singing. Waited a couple minutes, nothing. Hollered out, Hello! Nothing. An employee walked from the back of the kitchen towards bathrooms, and then back and acknowledged us. It took about 2 more minutes for the waiter to come out and greet us. We had been there at least 5 minutes. And thought about leaving just before being seated. Waiter provided nice clean menus. We sat in the bar at a booth, close to the kitchen. Chips and salsa where great. We just got the fajitas for 2. Asked for steak and shrimp. Waiter clarifies, chicken and steak as he walked away. I corrected him, steak and shrimp. Food came put after a good wait, which was great, knowing the meat wasn't pre cooked. Food looked great sizzling on the platter. Only 4 tortillas in warm plate. Beans were not even hot enough to melt the cheese. And it was Chicken and Shrimp on the platter. At this point, the chicken is cooked, it looks good. But the Waiter needs to write the orders down, since he got it wrong, even after he clarified the order. Waiter asked if we needed anything else, before walking away. I asked for another salsa, like they had provided with the chips. He clarified another salsa. He walked away, didn't see him for a couple minutes. Until a family walked in through the restaurant entrance. He walked past us, seated them, then again walked past us. Never even asked how everything was, and this was about 5 minutes after forgetting to bring the salsa. We were the only patrons in the restaurant until that other family came in. Waiter obviously lacks attention to detail. When he finally came back to ask how it was, we werr more than half way done. I wasnt going to reorder the salsa or point out he had gotten the order wrong. If they had been slammed, I'd give more grace But service lacked so bad, I won't be back. 1st impressions matter. Only customer in the place and they failed from the moment we walked in the door. I'd still be willing to check out their food truck, parked near the Shell gas station. There customer service is probably more suited to a food truck, not a sit...

Where's the BEEF?

This would be a five-star Mexican restaurant except they didn't have salsa. They had these symbol full containers of hot sauce... And the beef?

Not only was there a seeming shortage of hot sauce, but I think if aliens came and stole all of the cows on the planet, that might be an excuse to have so little beef in your enchiladas.

The enchiladas were green peppers. Something else and then perhaps two tablespoons of shredded beef.

When two people cost $40 for a meal and you literally get four tablespoons of shredded beef, that is not acceptable. In fact I would say that's false advertising.

If they advertise, these is green pepper enchiladas seasoned with a tad of shredded beef. That might be an accurate statement but nutritionally you are not going to get your necessary amount of B12 from these shredded beef enchiladas.

Now B12 is an essential vitamin for neurological function and people who eat your regularly probably don't get enough B12 like most vegans etc etc... And those are the people who probably give a good review as they spiral into this. Nearly disabled state of eating only green peppers. I don't know.

But what I do know is that this could be a really fantastic place. However, I need a little more substance to my food.

Staff was friendly. They were great. I have no complaints there. The seasoning was fantastic.... but we measured it, there were about two tablespoons of shredded beef in the beef enchiladas. And most of that was sticking out of the ends. There was considerably less inside.... like they were trying to hide the fact there was no beef.

Again $40 two people four tablespoons of...

I don't even know where to start, everything was a disaster, but let's start, they brought the classic chips and salsa and the salsa was the most watery thing I've ever seen in my life, but it didn't taste that bad, I ordered some deep fried beans, they had never charged me for them anywhere else, but here they do, I have no problem paying if it's a good amount or they are good but neither one nor the other, think twice before ordering beans, I was in a little hurry because my order took almost 40 minutes to arrive at my table, I ordered a menudo and my daughter paid for a qursadilla, damn it how long can it take to heat up a menudo that it's illogical that you do that at the moment and a quesadilla with only cheese they told me that it can only be cheese, you can't add meat hahaha because I don't know? and since the food arrived, what do you think! They made a mistake with the order, it arrived with a leg, and it was terribly salty, and that was the beginning. When I asked for the bill immediately because I was in a hurry from the beginning, I realized that they were overcharging me, the price on the menu and the price on the check is not the same, and they did not respect it, they told me that they are working on changing their menus but that their prices had already changed. Oh my God. You can't do this if you don't want to get away from having problems for deceiving people, I was very upset by the way they explained it to me without respecting the prices on their menus, the service was terrible, the food was salty and wrong and I left very upset when I only wanted to...