El Mariachi Tequila Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Lake View Township

I have gone back and forth about leaving this review because I have never had a horrible experience like I had at this. Me and a group of friends went out for a birthday brunch on Sunday January 19th 2025. We were a large group of 10 and a baby. On this particular day the weather was frigid 🥶. For whatever reason they decided to sit us in the back building where it was freezing. We didn’t even want to take our coats off. That should’ve been our first red flag 🚩 but we were excited to try this place. The waitress, Sandra, came over after 20 minute to take our order but we had not even received a menu or the QR code to even begin ordering. We ordered our drinks, a couple of margs, bottle of champagne and some of us ordered some zero beer and a Virgin piña colada bc we don’t drink. It took them an hour to bring our drinks (i know this bc I had to add more time on my parking twice while i was in the establishment). They still didn’t bring the bottle of champagne, til about 15 min after bringing out the drinks. The champagne bottle should’ve been the easiest thing to bring out first. But here’s when the experience went from bad to worse! My friend has an alcohol allergy and they made her virgin piña colada with LIQUOR!! Yes liquor! She immediately started getting sick and by this time i have lost my entire appetite. We give her meds and assist her to try and make the situation better. The manager comes over and offers a complimentary bottle of champagne! Champagne! Really? After the girl almost died from negligence of the bartender. They didn’t do anything to make us feel like they cared) So now the bill comes with complimentary shots. I’m disgusted even more now. I have been sober for 3years, giving us free alcohol is like a slap in my face. Me and this group of friends have visited multiple establishments in the city and we are always a good vibe. But for the first time we actually had to dissect the bill. Two of the meals we added steak and on the menu it says $9 but they charged us 11.95 each meal on top of the $14.99. My meal was disgusting, i don’t know if it was just the bad taste in my mouth from the whole experience but i was sick the rest of day from the little bit i ate. They didn’t even bring out my whole meal (my hash browns never came) and they forgot the consume for another meal. We asked for sour crème twice and was charged $2) but I just paid the bill and wanted to get the heck out of there! When i confronted the manger and waitress they had no words or anything for me. I paid and still tipped but i will never go there again!! To add insult to injury, they wouldn’t give us soap for the women's bathroom. We all asked multiple times and still never put soap. The vibes were trash! My friends birthday was ruined and she cried all the way into the evening. I am still in shock and thankful my...

Should have five stars for flavor and ambience.

Upsetting experience is an understatement. I was seated at the bar with my friend and waited roughly 15 minute to even order a drink. Waited another 10+ to receive the drink. Our third person arrived and we waited another 20 minutes to order. The bartender said “I’m sorry I have to catch up on some drinks”.

Two of the three of us have been bartender/servers for over ten years so we tried to give grace but knew how bad the service was from the get go. After ordering food my meal came out wrong so I asked for the correct order. Saying the correct food was lukewarm would be a compliment. I asked for limes and had to ask the bartender for a second drink for my friend even though it had been sitting in place as a clear indicator she needed another margarita. Never got the limes even though I asked not only her but the food runner as well.

The gentleman seated next to us turned out to be a GM of a fine dining wine bar and had voiced how he too was disappointed in service and food was cold. I tried to politely tell what I thought was a manager our experience and they seemed completely dumbfounded by what I was saying. About 10 minutes later the bartender gives all four of us “complimentary shots on the house”. One person doesn’t drink and I can’t have dairy. Thank you for serving a sober person alcohol and someone allergic to dairy a drink with dairy. (She knew as I asked for no dairy and mentioned the allergy)

At this point I asked a manager to come over and voiced the wait times (only four people total seated at the bar so no excuses), food was wrong/cold, being charged for doubles when we didn’t ask for that, begging for refills etc. He apologized and said he would come back. 10 minutes goes by with no return so I left since my friend was already waiting in the car. This already took up a massive amount of time and I’m not waiting another 20 minutes for you to make it right.

What’s insane is I would go back because the food was SO GOOD, even cold. The flavors were bursting and absolutely fantastic. Props to the Chef who created the menu.

But yikes it’s not often to be that bad of an experience that it completely ruins the day and consumes a massive amount of time. Through and through the experience was embarrassing for restaurants. I would be mortified if even a hole in the wall restaurant had such bad service. Yall are too expensive, aesthetically pleasing and bursting with flavor to give such horrendous service. Being an hour away from home this was supposed to be a day of celebration and yall managed to ruin that.

The only two positives were flavor and making friends with a super cool dude to look forward to visiting for my next Chicago visit. Maybe this restaurant cares about their guest because El Mariachi Tequila Bar & Grill...

El Mariachi is a mixed bag of goods... Here is my take

The food: High quality!

So the food here is very good (with the he exception of the salsa). The flavors are great the presentation is beautiful and the quality of ingredients is fantastic.

Now is this authentic Mexican? No, but it has enough of those iconic flavors to give you a great eating experience that's pretty close to what Mexican cuisine is.

Are the portions big? No, and this is where things start going down hill. The portions are very small considering how expensive this food is, and it is very expensive.

Price: $40 per person including appetizers and and drinks and before tip.

Now you might be thinking, " Hey that's not that bad. It's pretty standard for the area." Well, not exactly. There are plenty of places where you can get high quality Mexican for a fraction of the price without compromising on the portions.

Eating here makes you realize you might be playing more for the building lease than the actual food.

Drinks: This is where I lost all respect.

They had special margarita pitchers, which might have been the worst margaritas I have ever had.

If I could describe them I would say they are watered down, Minute Maid powder mix margaritas with some random tequila mixed in.

No sense of presentation. No sense of quality or freshness... I have had cheaper and better.

The service:

In terms of service this restaurant is actually doing something right. The staff is very patient and friendly. They made the experience worth the wait.

I will note that they started cleaning and picking up the chairs all around us which made it feel like they wanted us out.

This is disappointing, specially since we were barely eating. And they did not come back to offer more drinks which made it feel like they might have wanted us out.

Ambiance:

The place is decent sized. Not big but not small. It's clean and the decor is cute. Bathrooms were very clean which is always a plus.

Bottom line:

This place has very good food and good service for me though the prices do not meet the portions and the drinks don't come to the level the food is at which is a huge deal breaker.

I wouldn't mind coming here if invited but would probably not pick it on my own because I feel there are better alternatives. Having said that, of you do come here I feel you would have a decent time... as long as you are not here near closing, in which case you might notice them putting up the chairs around you to give you a hint...