El Pilón Loko bar and grill — Restaurant in Lake Wales

Randomly looked up puerto rican food in the Winter Haven area, and this restaurant came up. Last minute plans, and we were able to walk in on a Saturday night, and there were several seats open (should've been a sign).

The parking: The parking outside fits maybe 6 cars, and then there is overflow parking to the side in the dirt. But being the last ones to leave the restaurant, I noticed no customers were inside, and most of the parking in front of the business was taken up likely by employees. Most customers were parked in dirt. Which is a horrible experience. Tell your employees to leave the front parking spots for customers.

The food: Ordered churrasco well done (so I could share with my daughter) and got a medium well instead. So, no biggie, I just gave her the edges that were more well done. I was willing to look past that if the flavor was on point. But all the flavor came from a chimichurri sauce (which was really flavurful) but sadly barely on my dish. By the time I ate half of my skirt steak, the sauce was gone. I ended up not even finishing the last 3rd because it was just the steak and lacking in flavor without the sauce. I also ordered loaded fries with cheese and bacon as a side, and the majority of the fries were undercooked and difficult to chew. Ended up eating the cheese and bacon with a fork.

My wife tried to order chicharon de pollo, but they ran out. So she ordered grilled shrimp instead. The shrimp was good and tasty, but the side of Mofongo balls had an unusual taste of mixing sweet plantains with normal plantains. After a few bites, that portion of the meal remained untouched.

At this point, both of our meals have flaws. So let's talk drinks and atmosphere.

My wife ordered juice to share with my daughter, and I ordered a Malta. Which was fine the first go around. My wife ordered another juice, and the second one was expired. She realized because it tasted funny. Mind you, my wife who is pregnant and my one year old daughter were sharing the juice. Thankfully, my wife tasted first, and we noticed before our daughter drank it, but we hoped and trusted the restaurant wouldn't serve anything expired.

Staff: The staff attitude and service were great. Always smiling and constantly asking if we wanted anything else. Sadly, after tasting several problems in the food, we weren't open to having all our food recooked. But to the credit of the front of the house staff they are definitely the best part of the experience.

Enviorment: The dining room felt a bit cramped when just a couple of parties were there, but the music choice was nice and family-friendly. I wouldn't recommend anything larger than a party of 6. But if you don't want shoulders touching while you share a wooden picknic table, you might want to keep it 2-4 people per party and choose the metal chairs/tables instead.

Conclusion Between myself, my wife, and one year old daughter (which ate from our plates), it cost us $98 plus tip.

Our meals consisted of two small appetizers (four mini cheese sticks and four mini alcapurria), two entree (grilled shrimp with mofongo balls, and churrasco with loaded fries), a side of white rice, and our drinks as well.

Honestly, paying so much for food that was "okay overall" at best and over $100 with tip was a rough experience. We labeled this restaurant as "WORTH TRYING THE FIRST TIME BUT NOT WORTH REPEATING."

It kills me to say this as a Puerto Rican family. But sadly, american burgers from chillis for $30 were a better experience than this Puerto Rican restaurant.

We won't be...

So, I finally had the chance to eat here today. No wait time, finally. It's a rainy day, so my Mom and I were in the mood for soup. I must admit the soup was good but greasy. The tostones were in between Maduros and tostones. They come with tons of garlic on top of them. Some people like garlic, and others aren't able to eat them, so the servers should mention that when the customer is placing their order. My Mom can't eat garlic, so she told the server, and the server told her that she should have told her that. But how was my Mom supposed to know that the tostones come with garlic if that was our first time there and not all restaurants serve tostones with a garlic on top. Then the some of the pieces of chicken inside the soup had chunks of grease, which was a bit gross. When you make soup, you should cut all that fat off the chicken before putting it into the soup. The restaurant was about 75% filled to capacity, but the food took close to 1 hour to arrive. The music was extremely loud, so it was really hard to have a conversation with the other people at your table. I had been waiting for quite some time to eat here and not sure if I would return based on my first visit. The restaurant is cute and visually appealing inside, so that is a plus. The tres leches was very delicious. The food is pricey, but the portions are very big, which is great if you want to have some food left over for the next day or share a plate...

Went out for an early dinner today. The parking lot had several vehicles, so we asked the gentleman at the door if there was a table available. He said there was so we parked and entered the restaurant. The decor was very cute and had a few areas that would be nice for backdrops for photos. I was looking forward to having a few mojitos and some authentic Puerto Rican food. There were about three empty tables and the doorman pointed out a table for us. It was dirty, but we figured it would be wiped down promptly. After 18 minutes, the table was still dirty and we still hadn’t had any service whatsoever…not even a “Hello, we’ll be right with you”, not a glass of water, nothing. We decided to leave and try a Mexican restaurant nearby. On our way out, another couple overheard us talking about the poor service and turned around and left as well. Very disappointed with this place, but happy we decided to leave as we had chips, salsa and margaritas within 3 minutes of entering the...