El Paraiso Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Lakeside

So many problems! And when told they did nothing to make it right. Walked in asked if they did anything for birthdays. Young woman said she'd check, never came back to say anything. 1st waitress I told her I had a couple of questions, asked them, she said to hold on and got another waitress to serve us. There were only 4 -5 tables with people including us. I asked 2nd waitress questions. Initially she said, "I dont know". I asked her to find out, ask someone who knew the answers to my questions. She left to find out, didnt come back for 15 mins. My daughter ordered a $30 shrimp plate for her birthday. It came with food on a tray that sat on top of what I can best describe as a fire box, never seen anything like it. Instead of chafing fuel in a can under the tray to heat/cook the food, they had dumped the gel fuel directly into the fire box and lit it. It smelled bad, made my daughter immediately nauseous when they put the food in front of her. So I immediately had her lift the tray using napkins and moved the fire box out from underneath, blew out the flame and moved the fire box out of the way completely so we wouldn't then smell the smoke from it being blown out. Even though it was only on that tray for a matter of a couple of minutes the 6-8 shrimp and piece of fish were horribly overcooked. The bed of onions and peppers we're barely cooked which meant they cooked the seafood beforehand, overcooking it and then put it on top of the bed of vegetables on the tray. A couple of shrimp were supposed to be stuffed with crab, but instead came stuffed with cheese. The other few shrimp tails were still attached to the body of the shrimp for some odd reason. It looked absolutely disgusting to see the shell of the shrimp body with its insides exploding out. Daughter left to continue with the birthday night out. My chile relleno was very good and so was the guacamole tostada. I couldnt finish it, so I asked for a box. I was looking at all the food my daughter had left, wondering why she barely ate anything. As I looked at one of the shrimp, a bug fell onto the foam box, and crawled around. I called over the young woman who'd seated us, telling and showing her. She said nothing, just took the box and brought another. I could see the shrimp tails were cut in half, butterflied, and so overcooked that literally only the first 1/8 of an inch of meat or less could be eaten the rest of the tail was crispy, crunchy hard. The fish was a super thin piece overcooked to being rubbery hard, it too being inedible. It came with a baked potato and a corn tortilla bowl of melted cheese. No where near worth the $30 price, even if it wouldve been good. When the waitress finally appeared after not seeing her anywhere for over 20- 25 mins, I told and showed her how severly overcooked the shrimp and fish were she said nothing, just walked away. When she came back for payment I told her again how bad it was, that I felt bad because my daughter was barely able to eat any of it and I'd brought her for her birthday. The waitress responded, "oh you should've told me, I would've given her a cake". I told her I'd asked about it 1st thing when I came in and was never given an answer. She just looked at me. I also told her about the shrimp not being stuffed with crab but instead cheese. She said, "oh yeah, we don't have that anymore" I told her that it was still on the menu. She said nothing. I told her about the bug. She asked if I still had it. I told her no, the other young host took it. "Oooh" she said. Then said. "Oh yeah, you know why, because we have the door open so they come in". I told her, "this bug didnt have wings". "It didn't?" she replied. "No it didn't" I said. Again she said nothing and again just walked away, with my credit card, charging me full price for everything. So many problems and never an apoloogy, or compensation for such a bad experience, making...

Honest Reviews A definite must try!!! El Paraiso restaurant is located in kind of a hidden area if you're not from Colorado. We've visited this restaurant everytime i visit Colorado or drive through. It is an authentic Mexican restaurant that doesn't look too big from the outside or really nice. But all that is very deceiving. As you walk in there is a host waiting to sit you. There is a huge dinning area to the left that seems to go on forever and straight ahead also. There is several bars if you're an alcohol drinker and a lot of tv's if you want to catch some sporting event. There is also outside patio dinning if you want. The restrooms are located right behind the hostess area. The restrooms are tiny but have been clean when I've gone in. The decor at the restaurant is nice and colorful. They play music throughout the restaurant in the over head speakers. There's usually live Mariachi playing when I've visited previously, not this time unfortunately. On to the food and most important part of the Reviews, they bring out chips and salsa before your meals and the salsa is really good and not too spicy just at a perfect taste. Try not to eat too much chips & salsa because I've noticed all the plates are generous servings. The chips are really good as well. I usually always order the Parrilladas. Its a platter full of different things and when I say full, I mean full. We had the Paraiso for 5 people but I believe 7 grown adults could eat off that platter and get full. I believe our platter was served with a whole fried fish, seasoned porkchops, carnitas, steak meat, chicken, bacon wrapped shrimp, octopus, scallops, grilled shrimp, calamari, carne Asada, bell peppers, grilled onions, grilled green onions, grilled jalapeño peppers,crab legs, choice of flour or corn tortillas or both 3 plates with cevichi, oysters, rice and 3 plates with refried beans pico de gallo and guacamole. The only negative was those plates. The cevichi wasn't fresh, the guacamole was dark and brownish appeared to be older or sitting out too long. Please in no way do I mean to diminish the restaurant or the meal. In all of the years of eating at this restaurant. That was my only complaint and sometimes things happen. I will 100% return to eat and probably order a Parrillada again. I didn't complaint to the restaurant or point it out to our waitress and I should have but we were kind of in a hurry. I think constructive criticism only makes them better. Everything else was Great. This review will not do enough justice to explain how good the food really is. The platter is great and I haven't found an equal in any of the many states or several countries I've been to. It is insane how good the food is. The seafood is cooked to perfection not over cooked to make it rubbery & and the rest have just the right amount of flavoring to not over power any of the other proteins in the platter. I have seen the same waitresses working there for the last few years I have ate there. To me that's usually a good sign of a good restaurant. Also the manager/ host or maybe owner is always there. She is really nice and friendly and I usually make it a point to visit with her but she was too busy this weekend morning, maybe they were short staffed. It is really surprising how good and authentic the Mexican food can be so far north. We have really good Mexican food in New Mexico but I haven't found food at a restaurant that make food platters like Paraiso Denver Colorado. Try it once and you will be hooked...

I never ever write reviews but I needed too for this place If I could give the food and service a negative 5 I would! We sat on the patio which was nice and not as loud as the inside, there was 2 large party tables (empty) that sat there dirty for more than the 30 minute we waited for someone to come and greet us, when no one did greet us I GOT UP went inside and had to remind a waiter that we were outside and had not been tended to, she did apologize and then took another 10 minutes to come out and take our drink order, the drinks took about 20-25 minutes to come out and then our food my god took a good 35-40 minutes AFTER that if not more! That should not happen when we had not only one waiter but 2!!! A female waiter who took our drinks and a male waiter who took our food order! If one couldn’t get it together I would expect the other one to manage! My daughters pizza was ok she did not complain maybe because she was just so hungry and just wanted to eat already My food was warm and I sent back my husbands parrillada because although the bottom part was hot the food on top was all cold and hard, they did bring him another one which was only WARM! They brought me the wrong tortillas which by the time I got the right ones for my fajitas my warm food was COLD! I asked for a salsa for my husbands parrillada when he received the food and it NEVER came nor did I get the chance to remind the waiter because they never came back to check on us after the second parrillada was dropped off! Not happy at all with our visit the taste of the food itself was MEH….Taco Bell would have been better at that point and that says A LOT! not worth going back especially with such horrible service, we paid our tab which seemed like a lot for such terrible service! I would happily pay that or even more at a place where I’m at least acknowledged!

Update: your very unprofessional response “have fun at Taco Bell” should be embarrassing to you as an “OWNER” but not everyone has a professional business mindset, all that plastic must hinder your thinking, as long as the business is giving for surgeries and you get you clients drunk enough to take them to bed then I guess that’s all that matters...