El Faro — Restaurant in Lyons Township

Honestly thruout the 8 years ive been going the food & service has gone down.

Went there today for dinner, ordered 2 burritos, 2 cups of rice, 2 drinks & a bag of chips. They forgot 1 of 2 cups of rice & the bag of chips, we noticed before going home. Once we got home we noticed the burritos were made wrong, as the burrito I had, I share with my toddler who has an an allergy to something so both me and my husband opt out of it on our food just incase our child eats of either plate. Wasn't a big deal, we brought the food back up & was expecting a remake. Well the older lady with drawn on eyebrowse refused to remake the burritos & insisted that was how my husband ordered. 8yrs were been going here, order the same thing everytime. The old lady told my husband to take the food off & that it wasn't that serious... Obviously I wouldn't let my child eat the food that was wrapped up with the food he was allergic too bc well that food already cross contaminated. I went back inside and asked for my money back seeing as I didnt want my child to get sick & the lady then told me "it dont look like your allergic to anything" so I then took the bag of burritos to show her that we didnt even bite into it.. but why did she want to see my child having that allergic reaction to then do right by the order she mistakenly stored wrong!! 🤮

My original receipt was never printed out for me & the one she did print out for me wasn't even my order but if she wants to get technical, the receipt she printed out for me did say NO TOMATOES & then an add on for sour cream which, we never asked for either.

Reminder, my order was 2 steak burritos no tomatoes. 2 cups of rice, 2 drinks & bag of chips that didnt even included salsa. $32.78 the receipt she printed out clearly wasn't even my order, so she didnt even know what I ordered, to then tell me, how "we ordered" something to begin with. Very disgusting by this establishment & how they handled the situation. The tattooed eyebrow grandma needs to go back upstairs & watch her sops.

Save ya money & try the El Famour Burrito place...

This is coming from a person who grew up eating here for almost 20 years. This place used to be THE place to go and drive for a cheap, big delicious burrito on any day or time of the week for my friends, family and I growing up. I have been almost jumped 3 times going here and 2 friends/acquaintances actually did, but we still kept going back... Starting around 10 years ago, what seemed to be a quick decline in the taste and quality of their ingredients and employees for some, was more gradual for others who couldn't or didn't want to think about this place not in their lives anymore.

(I will refine/detail this and their current state of food, employees and safety of visiting here when I get more time)

In short, if you are looking for Mexican food in this general area, there now are much better tasting and almost as cheap places to go all around this area, but they aren't open 24h like El Faro has been for decades.

Staff has been fine/usually friendly the few last times I've been here (last being March 2023). The neighborhood I can't attest to much change as I've been here during an average person's breakfast, lunch or dinner hour. They prepare mounds of their steak for future rush hour times, so it can sit there getting overly cooked to keep warm making the meat become hard/not enjoyable to chew combined with a lot of gristle, which didn't matter that much back when they used more quality ingredients and if you visited being a bit* tipsy...

To be...

They have great tacos here but I was really disgusted last Sunday night. I had some lengua which was very hard and chewy. Its usually excellent. I dined in and they gave me a container of pickled carrots and jalapenos as usual. However, these were really dry and looked like they were sitting out all day. Part my fault for going there at 10PM on a sunday.

If you eat here you know that there is large container that holds the carrot/pepper mixture that they spoon out into smaller clear containers to give to patrons dining in. Most patrons when done with their meal will throw their garbage away and return the salsa and carrot/pepper container to the counter as a courtesy to the staff. However, Last sunday I watched in horror as the heavy set man working behind the counter at the time begins to take all the used small customer containers of carrots/peppers and putting them back into the main storage container. This is not acceptable. Once food is given to a customer it should not be taken back and served to other people. I was disgusted. This is the 2nd time I've seen this and its always this same man doing it. People pick the carrots and peppers with their dirty hands and fingers. There is no excuse for taking the uneaten carrots/peppers and serving them to other customers. If you dine in, please be aware of this and even if you don't eat all the carrots and peppers, please dispose of them with your regular garbage so its not served to...