El Viejo Mexican Restaurant 2 — Restaurant in Marion

El Viejo was actually the third Mexican restaurant we visited that night. Sorry for the long review, T.LD.R. We were very happy with the food and staff at El Viejo. The first, restaurant was super loud. Couldn't hear a thing, and unfortunately short staffed. We waited a few minutes to put our name in, but they were so busy plus the hostess had like 5 different delivery people to check out. Also we were more in a chill mood that evening, and didn't want to try and talk over the crowd. No fault of their own but we decided to leave, maybe another time. Hopefully they can put some rugs down to help with the sound. The second restaurant had great staff, very trendy menu, usually right up my alley. But not my wife's, and she wasn't digging the menu. Again, maybe another time. We thanked the staff and left. When we had been driving between the two restaurants, my wife had spotted El Viejo in the old Long branch. We stopped in, immediately greeted by the friendly staff. Happy to say, the chips, salsa, queso, and margs were all on point. My wife loved the food, and actually asked me if this would become our new favorite restaurant. We had mentioned watching the KC game, and asked if they could put it on. They went way above our expectations and went looking through almost every channel, and even dug out the old channel list. Unfortunately not a channel they got, but again we were blown away by the service. We were very happy with the food, and staff. But I'm not sure a lot of people have found El Viejo, as they were only about half full. But maybe we were just there on an off night, or maybe the attached hotel didn't have a lot of guests that night. Definitely has our approval, and very...

The food we got tasted good and my drink tasted great too. However, customer service was a NIGHTMARE. We were waited on for our drinks and at that point we were ready to order so we placed our orders. After that, we didn’t see our waiter again for another 40 minutes. We were served our appetizer by someone different. We were asked 4 different times if certain items were ours that we never ordered; each by a different person carrying out food. We eventually stopped someone for more chips. We got our food and we both ordered the same thing but one with shrimp. The individual bringing our food took out a fork from my partners napkin and picked through the food to see which had shrimp. For personal reasons he ended up grabbing himself new silverware from around the corner. At this point we were out of drinks, chips, and we managed to finish our entire meal then sit for an additional 15 minutes before our waiter came. He proceeded to ask if we needed anymore drinks or food. By now I just wanted my bill and he could tell. He took ANOTHER 15 minutes to print my bill and during that time I observed him talking and messing around the bar with another coworker. When he finally gave me the bill he gave us “free shots” which hardly were alcohol, it was definitely the bottom of a mixed drink. I was almost offended that he believed that could fix the experience we just had. I’ve worked food service and customer service for almost 10 years and this was just...

I ordered what the waiter recommended, a spicy shrimp dish, and my usual order of a chille relleno. The dish was not spicy, but did include a short black hair. The Chile relleno was where the spice was, through I did get part of the Chile peel in one of bites. The entrees also came with the basic bland rice and beans. I also got the expected chips and salsa. The blended salsa (which wouldn't come out of the container, either because it was too cold or too thick), And the chips, though warm, were stale. My 3 year old, a chip fanatic, even gave them a thumbs down. As for the atmosphere, I was immediately thrown off by the paintings of Marilyn Monroe and Heath Ledger's Joker adorning every wall. And halfway through dinner, one of the employee's baby started crying. I had no idea it was even sitting in the dining room with us until I noticed the crying got louder but no one was doing anything about it. The customers at the table next to me seemed to also have some comments about the place, most notably about the glasses the margaritas are served in, and how they're hard to drink from. I don't normally write a bad review, but this place just sucked, and I hope I don't get food poisoning in a...