El Fenix — Restaurant in McKinney

I hate rating them a 1 Star as I have been going there since this location opened. But within the last 6-8 months they have gone downhill in service. Tonight I took my wife there for dinner and standing behind several other people it took about 5 mins to have our names taken down. They said it would be about 15 mins and that was fine. During the next 15 mins there was a new hostess who couldn’t read well enough to pronounce anyone’s names for customers to know who she was trying to seat. Once we did get seated we were there for 10 mins and saw no one. I had to go to the front and ask for someone to help us. The table next to us was going though something similar as they had ordered their food and got their drinks but didn’t get any refills till their food came. After about 5 mins from requesting service from the front a waitress came and took our order. After about 5 mins a manager I believe came to ask if we had been helped. We said yes and he apologized and asked if we would like an appetizer on them. We declined and figured the food and drinks would be out shortly. It took about 10 mins for the waitress to come back and apologize that she couldn’t get us drinks because they didn’t have any clean cups and told the table next to us she couldn’t get them refills because of the same reason. She brought us chips and hot sauce and we noticed the chips were cold. At this point we asked the table next to us if their chips were cold and they said yes and also then told us they had to complain as well. A girl from that table went up front and someone told her their chip machine was down so they had to buy chips until Tuesday. Within about 5 mins from the last encounter the waitress brought us all drinks and our food. The food was good as usual. That’s the only thing I can say about this visit. They only have One good waiter there. I am pretty sure his name is Justin. I almost grabbed him tonight and requested him to wait on us. After all said and done we paid and I mentioned to a woman who said she was the manager there (never seen her before so maybe she is new) she did ask what happened and I gave her a brief run down and told her I would most likely be driving to Plano for any further El Fenix dining experiences. I hope they can get things in order their as the food is still good. But that will not carry a poorly...

Let me start off by saying that I have never liked this place. The food isn't great. Last night was a special veterans night. My grandfather absolutely loves this place. It's basically the only place he will go to. Now my grandpa is a WW2 veteran so of course we had to take him to get a free meal at his favorite place. We get in and the place is pretty packed, no big deal. We maybe waited 20 minutes to be seated which wasn't bad at all. We get seated and a few minutes later we get our chips and salsa...no silverware. 10 minutes or so later our waiter says he will be right with us and then goes and takes someone else's order. A short time after I see someone in another section being seated and a short time later their waiter comes to take their order in a reasonable amount of time. In this amount of time our waiter finally comes to get our drink and meal order. Maybe 6 or 7 minutes later we get our drinks. Here is where it gets bad. After about 20 or so minutes the people in another section who were sat before us receive their food. Our drinks have become empty so one of my family members takes it upon himself to refill his own tea. Another 15 or 20 minutes later, the same people who were seated after us are done with their meal and leave. It has now been close to 40 minutes since we placed our order. We become so desperate that we finally find another waiter and tell him we have been waiting a very long time for our food to which he apologized and says he will look into it. 5 minutes later our waiter comes out and tells us that he spoke with the manager and our food should be out soon. Soon after that our food comes out minus one person's food. The waiter tells us that it took so long for everyone else's food to come out that their order got cold so they had to remake it. Did I mention that my grandfathers order was wrong? At this point we were so mad that we told them to gives us all our food to go. The manager comes out and tells us how sorry he is and says he will take care of our bill. There were two other people in pur waiters section who's serves was equally as slow. It's understandable to be slower when you are short staffed but this was ridiculous. I don't think we will be...

My primary location I like to go to is in Plano. The service there is always the best and I've never had a problem with anything I've ordered. I recently went to this McKinney location, which I do from time to time but prefer Plano. I ordered a salad that was supposed to have sauteed shrimp, queso fresco, mushrooms, red onions and carrots with a line vinaigrette. I was extremely dissatisfied with the salad because it was not what I ordered and even when the manager tried to fix it, she still brought out the wrong dressing and told me the chef did put mushrooms on the salad as if it was my fault I didn't see the 5 mushrooms hidden UNDER the salad. I could've complained again but everyone else had almost eaten their food. Will not be going back to this location for awhile.

Update: I will never come to this location again. I have tried to give many chances but the service is always lacking; it's slow. The food itself is never consistent. Inalways order Charro beans and in contrast to the Plano location, these are watery with little beans. Also, my margarita was overly strong last time. To top off my frustration with this location and it's manager, I tried to call three days in advance to have a table ready for 13. My number was taken but I never received a call. So I decided to just come in with my family and was told it would be a 45 minute wait. Normally this wouldn't ne an issue at this location because we almost always have to wait even if there are few people in the restaurant but this only made me angry. My husband called the Texas Road house across the street and was told it would be a 15 minute wait...so we took our table of 13 there and enjoyed a very good steak lunch without any problems. Service was top notch, food was well prepared and consistent. This locarion could learn a few things from it's surrounding competitors and even locations like the one in Plano where ai have rarely...