El Atlacatl Restaurante — Restaurant in Miami

We're on vacation visiting our sick grandmother and decided to visit this location of El Atlacatl yesterday. While dining here, we noticed some sketchy business practices that prevented us from enjoying our time there. First thing, my sister ordered a plate of Carne Asada and asked for the meat to be cooked medium-rare. When it came out, the meat was raw and of low quality. Afterwards, when it came time to pay the bill, we noticed two things that was added to our bill without being told. The first was a Gratuity charge that was not mentioned on the menus while ordering. Earlier that day, we went to another restaurant that on their menus mentioned that there would be a 18% Gratuity charge for parties/group of 6 and over. This establishment did no such thing and included the Gratuity without letting us know that they were, at what percentage, and why. The second thing we noticed is that we were charged $0.25 for every takeout box for our leftovers. In our time in Miami and in our current residential area, we have never seen a place that charged us for the ability to take our leftovers home. And finally, to add the cherry on top of this disastrous sundae, when my mother payed for our meal using her card, we were charged a service fee of $2.78. When my mother inquired to a server (not our original server since she disappeared once we got our drinks), she mentioned that we were charged that additional amount because we payed with card and not cash. We have never heard of such a ridiculous charge at any restaurants we've been to present and past. After my mother said that this was not something that we were told BEFORE paying, the server proceeded to give us attitude and said that it was posted on papers by the doors of the restaurant. Convenient considering that it was night and it didn't specify what the amount for the charge is. We recommend to anyone that they should stay away from this establishment if they do not want to get scammed by shady business practices. However, if you do decide to go, ask questions before you order anything. Otherwise, do not be surprised if they include an extra charge for something you did not approve of. For us, that was more than enough for us to...

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!! BEWARE!

I arrived at this restaurant super excited to try their pupusas. My girlfriend is of Salvadorian descent and had been super excited too. When we arrived nobody greeted us even though there were 2 waitresses outside walking around. Finally someone told us to sit wherever we liked. At that point there were only a few tables to choose from so when we did decide on a table it had rice and sauce on it. My girlfriend politely asked if they could clean it. 5 minutes passed and another lady came clearly upset that she had to clean the table and she began spraying and she sprayed the spray onto the table in a way that it would purposely hit our arms. Despite this my girlfriend still wanted to try their pupusas as she had been craving them. The waitress took our drink orders (a beer and a water) and we let them know we were ready to order. We also asked if we could order some to take home. The other tables around us began to clear out so we sat there a while waiting on our 3 pupusas. The food finally came out and at no point after we received the food did the waitress come outside (we were seated outside in the back of the restaurant) to ask us if we needed anything or how the food was. There were no other patrons outside at this point and we had finished the food. The waitress poked her head outside but still didn't come out to ask us anything. Finally after waiting some time she came outside to bring us the check. We quickly gave her a debit card as we didn't want to wait any longer. We mentioned that we did want to order some pupusas to go and her response was "que pena" which was so rude. We will not be returning to this establishment as the customer service was...

This place is pretty good if you want some typical Salvadoran food that is consistent. The two biggest problems with this restaurant is parking and loud music on the weekends.

The food is decent, but the price seems high for what you get. Most places will charge at most $2 for a cheese and loroco (edible flower) pupusa, this place charged about $3 and change.

Service is sometimes hit and miss depending on who you get and what mood they're in. Most of the time the service is good, but every once in a blue moon you'll get wrong orders or something not prepared the right way. Honestly it isn't worse than any other small restaurant, but I go here a lot so it's noticeable.

The parking situation is horrible. Let's just get this out of the way, when I feel up to it I just walk when I can. Parking is valet, there's only about 5-8 non valet spots and they're very small which isn't ideal if you're a big guy who babies their car like I do. Personally, I wish they had a bigger lot but parking in Miami is difficult everywhere. I just wish I didn't have to add a valet tip to the bill (valet is free, but I always tip because it's the right thing to do).

The music on weekends is honestly really loud and obnoxious. It's super off putting, and on weekends I generally order takeout. It wouldn't be as bad if they lowered the volume of the speakers, or even just use one. The venue is too small for live music like that, even the seating outside is bombarded by the loud music. If that's your thing then by all means, but every time I've been to eat inside while the music was playing my ears hurt. Not a good dining experience.

Overall though this place isn't terrible, I certainly like it enough to go...