El Charrito — Restaurant in Molalla

I eat a lot of Mexican food but normally don't review them because I feel like they are all so similar that it's not worth the time. However, I do like reviewing the really good ones and the really bad ones. El Charrito is a really good one. The restaurant is small and old. It seemed slightly under-cared for at first but as I sat and watched I witnessed the staff cleaning meticulously the entire time I was there. The staff were polite, but non-intrusive. I didn't feel bothered nor did I feel like they needed to swing by more. Now for the food. Goodness gracious. It was simple and delicious. I ordered the Pollo a la Plancha. I'm a black beans not refried beans type of guy. I don't know what they did to their black beans but they were fantastic. The chicken breast was butterflied and grilled; so tasty and not dry. The chicken came with sauteed tomatoes and onions that were tasty and not greasy like most restaurants I've had similar dishes at. I asked for a fresh, sliced jalapeno which the maitre d brought me. It was nice and spicy. I ate every bite, which I don't normally do, and wish there would have been more even though my stomach didn't agree. Needless to say, I would definitely recommend El Charrito and I can't...

2nd time eating here. Restaurant is very clean, and well kept. Staff is mostly friendly. 1st time was pretty good; this time, not so much..... My experience I ordered a tamale and enchilada combo, with rice and beans. My date ordered a bean and cheese burrito with rice and beans on the side. My tamale was at least 12 hours old, super dry, barely edible. Enchilada was just ok. My date's bean and cheese burrito was a sloppy mess with a white tortilla wrapped around it like a crepe?? Then rock hard cheddar cheese "melted" on top. We sent it back and reordered. Got the identical burrito back again, except the ends were tucked in. My girl picked it up to eat it and all the beans ran out because they didn't fold it with any care... The staff didn't seem to concerned about it and we just paid left. Staff seemed nice but once we had problems with their food they seemed to just avoid our table on purpose. ( we were polite ) I would think you would want to handle conflicts with customers immediately? Hope the managers / owners read this. A shame to see what could be a nice restaurant serve less than...

Our waitress didn't speak much English, she brought the menus and instantly started to take our orders (there were 12 of us). No cocktails offered to start. We asked her to serve drinks first then come back for food orders in a few minutes so we could look at the menu. She didn't understand and continued to rush us to decide what we wanted to eat. Later..cocktails came, but order was wrong...second try ...they were still wrong but we took them anyway. Food arrived...she announced to the whole room what food she was bringing...in Spanish. It was VERY confusing because 8 of the 12 orders were wrong. The whole meal was confusing, rushed and VERY EXPENSIVE! Never again!! I talked to the owner the next day (or manager...not sure, he was hesitant to identify himself), he said ...very loudly to everyone in the place that we had many many drinks and that was the reason for "our" confusion. Each person in our group had two drinks....although 8 we're only drinking soda pop. Bad...