El Muchacho Alegre — Restaurant in Nebraska

Edit 07Aug: Edited based on business response from 1 star service to 5 star service. Food and atmosphere previously 5 stars. I'm sure if I had time to deal with it at the time it probably could have been resolved but I couldn't hang around. I see the pending refund on my card already. I would have been happy to pay the appropriate price for my meal so a 100% refund wasn't necessary but is appreciated.

Original: I want to be very clear this review is not about the food. The food was delicious as always. This is about the price I was charged earlier tonight. Also, service is usually really good as well.

I come here every 1-2 weeks depending on whether my wife or I take our son to taekwondo across the street. I usually get the fried birria tacos which are delicious and run about $15 for three which is very reasonable.

This evening however I was not very hungry and asked if there was a way to order just a couple (2) carnitas street tacos and an original margarita. Server said sure and put in the order. I assumed they would be about $4-$6 each which is pretty standard for places street tacos are served. When the food came out it was a full on plate with beans and three tacos. No big deal, I just ate more than I planned and since I ate the whole thing I was prepared to pay full plate price. Plates typically run $14-$20 so I figured my bill would be about $25-$30 plus tax.

When it was time to go to pick up my son from Taekwondo I asked for the check and just handed the server my credit card not thinking anything of it because I was alone and my order was simple. When he brought it back I was shocked to see I was charged $45. The tacos were rung up as 2 tacos for $30, $15 each. I didn't have time to sit there and figure it out because my son's Taekwondo was over and I needed to get over there to get him and get to his next activity. I paid twice what a typical plate cost simply because I tried to order two tacos. They were very good, but not...

This was my first time visiting, and unfortunately, it was a pretty disappointing experience. We had a larger group, so we weren’t in any rush, but the service was still off. We ordered drinks first, then placed our appetizer order about five minutes later. Oddly enough, the appetizers came out before the drinks. When the drinks finally did arrive, it was nearly impossible to get a refill. As we moved on to ordering our entrees, the food came out in small groups—three dishes at a time—each about five minutes apart. After 15 minutes, my girlfriend still hadn’t gotten her meal. I politely asked a staff member when her food would be ready, and she said it was being worked on and would be out soon. Another five minutes later, our waiter came out and admitted that they had forgotten both my girlfriend’s meal and my buddy’s girlfriend’s side order. To make things worse, the food we did get was honestly pretty underwhelming—not appetizing at all, and the quality just wasn’t up to par. Overall, the combination of slow service, mistakes with our order, and subpar food quality made for a pretty frustrating experience. I was really hoping for better, but I left feeling pretty let down. Especially considering the price the...

This is the worst Mexican food I have ever had anywhere. I ordered a fajita quesadilla which came with rice and beans and when I got the order the quesadilla was not actually a quesadilla but a fajita Taco. The beef inside the so-called quesadilla/Taco was Burt and chewy. The rice and beans were lukewarm so I sent them back and asked if they could heat them up. When they came back with the order of rice and beans the plate was burning hot but the rice and beans were still lukewarm. I would have sent this back again but I figured since they didn't know how to heat up rice and beans to begin with they probably wouldn't have done it right the second time either. My husband had a burrito and the meat inside it was like it had been drenched in water and had a horrible taste to it. We also ordered the chips and queso and the queso was barely warm and the meat in it was like mush. We will never go back to this place for Mexican food. When we got the check it wasn't cheap either and for this price we could have eaten at a nice restaurant and got good food rather than food that was...