El Chico Cafe Norman — Restaurant in Norman

So I decided to give two stars instead. In my opinion, when it comes to food, there's ok, good, great, outstandingly delicious and I'm speechless! About a week and a half or so ago I decide to try out the place. I sat in a booth. A minute later a family of three show up and are seated behind me. So I proceed to order and when my waitress shows up I tell her for starters I would like to have the beef nachos. Then she says ok, I'll get that to you right away. And then I told her I wasn't done ordering, then she looks at me and says ok what else would you like to order, so I said and for my main dish I would like the make my own burrito. 5 minutes later I get my nachos. They were good. But I didn't finish because I was thinking of taking it to go. 7 minutes later my burrito arrives. I take 3 three bites of my burrito and it was good. Then I get an important phone call so I decide to get up to go to the restroom to take the call. Because I have people behind me and I don't need people to listen in to my conversation with my VA doctor. I wasn't even gone for 4 minutes and all of a sudden my food is gone. My waitress sees me and gives me my bill. At this point I'm furious. I looked at her and said I wasn't done yet. I didn't know that if you get up to use the restroom that it meant you were finished, so I guess they assumed. My waitress is apologizing at this point and she says I will have them make you another. She asked me what I had in my burrito and I'm like you should know, you took my order. At that point I speak to the general manager and he was like o wow, that's terrible I'll make you another one, what did you have he asks. Well...i getting furious at this point so I decided as they brought my food out that I didn't want it anymore. Then the manager says to me it's on the house. So whatever my bill came to be I went ahead and gave it to my waitress which was $20 and I told her here's your tip then. I wasn't even asked if I wanted a to go at least. Then I leave because I don't want to cause a scene. Two hours later I call the restaurant and I speak to the manager because I'm cooled down. He says next time you come to our restaurant well take good care of you. So two days ago I called and spoke with the manager and I told him the incident and he said come on in. And I told him I would like to get it to go. I got to order my burrito, the same way I had it but what they failed to realize after the manager told me on the phone that they owed me a lunch. They forgot about the fact that I had nachos, beef nachos which I didn't get. So even though I still tipped the waitress $20 this is the kind of service i get. Most people wouldn't have tipped. You see im a generously good tipper when it comes to great service. I love to take good care of my servers because at the end of the day it makes me happy to see a very happy server. I had planned to tip over $100 but apparently that...

I showed up with a friend as we were walking thru the mall, the food smelled really REALLY good. We went in, had a seat, the wait staff was SUPER friendly. They brought some chips to the table with some really yummy dipping sauces, the yellow sauce almost was cheesy tasting. We ordered a nacho combo meat appetizer, that was EPIC! I ordered a 3 taco dinner plate and my friend ordered a taco salad. The food showed up and I started eating my tacos my friend broke into his taco salad. Well about halfway thru my friend looks up with a horrified look, I said “is everything ok?” He said “a cockroach just crawled out of the lettuce on my taco salad” I said “what? No way!” He said yes, it under the lip to a plate, I looked and saw it. He called over one of the waitresses and one of them put her hands over her mouth in disgust as it started crawling around on the table the other waitress put her hand over it to contain it. Our waiter showed up and asked if everything was ok and the the waitress explained it to him. He looked horrified too, I said to them “I think we might go elsewhere to eat” and the lady with her hand over the bug said “I don’t blame you all, have a good rest of your evening” and we left. So I understand things happen, the people there were awesome, the place seemed clean, the food actually DID taste good for what we ate but a live bug in the lettuce. I can’t recommend this place, I’m sorry. Roaches and other bugs can carry diseases and illnesses, I hope I don’t get sick, I’ve never in all my life had a bug crawl out of food, I’ve come across a hair in the past in food, but a live crawling bug was just too far. I’m sorry, I wish your business the best but I was uneasy the rest...

We began frequenting El Chico - Norman eight years ago when we moved here. Loved the food and staff. Probably went once per week for several years. There's the manager, big guy foreign accent - wonderful man. Then there is the lady - asst. manager maybe? also wonderful. Both very concerned with customer service. Then one night we went and the staff was awful - not just lackluster but lazy and rude! We thought it was an off-night. Went again, food and staff were falling off..........noticed a guy who was another manager maybe? We tried it twice more and it just got worse. This isn't just any place to us - this is where we and our adult children and their spouse and our grandchild have our night-before Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner. We are non-traditional. I was so sorry that in 2011 and 2012 we missed our tradition there. We just stopped choosing to spend our eating out money there. Then, in April of 2013 - on a fluke we ended up at El Chico. Saw the big manager and the lady - but other guy wasn't there. Looks like new assistant manager was there. Staff was once again attentive and food? Well it was spectacular again! The dish I snapped a picture of was the best dish I have ever had there - I hope they keep it. My dad, who was born and raised in New Mexico used to make this dish and the fried egg on top MAKES the dish! I hope all those people in Norman who stopped going because of the issues it had - will give it another chance. You won't be disappointed! We'll be there several time prior to night-before-Thanksgiving meal. We've added 2 people since then..........we're going to need a...