El Camino Real — Restaurant in Philadelphia

On Sunday April 20, 2018 , me and 3 of my friends went to El Camino for brunch . Three of us have been to this establishment multiple times and never had an issue. But this particular Sunday things were different . We walked in to a very air head like host , which I ignored because he was young and probable had been out the night before , but the restaurant was surprisingly empty , but he proceeded to tell us it was a 20 minute wait ! So we went to the bar while we waited to be seated to get a drink . While waiting for our table I put in a request with the host for an empty table that was in the front of the restaurant , the host said ok no problem ! Five minutes later he comes up to me like “ oh I’m soo sorry I accidentally sat somebody at the table you wanted .” Immediately I’m annoyed! So when he calls us up to the front to be seated I notice the table I asked for is empty , so I pointed that out to him and he says “ ohhh you meant that table ?! “ Very annoyed at this point ! So we get seated , then another 15-20 minutes goes by no server come to greet us ! My friend goes in to tell the host to send our server ! She comes over with no smile and 4 glasses of water , then immediately ask can she grab us some drinks ... we all had drinks already from the bar and she brung water out! So I told her we were ready to order and she just stood there quiet ! I asked “ can we put in the order ?l she said yes ! So the. I said “ I’m sorry what is your name ?!” She replies “Megan” So after we all ordered she says “ Can we hold a card for the tab since your sitting outside?” My friend without any thought gives her his card , but that was a red flag for me ! I’ve been there many times before and they never asked for that before ! So I asked 2 young (white) ladies next to ya did they have to put down a card for the table and the said no ! My friend went and got his card back and said we are going to leave ! I went inside furious to speak to he manager ! I told him about My experience and he proceeded to tell me that this has been a policy for the past 2 years .. lies ! I’ve been the a number of time and never had that happen! That was my first time ever being racially profiled and I will never go to the establishment again ! I don’t need to spend my money at a place that would treat me like that ! I strongly suggest Cantina Dos segundos right now the street over el Camino .. the drinks are better and the food is way more authentic! *sorry not prof reading this so if there are any grammatical errors , my...

I was excited to have my first lunch at El Camino today with my brother and cousin. I heard great things from friends so I assumed my experience would be similar.

When we arrived, the wait staff greeted us and told us we could sit anywhere. We chose to sit at the bar, and everything went downhill from this point forward.

One of the servers flashed a dirty look at my family. This made me uncomfortable. I began to observe and it seemed that the wait staff was looking in our direction and whispering to each other. I came to the conclusion that we were being stereotyped. I then decided maybe I was wrong, and I'd give them a chance before I expressed my concerns.

Next I order a Gimlet. I am someone who has worked in the service industry for 5 years so I'm well aware of the ingredients in one. The bartender suggests a cucumber gimlet, and I accept the offer. Instead I'm given a cucumber mojito, made without real cucumber because it's a "summer" drink. If this were a seasonal drink, then it should not be a suggestion or on the menu. In fact, the bartender should have suggested to make a classic Gimlet, or suggested something that they do have.

I confront the bartender, and instantly she gets defensive. I assume her defense was due to the face that she was aware of what she had done, and did not want to take claims to her mistake. This is an example of ignorance. She assumed that none of us knew what a gimlet is, and so she served us mojitos in martini glasses. I have a pictures of this drink as well.

This created a distraught atmosphere, a person I assumed to be a manager looked in my direction and shrugged. The servers were also discussing the situation, looking in our direction and not one person attempted to resolve the issue. I don't have a problem with mistakes, I have a problem with people who don't fix their mistakes.

It is good hospitality to just offer to remake a drink, or offer another suggestion. I was not asking for a discount, or any incentive. I just think it is sad how people assume ignorance and can't find it in themselves to resolve their own ignorance.

The food was great, but I'm giving this place a 1 star because of the extremely poor service.

Dear Staff: You're welcome for your $18.00 tip on our $88.00 bill. I hope what I taught you was not to judge and treat everyone equally from when they walk in to when they leave. That is how you create...

I recently went to El Camino Real for happy hour on a Friday with my two roomates (Note: 2 of my roommates are 24 years old and I am 23). We've all been there a few times before due to living close by. After ordering our drinks, our waiter informed us that the manager on the floor wanted to double check our ID's, even though the waiter had already checked them.

Shortly after, we were informed that we would not be served due to the manager deciding our ID's were fake. We asked to speak to him personally as we understood it was not the waiter's fault. Once he arrived, all he told us was that our ID's did not look like the state's we claimed to be from. We explained that we had passports to confirm our age and that we had been there several times before without issue. One of the ID's was from New Jersey which is a short drive from this location so he reasonably must have seen a lot of them. Additionally, two of our ID's were vertical further questioning why we would have fake vertical ID's as opposed to horizontal. We eventually had to return to ur apartment to provide our passports to prove that we were not lying.

I personally recently suffered a knee injury which makes walking difficult and was deeply perturbed that this manager forced me to walk two blocks both ways just to confirm that I was the age I claimed. Furthermore, his insistence that he knew what our ID's were supposed to look like, despite being wrong, proved offensive especially to my roommate from a proud Hawaiian heritage. Once we brought our passports back to him, this manager simply stated "Oh they must have recently changed the ID" even though the ID he was looking at was 4 years old. Overall, this manager never offered to correct this mistake or properly apologize for his over zealous, yet incompetent attitude.

Overall however, El Camino Real is a satisfactory and positive experience if it were not for the imbecile it allowed...