El Faro #2 — Restaurant in Riverside Township

In short: You are better off eating at either of the Zacatacos on Harlem or Cermak.

Synopsis:

The local restaurant "El Faro" located on Archer road in the Chicagoland suburb of Summit has planted it's roots to become one of Chicago's most respected Mexican restaurants to date. With a menu full of colorful breakfasts and delicious dinners, it is no wonder that El Faro has done so well through out the years. With news spreading around that a new location was in the works, expecations were high for El Faro #2.

In dealing with first impressions, it's best to leave reviews once the dust has settled (given it has only been five days since the debut of this restaurant). This way, first-day-jitters and the likes are not to blame. That being said, here is what El Faro #2 could improve upon.

For starters, having the old restaurant's name on the building might be a little gratuitous (again, it has only been five days since opening day). Once inside, customers are welcomed with an interesting culmination of old american diner meets Mexican hacienda (but it is what it is). At the time, there were two cash registers, only one of them being operational; given the high volume of customers (10). What happened next at the register completely blew my mind. Something of which I had never seen before in all my years of dining out (apologies for the out of character segment). Whilst someone was being rung up, one of the employees decided to take a break in the middle of ringing up a customer. Seeing this farce, another employee had to finish ringing him up. Perhaps this is acceptable and this is my first time witnessing this?

I digress.

This is where things get a little... Ugly. To me, my heritage makes me biased when it comes to reviewing anything Mexican. Tex-Mex, Mexican grill, authentic, you name it. Unfortunately, this is the first time I was unable to finish a meal. The order was simple: Burrito de asada w/rice (grilled steak) Torta de milanesa w/o sour cream* Once home, I quickly realised what I had gotten myself into. The torta (basically a mexican sandwich with a crispy bolillo as bread, lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes, meat, and sometimes avacado. The torta was a 'ok.' Not great. Not bad, not okay, but 'ok.' Of course, even though I had ordered no sour cream, there was sour cream in it. What was extremely disappointing was the quality of the meat. For those of you that do not know what Carne Asada means, it literally stands for "grilled steak." To my utter surprise, the steak in the burrito lacked any visible scortch marks reminiscent of being grilled. The steak seemed to have been broiled!! I've had orders been completely wrong in the past, I've had to wait for hours to be served, but I don't think anything has upset me more than seeing this steak. I don't want to belittle anyone and I certainly don't want to make any of this personal, but the quality of the steak NEEDS to be improved. Please.

Besides my gripe with this, the employees were kind, modest people. However, improvements must be made.

El Faro #2 receives one star due to the quality of food, accuracy of meal, experience of cashiers, a strange smell of gas (yes, gas from a gas leak), and quality of food (yes, again).

I have high hopes...

Poor customer service! When you mess up an order its expected that you make it right. Don't act like you're doing the customer a favor. It's actually the other way around, we're supporting your business! Based on my experience with the OWNER, definitely not coming back. I will make the drive to the Summit location.

In response to the owners comment, the story is i placed an order for 10 steak tacos as 3 separate orders. What your restaurant did was gave me 9 plain tacos and separated the condiments, the lettuce & tomato were given to me separately in a piece of foil and ended up missing 1 taco. If the restaurant can't take a simple order & get it right, we have a problem! As far as yesterdays interaction, I did not request or expect free food. Instead as common courtesy I would have expected the owner to apologize for the mistake. Instead she stood there trying to argue and blame me for the restaurants mistake. Obviously i had to receive a credit for the food that I PAID for but was missing from the previous order. The lack of professionalism and attitude from the owner is the reason why I will never return to your restaurant. Its funny how every bad review this place gets the owner gets all defensive & always blames the customer. Word of advice, be more professional you're running a business here! You're not selling tacos at a taco stand...

It's easy, fast, inexpensive, tasty food - perfect for a quick casual meal with our family on a Friday night when we don't feel like cooking, but don't want to do fast food. And it's nice to have it just down the road. We've been there 3 times now, and the staff recognize us and say "hi" when we walk in. We like to eat late on a Friday (after 8pm), so it's good to have a place open for a quick, late meal. Apart from opening night, it's not been too crowded since then. Enough people to create an atmosphere, but there's hardly any wait time for ordering. And the food comes out very quickly.

It's a friendly place with cozy decor. They have an all-you-can-eat chip and salsa bar, that you can help yourself from. I keep getting the chicken enchilada meal, which comes with a yummy mole sauce. My husband and son get the giant burritos, which satisfy them. They've tried the beef and the tongue ones - both yummy. My daughter gets the tacos, which she likes a lot. The pork ones are the best, with an onion and cilantro topping.😋

After 3 visits, I can see this becoming a regular favorite...