El Vallarta Restaurant — Restaurant in Rockford Township

We took our mother to El Vallarta in Rockford for her birthday, and while the evening started off well, it ended in disappointment.

The night kicked off with a boxing match on the big screen, which was a nice touch. My mom chose the restaurant after seeing their TikTok promoting a massive seafood platter that could feed six. When we asked about it, the staff acted like they had no idea what we were talking about—until we showed them the video. They agreed to make it, which we appreciated, but quoted us $150 and later charged us $179.99 instead.

We had a group of eight (including one child) and ordered quite a bit of food and drinks. Our final bill was $446.86, not including the tip. For that price, we expected much better quality.

The food came out quickly, and the drinks were okay, but everything else missed the mark. The meat dishes were full of bones and tough nerves and were very dry. The crab legs barely had any meat and were also dry. Tortillas came out cold and wet. What we received looked nothing like the polished photos and videos they promote online—it was noticeably lower in quality.

We took all the leftovers home, and days later, they’re still sitting in the fridge untouched. That says a lot about how we felt about the food.

To top it off, they didn’t allow us to split the bill individually at the end. We were told we either had to pay it all on one card or divide it in half. This wasn’t mentioned up front, and it caused unnecessary confusion and stress during what should’ve been a relaxed celebration.

La Vallarta has potential, but the food, service, and experience don’t justify the nearly $500 price tag. The atmosphere was dull and didn’t feel like a place you'd want to celebrate a special occasion.

(Response) Hi El Vallarta Management, Thank you for taking the time to respond. While we appreciate the gesture of returning the $30, your response feels more like deflection than accountability. At no point did we come in with the intent to be aggressive or disrespectful, our concerns stemmed from a pricing miscommunication that should have been handled more professionally from the start. Instead of using our review to shift blame onto the customer, management should reflect on how the situation was handled and focus on improving communication and service. A good manager leads by example and ensures their establishment runs smoothly, especially during special occasions and busy nights. We provided honest feedback in hopes of better experiences for others in the future, not to attack your team. Dismissing our concerns and attempting to discredit our character isn’t the way to build trust with your guests. We wish you the best moving forward and hope to see better accountability from...

I asked about a dish that was not on the menu. The owner personally helped, he was very nice and attentive, he came to our table and told us, the dish name, he said its not on menu but we can do it. HE than proceeded to tell me the price Small is for 2-3 cost $100 and large is for about 6 people with the cost of 150.00; I first told him the small but than told him go ahead and do the one for $150.00 since it was my birthday, he told Belinda the waitress to go-ahead to enter the order in for 150.00 on that dish and she said ok. Everything went great till the time came to pay. We noticed that my $150.00 dish was charged for $179.99 asked to please fix it and Belinda said she would since she knew he said 150.00. She left and came back to tell me, they said they could not fix it and I had to pay full amount. Manager was not on site and owner had left the person they called was manager as what Belinda told us and she was not trying to fix it. She told me to come back the next day to see if they could give me my money back . Belinda kept saying she was sorry and understood how there system was mest up, for not being able to do adjustment right there and then. I ENDED UP GIVING Belinda cash for tip and told them in writing to please give the additional $30 cash to Belinda in tip. I was not going to drive out to establishment the next day since, I donot live in town. FYI MANAGER wrote reply trying for us to take fault on how situation was handled, saying that we where rude for asking for price adjustment and time of payment. I will attach pictures. I blame manager for the service rendered at the end. We did not ask you to lower price once...the owner set the price. We did not receive a penny back from this establishment as they...

DISCLAIMER: The management staff was great and helped us out with great detail.

My girlfriend and I were looking for a place to eat and went on Google to see this place. The images that came up showed amazing food such as tacos, burritos, etc. When we arrived we were greeted by the bar tender and taken to our table.

It was extremely loud there to the point we could not hear each other talk making it hard to enjoy our night. When we got the menu we were disheartened to learn that almost all of the menu consisted of seafood that was quite expensive. The only thing on the menu that look decent was the carne asada which was 30 dollars, our waitress came over and dropped off some chips without saying a word. She didn’t ask for our drink order or say hello but left without saying anything, the place was relatively dead with only a couple tables that were already seated.

After we looked at the menu and waited for around 15-20 minutes we decided to leave not because of the wait but because we didn’t find anything on the menu we liked as well as not being able to hear each other. I had let the hostess know we were going to leave and she brought over the manager. I had explained my situation and she had said there were other things on the menu like the ones I saw online.

Apparently they were on the lunch menu which ended at 3pm however the manager said they could still make it. My thought was “why wasn’t this on the menu to begin with”. She then said they just got new staff and waitresses were new, which is fine they have to learn so I’m not upset by that. We ended up leaving feeling confused, disappointed but most of all hungry.

We may return for a second try in the future but at the moment we don’t have any plans to return...