El Torito — Restaurant in San Bernardino

#ElTorito in San Bernardino is horrible! My husband and I decided to go have dinner there tonight. Neither of us had been there in years. We walked in, checked in, and had a seat in the waiting area. A short time later, another couple came in, checked in, and sat on the bench next to us. Then a family of 4 came in, followed by a party of about 8 people. The hostess and the mater’d talked for a minute, he gave her 2 menus, then he walked away. She walked over to the couple that came in after us and said, “I’ll show you to your table now.” My husband and I looked at each other like “did that just happen?” When the hostess came back, my husband asked her why she seated them before us. She literally smirked and said, “I’m coming to seat you now.” Of course this upset him and he was ready to leave. She just giggled. I asked her to call her manager. She walked off for about 5 minutes and came back with a phone to her head. A few minutes later, a man showed up, didn’t acknowledge us at all, and started grabbing menus from behind the desk. We had to ask him if he was the manager. He was. When we told him what happened, he said he was going to take care of it. My husband asked how. He said he was coming to seat us and that he would have a talk with her. Again she snickered. I asked her if she thought this was funny and she must have seen I wasn’t playing because she straightened up and then said, “I didn’t know who was here first.” I instantly said, “Stop lying! It’s right there in your computer! That’s why you have us check in and give a name!” The manager then says, “No worries. I’m going to seat you now.” My husband says, “Really? You walked over here, knowing we were waiting for you, didn’t say anything. We had to approach you and you think we’re going to give you our money?” I asked him for the number to their corporate office. He tells me that they don’t have one and that I can call back on Friday and speak to their general manager. The whole time he’s holding 4 menus in his hand, not 2, and the hostess is still standing there with the phone to her head sniggling. Although we were the only nonhispanics in this incident, I’m not going to call them racist. I’m going to say they have horrible customer service, horrible management, and I will never patronize that...

This review it is for the manager. We went today for happy hr and the service was less than desirable. Our server Yoseline and bartender were doing the best they could regardless of how busy the bar area was. There was only server (Yoseline) and one bartender.. the place was pretty packed and had at least two parties of at least 10 people each besides the other tables. I can't emphasize enough how hard our server was trying to take drink and food orders, Get food out to the patrons and always with a smile. After waiting over 30 minutes for for drinks and food, our server apologized. I asked to speak to the manager and reassured her that I didn't want to complain about her at all. The manager came to our table and he immediately had a condensing attitude. He was under the impression that I wanted to complain about our server, but I immediately let him know that the complain was about him. Yoseline had asked him to send someone to help her and he completely ignored her request. I told him that it was ridiculous that he only had one bartender and one server working when it was clear that the bar section was the busiest. He said that he was sorry for the "misunderstanding " and I corrected him, because there was no misunderstanding, this was 100% his fault for not providing support to his spot... to which he respond by trying to throw our server under the bus by saying that "she requested help too late" ( what a way to have his staff's back) He asked me what could he do for us and I told him to send someone to help the server..... we got there at 5pm and left at 6:30 and he never sent a single soul to help, he didn't even step up and tried to...

The food was genuinely exceptional—flavorful, beautifully prepared, and clearly crafted with skill. Unfortunately, the service was an absolute disgrace.

Our waitress was, without exaggeration, one of the most disengaged and lethargic servers I’ve ever encountered. Her demeanor was cold, her pace glacial, and her attitude indifferent at best. It took her over 20 minutes to bring a simple chips refill, which is unacceptable by any standard. Worse yet, when I asked to keep the original basket—still containing chips—I was outright denied and had it removed from the table without my consent. That level of dismissiveness is appalling.

To be clear: the manager was professional and courteous. But the waitress? A disinterested presence dragging herself from table to table with no apparent purpose or urgency. She contributed nothing to the experience other than irritation.

This was supposed to be our anniversary dinner—a fact we noted on the reservation and mentioned again upon arrival. There was zero acknowledgment, no effort, and no care to make it memorable. The disconnect between kitchen excellence and front-of-house incompetence was staggering.

I left no tip—and that was intentional. I reward good service. What we experienced was a textbook case of someone who needs immediate retraining, if not a different career path altogether. Dining out should never feel like a chore, and this did. I strongly advise others to avoid this location unless they enjoy good food paired with appallingly...