Avila's El Ranchito — Restaurant in San Clemente

I walked into Avila's for happy hour. I ask if are daughter could sit at the bar with us. Chewy the bartender said she could not sit at the bar with us. He moved us to a table right in front of the bar. We were literally 5 feet from the bar. Chewy never came over to us. I asked him to take are order. He was talking to his friends the whole time so we could not get his attention at all. Once I got his attention he said that they don't do happy hour at those tables. Again I told him we were there for happy hour. He told us to sit at a small table by the bar. He gave us the restaurants regular menu and quickly walked away . It took quit a long time to get his attention. Again just talking to his friends. He had a attitude when dropping off the happy menus. I asked Chewy what is the problem. He told me he was busy. Chewy had 5 customers. I said I'm a bartender and personally can handle 50 customers at the bar and make drinks for the entire restaurant. I said you only have 5 customers. He replied after my comments "good for you". I then said if you worked for me I'd fire you. My daughter got flustered and didn't know what to order. Again 5 customers and us. She took awhile to pick what she wanted to order and he said I'll be back with a snarky attitude. You should check your cameras. We walked out.

I've never been treated like that. I will never go back. I did return and spoke with Iris the manger. She was very nice and she said Chewy called her saying he was busy and a customer left upset. I showed her the picture of his 5 customers. Avila's has ok food - nothing to rave about.

I warn you all not to go. We walked to Beach Fire and enjoyed their happy hour with...

I've only eaten here once, so perhaps my experience is unique... I wish I could leave a good word, but I would mostly be lying if I did. I was hoping this restaurants food would at least be mediocre, but my family and I were very disappointed in our meals. Quite frankly, the food just didn't taste good. I wondered if they completely ran out of seasonings when preparing the food. Even the salsa did not taste good:( There are (2) items that I thought were decent: The beans that came with one of our meals, and the ceviche. We did not order any alcohol, so I cannot comment on that. Our waitress was friendly, but service was not very good. We waited a long time before we could place our order, and then another long wait before we got our food. I felt a little bad for our waitress because it seemed they may have been short of staff that day. And the restaurant certainly was far from crowded. We came in on a Wednesday for lunch in late January. I left wishing we had eaten somewhere else. I cannot recommend this restaurant based on my experience.

What do I think is mediocre Mexican food (good, but nothing special)? I feel that Abuelos and El Torito chain restaurants...

So, when we first bought our house in San Clemente 5 years ago, are real estate agent took us here to celebrate. We've heard of some of the other trendy Mexican restaurants in town and didn't really know what to expect here. Since then, we've been no less than 50 times. We keep coming back because the staff is so amazingly friendly. Even if you want to just go check out appetizers at the bar area and have a drink with the sidewalk view or the main restaurant with the delicious authentic family inspired Mexican cuisine... Or since we have a new puppy, the back patio pet friendly seating area with its own private Hispanic canine menu. Hooray!each one of these individual spots are a great hiding place from reality for a few hours... I like it when a restaurant recognizes its customer base and figures out a way to cater to it in a unique and exceptional way. They absolutely do that here. Big thumbs up! On a side note, the skinny mahi tacos are amazing, the chimichangas absolutely Rock and the ceviche it's one of the best I've ever...