Elsa La Reina Del Chicharron — Restaurant in Teaneck Township

I have to talk about this restaurant. We had previously ordered through Uber Eats and had never had a bad experience, so we decided to dine in for a relative’s birthday.

We arrived around 1 PM, and at first, everything seemed fine—light music, not too crowded. But as soon as we started ordering, everything went downhill. The service was incredibly slow; we had to keep calling the waiter to check on our drinks and food because they took way longer than expected. At one point, they even turned off the music, and the whole atmosphere felt tense and uncomfortable.

When the food finally arrived, it was a huge disappointment. My sangria tasted like pure alcohol with no trace of the actual flavor, The mofongo is SUPPOSED to come with a garlic mojo to keep it moist, but what they brought me was a greasy sauce that had nothing to do with the meat in the mofongo (I’m Dominican, and never in my life have I been given grease to pour over mofongo 🫠). My family ordered other dishes, and every single one was a disappointment. The seafood soup tasted more like saltwater than actual seafood, the oxtail was cold, dry, and came with a sad count of six tiny pieces. And the worst part? The mofongo made me so sick I ended up throwing up on the way home.

The service was just as bad. Our food was incomplete, it took them forever just to bring a bottle of water, and when we asked for the bill, our waitress was about to leave without even telling her coworkers. No apologies, no solutions. Everything was overpriced for how awful the food and experience were. Total disappointment

To top it off, the utensils looked dirty, and the dishes were ridiculously overpriced for such small portions. Honestly, I’ll never come back—they lost me as a customer. This was a horrible and unpleasant experience from...

Quality, environment and everything in between has gone severely downhill since October when the manager, (the owner’s son), killed two of the cooks, Alex and Rudy. The owners seem to have casually brushed this under the rug, and it sickens me to see more and more 5 star reviews for this place. Alex was not just an employee here, but also my partner and the father of my daughter. He worked here for months, in which he was mistreated consistently by the manager, Teddy Mejia. If Teddy got upset, he would regularly send employees home mid-shift and threaten their jobs. In addition, he would distribute and peer pressure employees into using illicit substances after hours. On October 21st, his actions finally caught up to him; he crashed his car at 106mph, killing both passengers but somehow he walked out totally fine. For the last 176 days, Elsa Restaurant has been in business and making money while my daughter and I have been sitting heartbroken in a quiet, empty home. I have not heard a word from anyone at Elsa in the last 6 months since their monster of a son killed Alex. 6 months of my daughter waking up without a father, while they are continuing on as normal. I hope Teddy is convicted of the max sentence and I hope the absolute worst for this restaurant. You took away my entire world, but please go on and make some more chicharrones as if you did not completely destroy the lives of myself and Alex’s 5 year old daughter, who he will...

RACIST! The customer service I received at the establishment was horrible and I was treated completely different than two other races that walked in after me ( white and Hispanic). I walked in around 12:30pm and there were 6 people behind the counter preparing orders and no one acknowledged me. After 5 mins I said excuse me I would like to place an order and a woman behind the counter said hold on give her a minute. A white man walked in and a man from behind the counter immediately greeted him and told him to have a seat, took his order and began preparing his food immediately. Then, the same woman who told me to give her a minute started speaking in Spanish to the Hispanic woman who came in after and the woman replied by saying she called in her order, so the woman behind the counter began looking for her ticket and preparing her order. Keep in mind all this is going on and nobody has yet to take my order and 10 mins had passed by. After she did that I realized what was going on and I was being treated differently and ignored because I was African American and they didn't consider me to be important so I walked out. I have been eating there for years and it seems like they've changed management and I will no longer be supporting this business they're racist and do not deserve my support or any other support from the African American community. There are plenty of other restaurants in the area who would appreciate my hard...