El Patio Restaurant 2003 N Conway Mission Tx — Restaurant in Texas

So this is a local place that seems fairly popular in the community. I took my wife and son for a lunch one day and it was.... alright.

It has its definite pros.... we'll start there. Most places give out a complimentary small cup of charro beans, they gave us a small cup of fideo w/ vegetables. It was quite nice...and not the usual starter. My son is quite a picky eater (what 3 yr old isn't) and he finished his small cup.

Another pro...the tostadas. My wife had been craving nice, crispy, crunchy tostadas and she told me these were perfect! They didn't turn soggy, had plenty of meat, and they were just what she had imagined.

My plate fell in between...carne guisada with enchiladas verdes. The carne guisada tasted bland...the sauce was thick and felt more like a gravy. The enchiladas verdes were also lacking something...more crema? More citrus? More love in preparing them? They were "alright".

The one BIG con...we ordered my son the kid chicken nuggets. The last thing I expected was an item that I could literally find in my freezer. Dinosaur chicken nuggets...they looked exactly like the ones you buy at the local store and can microwave in 1 min. I should know because we have bought them before...needless to say, don't get your child the kid chicken nuggets.

The ambience was overall bustling...a lot of people coming and going. It did feel a bit old and dated. The tables and chairs were wooden but they show definite wear and tear already. Service was good but the waitress did seem to get lost every now and then.

Crispy tostadas...bland carne guisada..and dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets combined means I'll flip a coin next time I...

Been to El Patio for years and have never been disappointed with the service or food but today was just horrible. My family of six got there and got a table fairly fast. Waitress immediately took our drink order and brought our drinks almost immediately. A few minutes later she took our order and that was when everything went downhill. It took more than one hour to get our food, we asked the waitress for our food and several times and she told us that it was taking a bit longer because of there was orders to go. Honestly we did not see any orders to go being picked up. Also a table that got there after us was served way before us, so I don't know what the problem was. Finally after an hour or so our order came little by little making that even worst. The food was hot but my father's plate ...carne guisada plate... was over cooked. To avoid more issues I decided to take his plate and gave mine to him. The waitress noticed and asked what the problem was and so she was told the meat was way overcooked so she offered to bring me another plate but I was not willing to wait any longer so I declined the offer. The waitress still told me she was bringing me a taco of what I had initially ordered but sadly to say that taco never camr. At the end not even an apology was given by the waitress or the owner who I'm sure was aware of what occurred as he was a table away from us. They even charged me the automatic tip for a really horrible service and experience. I don't know what happened as we had never experience something like this...

Terrible customer service, the waitress took too long to come ask what we wanted to drink when we can in, we had 3 servings of chips and salsa before our food came in which is too long of a wait, then on top of that it was give to us on a to go plate (we ordered a Seafood Botana) like if someone had ordered one to go but never picked it up, plus the food was cold, when letting the manager know this, he was the rudest person ever, obviously has no redeeming qualities of leadership, he literally called us liars too. This restaurant has good food, especially when it's during the buffet hours but once it's near closing time about an hour or 2 close to it, they're main concern is about cleaning because that's the excuse that 3 of their waitresses told us, when we would ask for refills on our drinks, as to why they took so long to check on us. I'm never going back especially after the rudeness from that manager and him calling me a liar was the last straw. DON'T GO THERE,...