El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant - Clarence — Restaurant in Town of Clarence

I don't know why the single dollar sign is still up, because this place is now VERY expensive $$$ for VERY little food! My wife and I have been coming here for years and the food was always very good to excellent, about an 8.5 to a 9 out of a 10. However, now that this place has raised its prices on most dishes by more than a third, they've also cut portions by more than half, which is of course catastrophic! My wife and I have been back three times in the last 3 months, hoping that what they are now doing was just an adjustment to supply chain difficulties and that they'd figure it out, but we were wrong. Fillings of beef, chicken or pork are down to half of the still same size shell, so you're eating more shell than filling. Yes, they still use the same size shell but only fill it halfway! If a dish calls for beans, rice, guacamole and sour cream, you're lucky if you get a teaspoon of it now, down by 2/3! Their chicken soup is now 1/4 of the size in a large looking but very shallow so-called bowl. Items missing from the chicken soup that are still listed on the menu (SO ridiculous!) is also the same on other items on the menu, obviously the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. For $45 for dinner for two, instead of what used to be $28 to $35, my wife and I felt like all we'd had was two appetizers. Later when we were home we had to eat something cuz we were still hungry. Being loyal customers for years since they started at this location, we went back three times, unrealistically hoping that they were just "adjusting" to price/cost increases and would finally "get it", but they have not "gotten it." I don't know how anyone in the restaurant business could do something so ridiculously counterproductive as to raise prices to such a high degree and lower the amount of food they put on a plate. I can understand raising prices reasonably to keep the quality up, but why would you raise prices so high and cut DOWN on quantity? Out of all the places my wife and I eat at, we've never seen such a destructive way of doing business, no matter what the cost of doing business is. It's almost as if El Ranchito in Clarence is purposefully trying to drive themselves out of business! Hopefully someone with the initial smarts that made this restaurant so good in the first place, will help get this restaurant...

I have a buy 1 get 1 combination dinner coupon. The fine print does say dine in only however I figured that since we are currently in a global pandemic where indoor seating is currently unavailable, and since other resturants have understood this and have allowed me to use coupons for take out, that there wouldn't be an issue. I was told that since the manager wasn't there the employee could not approve the coupon. Very sad that an employee doesn't feel empowered to discount 10 bucks from a bill to get some business in the door... Shame on the management really.. Anyway, we proceed to just order 2 cheese dips and a guac (and decide to stop elsewhere for the meal, your loss, not mine). Then we are told that we would only get 1 order of chips with our THREE dips...how that makes any sense at all is beyond me. If I were dining in I would just be given a bowl of cheese to eat with my spoon?? So the girl says she will have to CHARGE us for 2 of the "extra" chips. Fine, whatever. But what really made me upset the most is when we picked up the 3 dips and 3 chips ...for $20...and I realized the size of the dips. The dips are served for take out in 4 oz cups. Awesome. And now I paid for all these chips which I don't even need...one bag would probably suffice for these tiny dips.. Needless to say I won't be returning which is unfortunate since I just moved to the clarence area not too long ago! I would much rather take a drive to El Gave or...

I have eaten here for several years, always good food... Always good food. Maybe new management? I ordered steak fajitas. A combination of small things left a bad taste in my mouth. After she delivered the fijita plates I sat in awe of how few condiments there was. Maybe 2 tbsp guacamole. One tbsp. sour cream, small portion of rice and refried beans, a little lettuce. It all fit on a small plate. I had to call the girl and call get over to get tortillas she forgot, I figure she might be new, it was very quiet only a few tables including mine and there was another server. I started to fill a shell. I realized the red pieces weren't red peppers they were cut up tomato along with the steak, green peppers and onions. A tomato? There was quite a bit of tomato and it was mush of course. Then I noticed there was NO cheese on the plate with the condiments. I stopped, I waited a couple minutes. I would have asked for a little cheese and maybe more guac at least, but my server never came back to check if everything was okay. By the time i pulled out all the fried tomato pieces I almost fit everything else on the three tortillas. I've never had that little before, I always have a fair amount to take home and make 1 or 2 more. Not this time, I ate what was left with a fork! I had to wait to see her again and call her over again to get the check. Hopefully it was a fluke... should have...