El Rancho — Restaurant in Town of Dix

I met my newly 21 year old son in Watkins Glen, NY for a long weekend to celebrate his birthday. After looking at reviews, we decided to come to El Rancho for his first official margarita with dinner. He presents his ID and they explain that the manager doesn't like taking vertical NY licenses, even though it clearly stated his birthday. I explained our situation and the fact that he was legal and the manager comes over. She starts suggesting all the things we can do to prove that my son really is who he says he is because she doesn't "want to get into trouble again" as she had taken a FAKE vertical ID on NYE and got in trouble. I explained it was not fake. She has my son log into the NY DMV website for "proof", he also showed a school ID, insurance card, debit card. I show her a few things proving this is my son. This was going on for a half hour. The ENTIRE time we are watching clearly over-served people leave the bar. I watched one woman fall off her barstool, another need to be "walked" outside and another table behind us had 4 rounds of tequila shots in the 30 minute span of jumping through the manager's hoops. We recognized one very inebriated woman from the winery 2 hours earlier who was wasted there as well and I pointed it out and she said "oh no don't tell me that". They serve a 42 ounce margarita - how was she surprised? When we finally get the NYS website to work we call her over and she asked "what is this?". At this point my son lost all patience and said it is the site you asked for and gave her his phone and said find what you're looking for. She fumbled with his phone for a bit then said "fine I'll serve you". She sends our waiter back over who was clearly mortified. He apologized profusely. He did a great job and we tipped him to reflect that. The four stars in this review are for him, taking one off for the rest of the staff. After 45 mins of being there we are finally able to order food & drinks. We received two margaritas that were 90% tequila - explains the hammered customers. Fairly undrinkable unless that is your thing. We get our food and it is the most under seasoned overcooked Mexican food either of us have tried. It is room temperature at best. I ordered tacos with steak - it was the consistency of beef jerky. I ordered the corn salad with it, it was canned corn with a white sauce and an overwhelming taste of soy sauce. My son ordered a steak burrito that was so doused in salsa verde it was like a bowl of soup with a burrito. The food is not fresh, it is clearly canned or prepared way ahead of time and microwaved (hot plates cold food). Point of interest, the prices on the menu are not what you will be charged. They are charging $1 to $5 MORE than the listed price. There is a tiny faded note taped up in the dining room notifying you of this. This was the most expensive meal we had on our trip and by far the most disappointing. It was $70 for two medium margaritas, a small guac and two very subpar meals. Go across the street to the BBQ place, we had twice as much food and drinks for $20 less and we did not have to jump through ridiculous hoops to be served a drink.

EDIT - Regarding the owner's response, where she glossed over the pricing issue - the beginning of our experience in your restaurant has ZERO influence on my review of the food. The owner has a copy paste response to the MULTIPLE complaints on the bland, dried out food, that should speak for itself.

And as far as being Tips certified - serving 4 rounds of tequila shots to the three men directly behind us, without food, within a half hour goes against Tips training. And you, the manager, were standing at our table for the first three rounds. Serving the women at the bar to the point of her falling off the chair goes against Tips training. NYS does not encourage you to cherry pick which rules you want to follow, you have to...

TLDR; Expect a 2 hour "experience" because you wont get your meal until an hour after ordering when the establishment is dead, forget about any type of drink refill, plan to sweat your butt off because theres no AC if they seat you upstairs, ask about auto gratuity, and don't expect good service from Riley.

If i could give this place negative stars, they'd have a whopping -7.

I was a part of a bachelorette party on Sunday 7/28. We had finished our wine tours early and we had called to see if we could switch our reservation from 6:30pm to 6pm. Lucky that we called cause they had the reservation down the the next day. But hey, that's an easy mistake anyone could make.

Cue getting to the restaurant. We (12 of us) arrived on time and were escorted to their upstairs area. There was absolutely no AC and none of the fan were turned on, so we took it upon ourselves to turn on at least two of them because it was absolutely sweltering.

They have a QR code for their menu, which would have worked fantastic if you had service on your phone. I did not. So once Riley took our drink orders, I had asked if I could get the wifi password. 5 minutes pass, 10 minutes pass, he brings the drinks for the tables and i just took it upon myself to go downstairs and get it because he seemingly forgot. QR code menus are cool and all, but it's not 2020 -- give proper menus. It's just annoying.

At 6:15 another large table of 15 were seated next to us. We all put our order in with Riley approximately 6:30pm. The 15 top next to us had their food come out before ours somehow. at 7:20pm we still didn't have our food. Finally at 7:32 we received our mediocre "Mexican" food (for real, taco bell would have been better). I simply wanted a chicken and cheese quesadilla -- and thats what i got. Half chicken, half cheese on the tortilla. Not even mixed in. One bite was straight cheese and the other was chicken. My mother had ordered the same exact thing, but somehow got some fajita chicken quesadilla which was just frozen veggies with 0 flavor whatsoever, and according to the menu it was supposed to be served with beans and rice but that was absent as well. No salsa or sour cream was provided except for one girl who had to ask for it. 3 of the girls ordered some Chicken Tinga Taco's and they were astonishingly horrible. They were so spicy to the point that no one even bothered finishing them. It was unbearable.

After the food was dropped off, Riley did not return to the table to check in on the food nor ask if any of us wanted refills (which would have help us gulp down the disappointing meal).

Being as we were already there for TWO HOURS, we wanted our bill. Again, since Riley did not return to our table after dropping off our order, I had gone downstairs to find someone else and request that our bill be brought to the table.

Once going back upstairs, they have this little glass viewpoint where you can see over the bar -- and there is Riley chitchatting and making small talk with other patrons (which lets be honest, the place wasn't busy at all and only two bar guests at the time).

We had a few of the girls go down to pay because we were sick of waiting, and where they expressed the dissatisfaction but "there's nothing" they could do. The real kicker, is apparently they take it upon themselves to add a 20% gratuity without notifying patrons. No where on the menu, nor were we told that there was an auto grat. So of course we're going to get subpar service because hey, the server is already tipped.

I'm appalled that this place has so many good reviews because it's deplorable. The service is trash, the food is mediocre and their payment practices are skeevy. None of us will ever be returning. But the good thing is, it was the funniest part of our bachelorette trip because of how unquestionably horrendous this place and our...

My son and I decided to dine at this establishment based on a suggestion from a friend. She said the place was amazing and I should go try it.

Great! Here we go with the 'another attempt at Mexican food' in Central/Upstate NY ...

Ugh! Just ugh!

This particular day we decided to utilize their outdoor seating in order to enjoy the beautiful weather and post-COVID lockdown, as being under confinement for so long had taken its toll.

Upon arrival it seemed fun. Classic colors of many Mexican restaurants were immediately noticed. Waiters were attentive and lack of stars have nothing to do with them. This is YET AGAIN another dismal review of Mexican cuisine in this part of NY. Let's dive in, shall we ...

First - The chips and salsa. Chips were stale AF. A basket was brought to us and immediate thoughts were these chips must be sitting somewhere indoors where air-conditioning and humidity had played a part in the lost crunch tortilla chips are known for. The chewiness was off putting. Okay, so no biggie it is what it is. Let's be honest, it's tortilla chips after all. No one goes to any restaurant for 'chips'. So, another basket was brought along with an order of queso chorizo. Same deal with these chips, simply put, THEY SUCKED! The queso was a pathetic attempt of 'cheese' as it was a thin, watery substance with little to no flavor, certainly not cheese. Look up queso - that it was not. The waiter forgot the chorizo and brought it out in a bowl to dump in the soupy mess. Enough of that already, you get the point.

Next, after looking over the menu we both decided to go with the "Tacos de Pascado". Being quite familiar with most-to-all Mexican cuisine, this one seemed to be an easy one to pull off, and ability to give this establishment a worthy review.

The tacos were delivered with an overwhelming amount of shredded lettuce (I know the menu). No cabbage. No jicama. Lettuce. LETTUCE! soft, wilted, mushy-lettuce. I decided to pull the un-baled hay from the tacos to take a closer look at the pescado (fish) underneath. Sadly, the fish had the all-too-familiar look and taste of Van de Kamp's or Gorton's fish fillets. What a letdown. As if the 'Easter basket grass' amount of lettuce wasn't enough the fish sent it quickly to the bottom.

Michelada's were a thin red-tinted colored attempt of a summer-time favorite cerveza prepared beverage, which did little to provide contention for the already dismal experience.

I give it the EXTRA star for their rice. Their rice is out-of-this state AMAZING. It is EXACTLY how Mexican rice should be prepared and exactly how it should taste on the palate. If I decide to dine at this location again, rice will definitely be requested.

Sadly, I cannot suggest dining here, and sadly, the...