El Merendero — Restaurant in Tucson

Well the first 2 times I went it was Great! The menudo was the best, the chicken enchiladas were incredibly delicious. The next time ( around 11:30 )we had a long wait. It seemed they were short staffed. The coffee was great again.The worst was the menudo. It was loaded with green onions and little meat. I couldn't get the onion taste out of my mouth. We decided to give them another chance, maybe the cook was out sick? It was breakfast time. So it seemed there were only 2 people working. The waitress was very nice, gave us coffee right away. She was taking orders,making coffee, drinks, answering the phone and cleaning. The coffee was terrible, weak and obviously been made much earlier. I didn't drink mine. She came back and asked if we needed coffee. My brother asked for decaf, I asked if she had any Fresh coffee. She said she had just put on a pot of decaf but she had Fresh regular. She said she had given everyone decaf earlier because the regular had run out! She didn't tell the customers! SMH. Right about then 2 more staff came in.The menudo was good. The poor lady who waited on us obviously was not a regular waitress. I'm not sure I'll go back. 3 stars for the...

Very clean, the service was great and we loved the nostalgia of knowing this was an A&W back in the day. We were the only people in there at 9:30 on a Saturday morning. The menu has a lot of great traditional choices as well.

The food was okay. The chips were kind of stale, so after a couple crunches we passed on filling up before our meal. The portions are hearty. The hubs got the steak and eggs, being I am obsessed with Chilaquiles (Rojo)...of course that is what I ordered. So the Hubs said his meal was good... he was a little weird about the tortillas. He is hispanic and likes his tortillas cooked and fluffy. The ones here are the oily kind (but trust me, he ate them) My Chilaquiles good but I am still in search of the best Tucson chilaquiles. We enjoyed the breakfast.

Three stars means thumbs up to me, and this is the extent that I can go with El Merndero. It was not bad at all, but with so many other options we will likely not return and give other bookemarked untried establishments a go. I guess all the 5 star reviews brought me in, but the food was definitely 3 star in our opinions. (5 stars on service and...

The reason for the 2 star review was based on the day i went in and sat down to eat. Me and my husband always order from here. But this first time we dined in and it was the worst experience ever. First the waitress seemed rude. Then when she took our order shes came back to me 3 times because she couldn't remember what i asked for. She even then had another staff member come and ask me what i ordered. Then about 15 mins later brought my husbands food and not mine. As they were standing there talking my waitress realized i was looking at her and noticed my husband did not touch his food because he was waiting for mine to come out. Mind you that was 15 mins of waiting for mine after he got his. Then i heard her tell the other staff in spanish omg her chimichanga. And ran to the back to find out what was the hold up. She then brought my food to me and we waited even longer for refills on the drinks. Also there was only 4 other people in there dining in. I wont be dining there or ordering from there anymore. I am highly upset. I have always ordered from here....