Los Arcos Mexican Cocina — Restaurant in University Heights

I go to these types of restaurants with pretty normal expectations. Most Mexican restaurants rock the same menu and usually offer more or less the same quality of product. I'm in the mood for Mexican when I want mediocre, samey food as all the other joints. Sometimes there are gems that do something different but you know what I mean.

This was my first visit. Service wasn't good, however they were quite busy and staff might've been short so who cares, y'know. With that said, as a table of two, we entered, left, and were served after a 6 top. It definitely felt as though we were seen as less of a priority.

The food was quite abominable. It was not in the same ballpark as average Mexican fare. It wasn't exactly cheap, either. The enchiladas verdes were lacking in meat, and had half a whole red tomato within. I do not know why it was in there, as it was not mentioned in the ingredients and only found in 2 of the 3 enchiladas. The meat was bland and verging on questionable edibility. The verde sauce was just wet and green. It didn't have that usual tanginess associated with the "standard" green tomatillo sauce. Beans were runny like soup. I've never had runny, refried beans. Rice was fine, I guess.

Anyway our bill ran higher than normal compared to other Mexican joints. Our food wasn't good. It's possible our experience as a whole deviated from the norm but I can't see all of the flaws being remedied by simply being less busy.

Your...

We just had the worst dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in years. Obviously we will never go back to Los Arcos.

Here is why our experience was so terrible:

Appetizers took 15 minutes and were cold The lettuce in every dish was slimy and wet The food was also watery because of the overly watery lettuce Shirley Temple drink had way too much grenadine Staff never smiled or acted friendly The atmosphere was dull and below average The chimichangas were small, definitely not worth $10+ The shredded beef was extremely chewy and had little flavor The lady at the cash register was half-asleep and put out, never said thank you, frowned instead Never gave us small plates for appetizers, we had to use our napkins instead Never brought extra napkins after we had to use our original napkins as plates One of the silverware rolls did not have a fork, had to wait 2 minutes for fork to be brought out

It was a very disappointing and frustrating experience. I don't normally leave reviews but our dinner was just over-the-top bad. There are several other good Mexican restaurants in the Cleveland area that we would rather frequent than this place. As stated previously, we will definitely...

Worst experience in a restaurant as a Chef working in the industry myself. Brought in my family of 8 and was told to wait then all of a sudden sat immediately missing 2 chairs so we had to push chairs together to sit and were sat without silverware. Was never introduced to our server and had a server after 30 minutes ask us if we had been greeted and we replied no. They kindly took our drink order and got us our drinks and chips and salsa but forgot my 6 year old niece's drink and sat without a drink for at 30 minutes. After waiting again for 45 minutes again we were asked if we had been helped and again we replied no. A gentleman again kindly took our food orders and told us he would put it in right away. Another 45 minutes or so went by and again nothing. Other tables that had arrived before us received their meals at a reasonable time. The hostess was the only one that seemed to care. Never saw or talked to a manager or owner the entire experience. Our experience was just short of 2.5 hours without any food and no communication. Horrible experience. I will make sure that my family and anyone I know does not go to this restaurant. Horrible management and communication...