El Amigo Restaurant — Restaurant in Valparaiso

Their food is decent to good considering Valparaiso doesn't have many "authentic" Mexican restaurants. Carne asada or steak tacos are not legit. Tiny cut up meat. Not bad I guess but not what people who want real steak tacos are looking for. The reason for my low score though is due to a recent encounter with a worker. I went in a group of 4 friends who came from Chicago for ladies night. We all ordered tacos and I believe one friend ordered a quesadilla. We all wanted salsa for our food so I spoke up right after we ordered and told our server we'd like salsa. He asked if for the chips and I said no for our food. He looks at me confused and says what kind. Mind you I had been here before and knew they had separate salsas for tacos and maybe he was new to not know. I explain to him it's a dark red salsa and I've had it before. He goes oh ok it's 1.25 (I believe) I was shocked because never in my life had I been charged for salsa while dining in. And never did I notice they charge at this location the other times I had been here. I tell him this and he says I probably just didn't notice. I told him how surprised I was because that's like going to an American restaurant ordering a burger with fries and being charged for the ketchup. He repeated the price for the salsa and said it's not a big deal it'll be charged between the 4 of us so it'll be like 25 cents. I don't care if it was 2 cents. In my whole life no Mexican restaurant charged for salsa. And to top things off the way he said it was so disrespectful like we were being cheap. I never said I wasn't going to pay it I just wanted to get across that that was a first and was not expecting that. You would think he would be a gentleman or just respectful for that matter. Mind you my friends and I not once gave him attitude. Disappointing. (I do want to add they have the price of the salsa and however many ounces it is right behind the register. So those picking up take out would...

We started tracking the problems we had, when ordering Tacos to go, because it seemed like our orders were always wrong. The bottom line is, 80% of the time, our order was not right. Either the tacos were made incorrect or something was missing on the order. This past Wednesday, we ordered 2 pork tacos and chips and salsa. I get home and there was NO salsa. My wife called to complain and the bottom line was, they could have cared less. The person who answered the phone told my wife to hold, while she was right in the middle of complaining. The phone wasn't put on hold and he had the audacity to take someone's else's order, while my wife waited. He could of cared less. Oh, he never apologized either. Then a women comes to the phone and my wife tells her the whole story all over again. I had to drive all the way back there for salsa. I get there and they give me the salsa. I said by the time I get home, her tacos will be cold. She didn't say a word. I would have thought that maybe she would say, at the least, we're sorry and I'll give you free chips and salsa next time your order or a free taco or whatever. Nope. She said I already told your wife I was sorry. That will be the last time we order from them. She had an attitude from the start and could have cared less, that I had to drive 3 miles back, to get the salsa. Plus, another 3 miles back home. I left knowing, that they don't care about their customers in the slightest. Oh, they're also drastically reducing how much meat and cheese they put on their tacos. I'd rather they raise the price a little and give people a quality product. Bye bye...

The food was quite good unfortunately the other aspects killed it. The restaurant reeked of a sewer backup. It's a pretty distinct smell that can't be masked. I realize they are in a strip mall and these things happen and it's not necessarily their fault at all but you can't be open for business especially serving food like this. Every time you run water or flush a toilet it comes up through the drains. No functioning bathrooms or not being able to wash hands or dishes is a big no no. Also stacking baskets of tortilla chips on top of one another is not a good idea especially on a shelf that is maybe 3 inches off the floor. We all know how often the plastic baskets get washed and sanitized. Lastly when people are charging 3-4 bucks for a drink that costs them 3 cents, our glasses should NEVER go empty! One more minute and I would have gone behind the...