El Charro Mexican Grill Verona — Restaurant in Verona

I went with a large group to celebrate two birthdays, one of them being my own, on a Sunday night. I had been to this restaurant before, and did not think the food was worth the price, but decided to give it another try. After my experience, I realized that my initial evaluation was correct, and I will not be returning. I ordered the fajitas, which had a decent flavor, but were dripping in oil and grease. I agree with other reviews that the beans and rice were rather flavorless. The tortillas that came with the meals were genuinely pitiful, floppy, and had the texture of being microwaved. For how costly the meals were, I expected a higher quality. As for the service and atmosphere, the waiter was nice, but mistakes were made regarding our meal and what we ordered. We were seated at a large table next to the bar, and the entire time we were eating, our waiter and a fellow waitress were touching, smiling, and flirting with each other quite literally directly next to us. It was weird and made us highly uncomfortable. The staff overall were very inattentive, and there was a point in our meal where we noticed the entire front-of-house staff sitting around the bar and front area lounging on their phones. I don't necessarily care that they had downtime, but the fact that they were surrounding us ruined the atmosphere entirely. I hope I'm remembering incorrectly, but I also recall seeing one of the staff members taking two shots behind the bar. If I were the owner, I would be highly concerned with the blatant disregard for customer service from the staff, as well as the poor quality of food. Lastly, regarding payment, my party separated our checks to pay the bill. One of us only ordered a single beer, and the cost came out to almost $8. When they checked to make sure it was only the beer they were being charged for, the waitress clarified that they had been charged a mandatory 20% gratuity fee. Generally, I can understand a gratuity fee for large parties, but with the low quality of food and service we had received, the 20% gratuity was absolutely NOT deserved. Overall, I feel as though I made a horrible mistake in choosing this restaurant to celebrate my birthday. Would...

First, I don’t post negative reviews about restaurants unless the food is really bad. Unfortunately, this is the case. The experience started off well, but went down hill very quickly. We were seated within a few minutes of our reservation for ten, and the area we were seated in was a nice area. The chips and salsa were delicious and they were refilled immediately. I ordered steak fajitas and my wife ordered chicken quesadillas. My kids ordered burritos and my sister ordered Hawaiian fajitas. My fajitas came and I placed the ingredients into two shells, trying to eat them, but they had a burnt taste. I tried to cover the taste by mixing the rest of the fajitas with the other ingredients (lettuce, tomato, sour cream, etc.), and it was so burnt that I couldn’t eat it. I wanted to try and eat it but I couldn’t, as the smell and taste turned my stomach. I normally just eat bad food, say nothing and choose not to return, in order to not make a scene. This case was by far the worst Mexican food I have ever been served. My daughter said her burrito was gross, as was my wife’s quesadilla. Both of them ate about half of their meals. My sister’s fajita was edible on the top, but also black and charred on the bottom. The waitress never came back until everyone was almost finished. She told me there was nothing she could do besides refund my meal, and that the “burning” happens with fajitas. However, having eaten fajitas at many other establishments, I know burnt fajitas that can be smelled and are black on the bottom are not common. The bill came and my meal was included on the bill. The waitress said she thought I was kidding about my burnt meal. I had to have her change it, as it would have been $80 for horrible overpriced food. I walked out paying $60 for food I couldn’t even enjoy. There are tons of great Mexican restaurants in the Madison area and this establishment is on the bottom of my list. I would never recommend eating here to anyone and I will never return to eat here again. Please consider...

We've been coming here for a while now, food is always pretty good. Tonight the food was good, I can recommend the tropical pineapple dish.

However, we were just a bit frustrated with the service and subsequent interaction with the manager.

While eating our complimentary chips and salsa we asked if they had a hot version of their salsa. The waiter said yes and that he would bring some out, which he did. It was actually some kind of Chipotle flavored sauce which wasn't very good, but that's not the point, which I'll get to later.

I asked how the Pineapple dish was and if it came with sour cream or anything? He said yes, it came with avocado, sour cream, etc, etc. So I ordered it. After it came out, it didn't come with any of those condiments. So I asked about sour cream, he asked another waiter. He came back and said sorry, I was wrong, would you like some sour cream? I said yes.

Now the frustrating part, I was charged $3 for sour cream which he indicated it came with and no mention of the charge when he asked if I wanted some. At least tell me it's $3 so I can decide. But I didn't complain and didn't mention it.

Next, we were charged $3 for the "hot" version of their salsa that we ate with our complimentary chips. This time, I asked the waiter? $3 for the hot salsa with our chips? He said, let me talk to a manager.

So the manager comes over carrying their menu and points to the Spicy Tomatillo Sauce in the menu and proceeds to tell us that if it says in the menu it's $3, that's how much it is. Heck, we weren't even looking at a menu, we were eating our complimentary chips. At that point, I obviously wasn't going to even mention the sour cream, it was clearly my fault.

She did end up taking the $3 charge off after making sure I understood it was my fault and I should have had the menu memorized when asking for salsa.

I'm sure we'll go back again in the future because the food is good, but we'll sit there and keep our mouths closed and take...