Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Unfriendly service. We walked in and said hello to the waitress and got nothing. Finally someone came to seat us and I submit to you the dirty menus that were provided. Our table was sticky. There was hardly anyone there, yet we sat for ten minutes. It has been going down hill a while, as far as I'm concerned. Each time there was something less satisfying for me...this was definitely the last time. read more

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I was pleasantly surprised with how delicious everything was. I am new to the area and am from Reading area and there are PLENTY of delicious Mexican restaurants there. We got the Villa Sampler, Carne Asada and queso fundido. Queso fundido was delicious and has ground beef in it with great flavor. We also got chips and salsa brought to the table when we arrived (free of charge not sure if this has changed since other reviews i saw). The asada was good my boyfriend said he would've added more spices but it was regardless well done. I got the villa sampler and it was delicious. The margarita was super good as well! read more

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So so at best, under these conditions. First let me say that we ordered take out at my place of employment which explains a lot I'm sure. I ordered cheese nachos (which were soggy). They arrived hot, but soggy. I should have thought that out before ordering. Lesson learned! Secondly I ordered a beef taco salad. I had high hopes, but as you can see in my picture, it's more like taco soup than taco salad. I don't know why it was like this but I can truly say I've never had a taco salad this watery. I cannot comment on anything other than the food because I did not pick the order up. I can say that the lady who took my order over the phone was very nice. June 22nd 2017 Well, I believe today is the last chance for my place of employment to order from El Rodeo. First of all, they said 20 minutes our "take out" order would be ready, and it took over 40 minutes to be made. Secondly, they missed an item that was part of my coworkers order, however they had no problem charging her $4.58 extra for it. Third, another coworkers taco salad she ordered with beef and there was no beef on it and it was so watery it was uneatable. Lastly, the kids meal hamburger meal had a shard of metal in it. IN A KIDS MEAL!!!!!! I'm sorry El Rodeo but you will no longer get our business. read more

El Rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Nothing COVID related but not eating here ever again. Just a note to the owner that COVID is not the excuse to everything. When service is bad it means u have to make changed to your restaurant. Just a sorry is not good enough. Also when there is meat in vegetarian food a sorry is no good. Either replace the dish or take it off your menu. read more

Absolutely disappointed in service. Waiter was no where to be seen, had no refill in chips, no one greeted us when we sat, no sliverware was given or napkins. When finishing up meals, we were waiting a good 15 minutes for our waiter to come back and ask about dessert/check. Just terrible. read more

All they care about are the take out orders. I waited in line for 30 mins just to give my name to the lady at the hostess station. When she was rude I said never mind I'll take my money else where. read more

Hey everyone look what we got from El Rodeo in Jones town rd through Grubhub. This is supposed to be beef nachos. I also ordered tacos and all the food was ice cold definitely won't do that again. What a waste of money Wtf?? read more

El Rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Yeah I heard the Mariachi band once in there also... They do give you the nachos and sauce with free refills. it has a great interior, that makes you think youre in the old country. plus the waitresses can be hot sometimes, sometimes not. I always prefer to go to another mexican restaurant in town, however this place always seems very busy, they totally remodelled it in 2003. they have a full bar where you can order imports and domestic, lots of posters & merch from corona and dos equis. Once I went in and although the food was good we had a coupon from the Clipper Magazine that said "10 dollars off purchase of 30" or more. However the waitress charged me *full price*, dispite the fact that I handed her the coupon, said what it was for, then my credit card. SO when I tried to explain it she didnt understand what I was saying, finally they got someone who did, and they refunded my purchase and then charged me the correct price. Seems odd that they'd just miss a coupon. Maybe they thought I wasnt paying attention. Bisteak a la tampiquena is always an old favorite, plus they ahve some combo deals on burritos, enchiladas and so forth. read more

El Rodeo - el rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

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Don't you just hate it when an interesting restaurant just leaps out at you from the roadside? This happened with El Rodeo as I was actually angling for sushi but saw this place with the parking lot packed. Sold. I ordered Tapatio (grilled chicken smothered with chorizo and cheese with rice, beans, tortillas and guacamole salad.) I've had this a few times before at other places, but it was particularly good here. Nice and spicy, so was the salsa. Atmosphere was top notch, service fine, margarita flavors abound (pre-mixed, but punchy) and prices were not too high. A happy accident to be sure - I hate it when that happens! read more

El Rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

This a review for TAKEOUT OR DELIVERY ONLY, and two stars because it differs greatly from dine in! Portions are much much smaller in takeout & delivery!! Definitely not worth the money! I ordered Queso Fundido...who sells dip that doesn't include chips?? First time, thought it was a mistake. Nope, you pay $6 for dip, another $4 for a literal handful of chips, to eat your dip! The entree & sides are half the dine in portions as well. I got the tapatio, as usual. Food is good, but I will only ever dine in here again! read more

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Came here a few weeks back on a Saturday evening with my family. I ordered the steak fajitas. They first brought out salsa that tasted like it came out of a can, very disappointing. On the other hand the steak fajitas were SO flavorful and was a very large portion, enough to take home for left overs! The service was however very slow, the server never came to our table except to take our order or bring the check. When we needed something we had to flag down a server walking by. My parents just went to this restaurant this past Friday night and said it was MUCH better this time! They watched the salsa be hand made and said it tastes worlds better. The meals were brought out in a short amount of time and again had a heaping amount of food. Enough to make me o back the next time I am in town! read more

I have been going to this restaurant for years. Always happy with the food and service. You get your food quickly after ordering. The food is pretty authentic. The salsa and chips are tasty. I sometimes pop in for a bag of chips and a container of salsa to take home. Sometimes there is a mariachi band. The prices are very reasonable. read more

Good portions, tasty food. A bit cramped in the seating area but it's no big deal... it's a good place for Mexican. Guacamole is a bit ehhh pass on that... read more

El Rodeo - Pepe's combo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Food was underwhelming and the service was slow. Not hygienic. There were flies everywhere

For Mexican food, it's ok. You know what you're getting which is part of the joy of going to El Rodeo. The last time we were in their our service was awful. Our server slapped the plates down and ran away, did not even being part of the order but we just moved on and said forget it. We have been eating here since 2016 and I think something happened because the service and quality is on the decline. Please please do better, we love coming to this restaurant! read more

One of the best lunch values you can get in this suburb of Harrisburg... their chile relleno (with cheese) is pleasantly flavored and perfectly textured (can cut with a fork, but not soggy). The only reason I am giving a four instead of a five is their taco flavoring, or actually the lack thereof. The taco filling just tastes like plain browned hamburger with no sauce or other spices. To get the chile relleno at lunchtime the natural choice would be the #1 lunch special, however that comes with the flavorless taco. My cure is to jump over to the Dinner Combinations section and order the #12 Chalupa and chile relleno. It is about the same price as the #1, but everything tastes great! See the photo of everything I got for $8.05 (plus tip)! Each of the waiters and waitresses I've had are very attentive and friendly. The building, interior decor, and music, are festive, but not annoyingly so. read more

El Rodeo - Dinner (lunch) Combo #12 Chalupa and Chile Relleno - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Our first experience at El Rodeo, but I'm sure we will be back. Extensive menu of traditional standards and creative options, including lots of seafood and vegetarian choices. Our server, Miriam was friendly and helpful. My special order came through perfectly. We felt perfectly safe in the spacious dining area. read more

I came here for a friend's birthday and it was great! I got fajitas and it was a huge portion for a good price. I am from Texas and am pretty picky about Mexican/Texmex and this place was one of the best I've had on the east coast. read more

El Rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

This was my first time coming to this restaurant. My sister suggested and I think it was an excellent choice. We ordered the Santa Fe nachos and they came out rather quickly and they were done as we asked. Although, the waitress didn't have much help, she still provide acceptable service. I will come again. read more

El Rodeo - Dinner time - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

40 minutes for flavorless chicken tacos. Food wasn't worth the one bite that I took. They charged full price and did not apologize for the poor service and horrible food. Do not go here. Go anywhere else. Taco Bell is gourmet compared to this dump. read more

Great tasting food. Chips were perfectly crisp and the salsa is superb! We asked for another helping and they were happy to bring us some more. I ordered fish tacos while my husband ordered shrimp quesadilla and we both loved it. I highly recommend. read more

Very authentic food especially in Pennsylvania I am a southern California girl so eating food at rodeos is pretty authentic for the East Coast I highly recommend them and they have good salsa and that their service is really good as well read more

Dreadful service...watery salsa...we walked out after 15 minutes of waiting for someone to take our drink order! If you want good Mexican food in this area, I suggest you go down the street to the nearby Red Robin, where they will greet you with a smile and feed you better salsa more quickly! Picture this: A family of 4 (2 parents, 2 kids), arrives and stands by the hostess station for a few minutes while the hostess and a server speak in Spanish with each other and cast sidelong glances at us. After an uncomfortable wait, Mom walks up, says we'd like a table for 4, waits for them to finish their conversation, and the hostess wordlessly walks away. We quickly follow her to a table, where she drops three menus and three sets of silverware in a heap. She walks off, again without a word, the family standing by the table wondering about the fourth set. We shrug and notice it's not the busiest time of day, but no matter. Hope the food is good. We wait for ten minutes and get served a batch of cold tortilla chips with watery salsa and that person can't speak English, so we ask for a server to take our drink order, and she giggles nervously and walks away. Next, we wait another ten minutes and notice that a couple gets seated right away, next to us. Five minutes later, we are incredibly thirsty, gnawingly hungry, and a server approaches our table. We smile at him with eager stares, surprised when he passes us to move on to the table beside us. That couple had only been there for five minutes, compared to our twenty-five minutes, and he apologizes to THEM for making them wait and proceeds to take their drink order while we stare in disbelief. We were dismayed, to say the least, and when Mom told the manager our situation, she flatly replied, "I'm sorry." Nothing else. No help. No food, no drinks, no way of knowing if the kitchen could have redeemed such a terrible service experience. The manager simply let us walk out. read more

Nice people. Mexican food like Mexican food at every Mexican restaurant you have ever been to.

First time coming in as we are new to the area. The food wasn't bad, but wasn't spectacular. Service was decent, but the restaurant was super dirty. Makes you scared about what the kitchen looks like. Seriously needs a deep clean. Even our waiter looked dirty, with stains on his clothing. That's super unappealing when someone is handling your food. We probably wouldn't return. read more

I have been coming to El Rodeo for years and I have always enjoyed the food and service. Their margaritas are tasty and plentiful and I like the specials they have like kids eat free on Tuesdays and $1.99 margaritas on Wednesdays. The Tuesday and Thursday lunch specials also can't be beat! The items I enjoy most are the enchiladas verdes (green sauce so sweet and yummy), the chicken quesadillas, and the #F (a combo of burrito, enchilada, and taco). The common denominator here is chicken. I just love their shredded chicken made with peppers and onions. Its so tasty. Their flour tortillas melt in your mouth but if you desire you can request corn tortillas. The salsa is made in house and really not the same level of spiciness each time but its always good. Its a little watery but I enjoy the flavor. They say they charge for additional baskets of chips but I have yet to be charged. I don't think they will unless you're going nuts. For dessert, when there's room, you can't go wrong with fried ice cream or the sopapillas. As far as service goes its usually pretty decent but if it gets busy the servers can get a little overwhelmed. Other employees moving around the restaurant are always willing to help when that happens so I've never had an awful experience with service. We used to always joke that we're like, "Yes I'd like the enchiladas verde---" and before we can finish the guy is on his way out of the kitchen with the plates lined all the way up his hot padded arm. And most of the time, this is the case. read more

I have been coming here for a long time. My favorite is the taco salad and the enchiladas. My only problem is that it seems every time I visit this restaurant, the service is slow. It's a bit disappointing because even when they aren't busy, my service still seems very slow. But I do like the food, so I keep going back. read more

I eat at the Carlisle location fairly often with my coworkers and I must say that location is much better. The salsa at the Jonestown Rd location is super watery and chips aren't as good. We had the tamales and chicken soup as appetizers. The tamales were probably the least flavorful tamales I've ever had and that includes frozen. Soup was ok. My San Jose burrito was very good just like the Carlisle restaurant. My wife's lunch however, yuck, the "guacamole" was not guacamole and her steak had no flavor and was chewy. Really not impressed, would not return. I was ashamed to bring my wife here actually. read more

First time guests here. We were very pleased with the lunch specials. Service was fast and our server was friendly and efficient. Will definitely go back. read more

Wonderful Margaritas, I had the shrimp fajitas and the coke rellenos and cheese enchiladas the were delicious. The refríes beans were exquisite. We are from the north east NY-CT read more

My mom and I were doing some Black Friday shopping and naturally got hungry around 2pm. We decided on El Rodeo because I love Mexican. We walked in and we're not greeted. There were 3 employees standing right by the entrance and no one said a word. Finally, about 5 minutes later, we were greeted and a server grabbed menus to seat us. My mom has a hard time getting into booths so we asked for a table. He still tried to sit us at a booth. So I asked him if we could have a table again so he directed us to a table. They were prompt with giving us chips and salsa, but not taking our order. The server came over close to 10 minutes later. We ordered our drinks. My mom and iced tea and myself a water. The server forgot that we ordered drinks and came back to take our order less than a minute later. I ordered the LUNCH chicken fajitas and my mom the fajita steak taco bowl. The server still didn't bring our drinks. About another 15 minutes goes by and our drinks finally arrive. She gave my mom her iced tea and gave me a soda. (I didn't order a soda..) The server ran away too fast before I could say I didn't order that soda. Our food didn't take too long to come out. Then when our server delivered our food, I asked for a water..again. She never came to check if we needed anything or to see how our food was. She ended up not bringing me a water until I was almost done with my meal. The server came and took our plates and asked if we needed anything else. We said no. She brought us the check and I noticed that she charged us for a dinner fajitas. So I went up to the cashier and I explained my concern for being charged the dinner fajitas. I explained to her that we were here before 2:15 and the lunch menu stops at 2:30. She got very defensive with me and told me that I was given the dinner fajitas. I said I didn't ask for the dinner fajitas. I asked for the lunch. We ended up going back and forth arguing for a bit because she wouldn't rectify the situation. I ended up telling her that this was the worst experience I have ever had and will never be back. She scoffed at me. I stormed out. I would like to make it known that it was not busy and I noticed about 4 tables that had dirty dishes on them for the entire hour my mom and I were there. read more

El Rodeo tends to be hit or miss. It's always either amazingly delicious, or "why didn't we go somewhere else". The chicken fajitas are my menu item of choice, but the quesadillas are also great (when the food is good). The worst thing is sometimes the food isn't quite hot enough. When I think of fajitas I think sizzling hot - not luke warm. Stop in for the lunch time margarita specials. Several flavors - 3$, can't go wrong with that. They also have live Mariachi bands once a month. read more

My family and I went to El Rodeo. I'll get right to the point of the review. The food was good but the service was terrible. It wasn't busy so there wasn't a good reason. Our server was extremely unpleasant. We asked for extra salsa a couple of times and she leered at us while filling the bowls. At one point we all had empty glasses. We had to literally flag her down to get refills. It was not a friendly environment at all. read more

I know I am in the minority here but the 3 times I ate here the food was very disappointing. Each time I ate there I was taken on a work lunch outing by my employer as I would have never gone here at my choice. All I can say was that the food just had little taste to me. It was either just hot or tasteless. Mexican food is not one of my favorites to begin with but I appreciate tasty food and did not get it here. I thought the food was better at Chi Chi's when they used to be here. Yes most will say Chi Chi's was fast food. I consider taco bell to be fast food while chi chi's was more like an olive garden if comparing to Italian food. While El Rodeo is considered true Mexican Cuisine, maybe it is and I just do not like true Mexican Cuisine so take this review for what it's worth. edit 7/13 thought I would give this place another try. This time for dinner. Got the Grande Platter and must say it was pretty good. Upgrading to 3 stars. We went around 4 so it was not crowded and the service was good. Not sure how service would be if busy but had a nice time and meal. The rice still bland and dry but added some salsa and brought it to life. Will go back again. read more

I went today w my family. The food was good, except mine. I had chicken flautas and they tasted like - nothing! On top Of that the waiter took forever in bringing us our drinks. She kept coming by our table asking us if "everything" was ok when we still did not had our food. When my husband asked if his plate was supposed to come with 'rice' she literally took his fork and began moving his food to find the rice to show him that it had rice. I would not go back there. read more

I love this place! You never leave hungry and if you do... it's totally your fault! The food is good and plentiful and the margaritas on the rocks are perfect. You get fresh fried tortilla chips and salsa upon arrival. The salsa "heat" can vary depending on which staff member makes it. The waitress told me if the boss man makes it, it's always extra spicy. Service has always been friendly and accommodating with my family's special request. My daughter and I come here often for date night without the boys. The reason i didn't give this place a five is because the it could be a little cleaner (it's really not that bad). The weekends at El Rodeo are horrendous as I think everyone in Harrisburg comes here. That's when the wait staff gets a bit forgetfull or you feel rushed. My recommendation is to not come Friday or Saturday if you want a great experience. Ps... the pineapple fajita mixed with steak and chicken is awesome! read more

El Rodeo - Tri Tacos with grilled chicken - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Been here a few times. I actually like it. I keep getting the Mexican Steak with Beans and rice. Got to remember to ditch the rice and get more beans. Just my tastes. I like the colorful decorations and keep missing the band. I think only the first round of chips and salsa is free. After that they charge. I found out I don't like the mild salsa. I think its the celantro. But the hot is very good. Communication can be a problem at times. But we generally work it out. From what I have found between this one and Fiesta Mexico. The menus are similar but Fiesta seems to be bland and lacking in flavor. I was told by an employee that yes they are both owned by the same family but the wife runs El Rodeo and the husband runs Fiesta Mexico. We would go back again. Enjoyed our meal. read more

This is solid, American-ized Mexican food. It seems like so many Mexican restaurants are clone stamps of each other with slight differences, and this one fits into that category pretty well. The interior, atmosphere, and menu of this place differ none to slightly from every place I've been to in Ohio of a different name. Food is good here - I love the shredded beef tacos. Sauces are solid. It's good - nothing to write a long description about. Cheese dip is usualy okay, althought weird it's not called queso, but whatever. I don't like their lime margarita mix, but the flavored ones are decent. The cuervo gold are good depends on who makes it - I've had them taste very different. We keep coming back - this is our go-to Mexican place in the Harrisburg area. read more

The manager, Miguel, was serving us. He forgot silverware and we had to get with plastic spoons and forks. I didn't know I was back at school. Another waitress had to fill up are water because he didn't come back to see how we were doing. He only came to get are food and to give us the check. This is outrageous and disappointing to see a restaurant use plastic silverware. read more

Here for the weekend and it looked inviting from the outside. You can seat on the patio or inside. Food was great. Salsa and fresh chips were served before ordering. We ordered the spinach enchiladas and Texanos fajitas. The fajitas were beef , chicken and shrimp and it came sizzling to the table. It was cooked perfectly! Try the margaritas, I tried the coconut blue. Friendly staff and fast service. read more

El Rodeo - Mexican Near Me - Harrisburg, Pennsylvania