I've been going here pretty regularly for the past few years and I've never had a bad meal. The service and food have always been excellent. Normally I'd have given this place 5 stars but my experience last night upset me a bit and I'm having to lower my rating by a star. I'm not writing this place off yet, but if I continue to have similar experiences I'm going to have to add this place to my ever growing list of places to avoid. So last night we dine here with a party of 7. Four of us were regulars and three members of our party were here for the first time. Everyone enjoyed their food. We had Carne Asada, Menudo, Carne en su Jugo, Steak Burritos, Taco dinners, etc. Just a wide array of entrees and soups. Only one party member was a little dissatisfied with their food because their steak was ordered medium rare and came out well done and the shrimp that came with the steak were rather small and bland. The salsa and chips here are also fantastic and I love their Horchata. We had a server that didn't speak very good English and she needed to check with other staff a few times about our orders and requests. I don't know why they would assign her to a non Spanish speaking table when there were other servers working, but it wasn't that big of a deal and all of our orders were correct. Now for the part that really upset me last night. This place has what I consider a weird practice of not bringing you a check . Instead, when you're ready to leave, you go up to the counter to find out your total and pay your bill. I've never liked that practice because I want to view my bill, make sure everything is okay, and take my time deciding on a tip etc. Plus, if you're with multiple people and wanting to split the bill, it's pretty impossible if you don't know what the bill is. They really should end this practice. Anyway, I was the one paying the entire bill last night so I went up to the counter and informed the woman working the register that I was ready to pay and pointed out my table. She informed me that my total was $143.28. I gave her $145 cash and received $1.72 change and my receipt. I gave her $26.72 for a tip which is slightly over 18% (over 23% when you consider the actual subtotal of the bill before tax and the already included tip was actually $114.75). I then looked at my receipt and the tip was already entered on the bill at $16.77. She never informed me of this when giving me my total and accepted an additional $26.72 on top of the $16.77 that was already on the bill. I then informed her that the tip was already on the bill and that I'd like my cash back. She returned the money to me with no problem but asked me "the whole $26.72?". I told her of course, if you put the tip on the bill and don't inform me, that's what you get unfortunately. I just felt insulted and wronged because I should have been informed from the start about the tip being included in the total and I should have been informed by her when I was handing her an additional $26.72 (If she had done that I would have certainly thrown an extra $10 on there). The whole interaction struck me as kind of strange though since she wasn't even our actual server to begin with and it made me start to wonder if her plan was to pocket the second tip.
Now, I understand that it's common practice to put the tip on the bill for parties of 6 or more but you should always be informed of this and it should always be reflected on your check.
The simple solution to all of this is to bring every table a check/bill so that they can make sure there's no problems before they pay and your interactions should be limited to your server. read more