El Tapatio

This was the worst lunch experience we have ever had. The waiter was terrible he was basically non existent. We were about to leave when he finally came over to take our order. He did not deliver the food or come back to the table to check on us after it was brought over. I do not know how you mess up a cheese enchilada but it was literally raw cheese in a uncooked corn tortilla. He still never came back over and we sat while we saw him running around for a credit card he lost for the table behind us. When we finally flagged him down he saw that my plate was full of food opened up showing the non cooked cheese. He brushed it off and sat down the bill and walked away. We walked up to the counter to pay and he met us there quick as a bunny for the 1^st time all day. I refused to tip him and signed my credit card receipt with 0.00 tip. My friend still tipped on her meal and that was fine for her. Meanwhile checking my account today i see that he added his own tip to my card. Wow! I am beyond shocked and so upset that this company employs such trash. We will never be back and I will make sure no one we know will have the misfortune of going through the same thing.

Great food, terrible service. Waitress forgot to bring salsa & Chips, never came back to check on us (finished my meal dry, w/​o any tea refill). Very long wait for the check. And the place wasn’t busy!

This restaurants was my favorite, food is very good. But service suck we were waiting there for 15min and no one came to are table to get our drink order or food because they were to busy watching the broncos game. So we just got up and left and they didn’t even care.

My wife and I used to go here all the time when we lived in Lakewood. We still go back if we are ever in the area. The food is good, everything is consistent, it is really cheap, and really fast. I’ve been a fan of the entire chain for a while and will keep going back to their restaurants.

I’m a huge food critic of every restaurant I go to. This place use to be good. I just recently went with my family and the beef was not cooked thoroughly, the flautas were hard, and the rice and beans had a taste as if something was burnt. The chaladas were great! Are there gringos working in the kitchen?! My brother in law and uncle warned us not to go and I should have listened. Don’t go to this one. Go to the one on wadsworth & us 285 in golden.

This location is right by my house and I have been here a number of times. Their service has never been great but on this occasion it was the worst ever. A server came to take our order. When we started ordering he looked for paper and a pen to right it down but he didn’t have any. Instead of asking us to wait he continued taking our order. We ordered some food without cheese as I am allergic and some without lettuce. After waiting approx 15 mins another server came up to us and stated that there was something wrong with the computer system and therefore our orders did not go through so he had to take our orders again. He offered no apology. Again another 10 mins or so passed by before our food started arriving. My food was covered in cheese and my friends food had lettuce. I told the server and he took my food back. While my friends eat their food (all of it still has not arrived) I patiently wait for mine. Another 15 mins later and I receive another plate full of cheese. I tell him that I no longer want any of the food and ask to speak with the manager. The manager comes over after 10 more mins of us waiting and just says «What?» I tell him what happened and he said, «What do you want?» O tell him that my friends not having to pay for their 2 tacos and tostada would be great. He said, «I can give you a discount.» Again, no apology. They take another 10 mins to get us our check which ends up being for 3 items which is what we got and cost $ 5. Apparently, that $ 5 is more important to them than a repeat customer. I will never go back to this location. The manager is always rude and as I said before the service has never been great. Really a simple sincere apology from the manager with an offer of correcting the situation would have been all it took to keep my business.

Food only so-​so. WORST SERVICE I have ever encountered anywhere. Waiter, who identified himself as a manager, approached my table when I sat down and gave me a look of disgust. Served food without a word and never checked back. Had to hunt him down for the ticket. Not worth being insulted!

Great place to eat for dinner and lunch! Come here regularly and I have yet to be disappointed. I have visited other locations and they are just as great. Service is good and the food comes to you in a timely manner. The restaurant is often busy in the evenings, but the waiters still maintain keeping up to date with your needs. I have yet to be disappointed. Definitely a great place to eat Mexican food and the set up is very nice as well!

I’ve frequented this El Tapatio for years, today we’re there for a late lunch, we start with drinks as my daughter in law is drinking her soda she see’s a dead baby cock roach on the inside of her glass. She went to the manager to let him know and his response was that he can’t do anything about it because he doesn’t know where it came from… so basically he’s insinuating that she/​we put it in there. Instead of having good customer service skills and acting like a manager he got on the defensive. After that his next words are I’m not giving you a discount like that was what were fishing for … wow! He then says you can stay or you can leave. … we left and as we were leaving the people next to us heard the conversation, we told them and he called us liars! I will never ever return to this chain of El Tapatilo. I don’t want this to reflect on the other locations, hopefully their managerial skills far sur pass that of the guy we just had to deal with. I remember when he was a server and now is a manager, customer service is an art which be does not have.

The drinks here are nice and strong. 3−6pm every day is happy hour; 2 margaritas for the price of 1 is all I need. The food is delicious, especially the enchiladas de espinaca. The complimentary salsa is the best in town!

Had a hair in my enchilada. Ranch dressing was horrible. Cleanliness of restaurant was questionable. Wait staff was very nice, order was done right. May have been an isolated incident.

Going to this restaurant has been our worst experience. The food was discussing that it made me nauseas. My husbands ceviche was hot which it’s supposed to be cold. My chiles rellenos tasted like the cheese had gone bad. We talked to the manager and he was very rule and unwilling to listen. We have gone to other El Tapatio and had wonderful food and service but for some reason this is a horrible location. Will never go back!!! I would recommend the one in Broomfield by the Flat Irons Mall which has amazing food definitely my favorite!

— I went to the tapatio near 285 and Wadsworth everything was super good. A few days later I was craving el tapatio but I didn’t wanna go to the same location for the fact that I was closer to this one. When I first walk in it smelled like dust and just old. Didn’t take long before we got sat for the fact that it was 6pm and dead. I have never seen a restaurant be so dead during dinner rush hour. I’ve been to this location when I was younger and nothing has change they should really think of remodeling. Booths are super tiny and uncomfortable.
–I order tacos since that’s what I had last time. When I received my food I could not finish them they had so much oil you could literally slurp up with a straw, gross. I will not be coming back to this location again

Is English really that hard to grasp In an English speaking country? Seriously I could not order dessert it was impossible. Other than that the food was alright nothing mind blowing. Oh and the service is bad as well I went at a time that no one was even there how hard is it to ask a customer «need something».

Que asco de Lugar el guacamole tenia papel y le comentamos ala mesera y solo dijo ok retiro el Plato y ni siquiera pregunta Si nesitabamos algo mas. O tal ves ya estan acostumbradas a que les regresen su porqueria de comida.

We love el tapatio but we hate this location. Dirty cups and hair in my food and blamed in on me when my hair was pony tail every time we come here it gets worse and worse the 1 server they have is rude he may be the manager and he is rude. Will not be back we gave this location 5 chances. But the other location especially arvada a great all around.

We love this place and eat here regularly! Friendly, efficient, quick and polite staff! Never any issues! Food is good, salsa had some heat! This is our date night location! They have mariachi on Fridays! Try it out! Love.

I wasn’t terribly impressed with El Tapatio. I stopped in one night after work for dinner. The chips and salsa were pretty good, I was happy with the heat in the salsa. The margarita however disappointed me to no end. There was no taste of alcohol so I actually felt a little ripped off. Chimichanga’s were on special that night so I ordered a shredded beef one. I expected it to come out crispy but it was really no different than a burrito, and the green chili was pretty bland.
I sat at the bar and the service was prompt.
Overall I wouldn’t come rushing back here.

All the food we had was just okay at best. With my tacos I think they literally gave me 5 proves of tomato on the side. Flavors were just average. Salsa was good but the chips seemed line they came from a bag and didn’t have much flavor. But the service is what really knocks down this review. The staff were standing in groups talking. They never asked if we wanted more chips or refills, despite looking our way several times. They didn’t refill drinks either. We had to flag someone down for the check. But after we got up you should have see. How fast they went to clean the table. There was only one friendly waitress in the place that was working hard and not just socializing or sitting around.

During a break in the midst of our bridal gown shopping extravaganza, the bride-​to-​be wanted to grab a margarita and something to snack. We decided to stop into this restaurant since it was in the same plaza of the bridal store we visited. It was really busy when we walked in (about 1p on a Saturday) but we didn’t wait long to be seated.
Our server was a younger guy who didn’t seem to understand English quite as thoroughly as he should have as a server which was evident when the bride-​to-​be asked him about the price of the margaritas and he gave her sizes. To his defense, though, we had a drink menu all along but high, dingy bride-​to-​be was hogging it unknowingly.
Once we got past that dilemma, we ordered simply items since we had less than an hour before our next bridal appointment and, really, were not that hungry. We ordered one plate of chicken nachos for the table and I ordered an avocado chalupa.
Three of four of us in my party, ordered medium margaritas and I went with a pineapple Jarritos. The medium margaritas were huge and about $ 12 a piece; however, they were not spectacular. They tasted like watered down liquor. it seemed like the liquor was watered down and the sweet & sour mix was flat.
I didn’t time how long it took to get our food but I do know that it took longer than it should have. I want to say from the time we gave the drink orders to the time we received the nachos and chalupa, about 20 minutes had past.
I’m not sure how tasty the nachos turned out but the chalupa was not worth $ 3.50. It was loaded with lettuce & tomato but very short on the avocado. The chips & salsa were decent.
We had stacked our plates and busied ourselves chatting for at least ten minutes before we were able to catch our server’s attention for the bill. Then, once we got our bill, we discovered our $ 55 bill had been charged up to $ 90. So, half of the party hurried out to make our 2pm bridal appointment while the other half, which included myself, stayed behind to straighten out the bill. We had been charged for shrimp and steak platters, in addition to, the items we did order. Though, nothing was worth going back for, I was still willing to leave a $ 7 tip for the server but the quarter of our party that stayed behind with me was not having it. She did not appreciate the miscommunication, the slow service, or the screw up resulting in a tip far less than 10%. The cashier was shaking her head in frustration when the quarter of our party requested changed after putting down $ 60 for payment. We probably won’t give them another opportunity.

Very disappointed with this place. It is my favorite mexican restaurant so far as «spice» is concerned, but I didn’t want to dine alone. I recently ordered takeout and was told they would throw in chips and salsa, only to discover nearly an extra $ 5 for what? When I inquired, they just ignored me and said we charge extra for this. I kept saying «but, if I sat at the bar or got a table, you would give it to me for free». There was no response. I said that twice. Nothing.
Still further, I got home and the salsa tasted like tomato sauce. It was not spicy. Salsa that is not spicy? Do they just assume you don’t like spice? When I dine in, the salsa is spicy. So, first, they charged me an extra 30% of my meal price to «throw in a few chips» and, second, it was a waste of time (inquiring about it and writing this review) and money, when it just went into the trash.
Why on earth would they give me salsa that was not what they serve?
Lastly, I love the spice of the food in this restaurant. I get the shrimp burrito for $ 9.95 and it is extremely spicy… so if they serve mild salsa «to go» with a spicy dish, why not ask if there is a question, unless they are brainless and don’t think when they do things… like the blank stare I got when I said «If I dined in, you would not charge me for a few chips and salsa to go with my meal».
In other words? I could have had a free beer at the bar and ate my burrito with chips and salsa for what they charged me to go… and actually had spicy salsa with my meal. Just because I didn’t want to dine alone, I got charged for what 99% of mexican restaurants give away for free, which, again, was a whopping 30% of my tab.
Leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.