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| - I went to their grand opening celebration on Sunday at 5pm with my mom. The place was packed. They were supposedly having a band play outside but because of rain, they were moved into a banquet room inside. Every table was filled with young families from outside of the retirement community. We were amazed at the number of people there. Obviously advertising in the local community made a difference. It seemed like this well known joint from East L.A. was not going to have any trouble getting business.
At the restaurant, our group asked to be seated. We were told they weren't seating anyone, yet there were at least a hundred people already seated in the banquet room next door as well as at their restaurant and back room. The waitress said we could come back in an hour at 6pm to get our name on a list to be seated at that time. It didn't make sense. Why were all of these outside families being seated, but our group from the retirement community being told to come back later? We left and found another restaurant to eat at.
A few days later on Wednesday, we came again at 5pm. We joined our group of friends that was already seated. The restaurant appeared to be either understaffed or not staffed with competent people. A "flying club" of about 30 people was meeting in the back room, and one waitress appeared to be dealing exclusively with them. The other waitress was handling all of the inside tables and outdoor patio tables. She was obviously overwhelmed.
After waiting a period of time and no one giving us menus or drinks, my mom went to the bar to see if she could order from there. Tammy, the bartender was extremely busy. She was helping take drinks to the patio tables outside. One man from another group went to the bar to get his drinks and she yelled at him to not touch the drinks at the bar. Apparently he had been waiting for his drinks to arrive and thought he would just pick them up himself. After my mom witnessed that negative interaction, she decided to just grab menus and sit down.
Our waitress finally made her way to our table to handout credit card transactions to others in our group who were leaving. She took our drink and food order at that time. We were told the restaurant was out of tacos and out of pork. They are known for their famous burritos with pork, but we were told they could serve them to is with shredded chicken instead. My mom opted for a taco salad with ground beef. I selected a bean and cheese burrito.
.....crickets.....
The wait was painfully slow. No drinks arrived. My mom approached the bartender again. There were a lot of drinks waiting to be taken to people, but the waitress never did get them. The drinks had been sitting there for some time because the ice had melted in them. The bartender started bringing them to our table, but she wasn't sure whose drinks they were. She put three watered down drinks in front of us. One was partially drank by someone and the other two may not have been margaritas. Hard to tell with the ice melted and orange wedges instead of lime at the rim of the glass. Obviously they were no longer margaritas ON THE ROCKS. She put another drink in front of my friend who said she didn't order the drink. The bartender then grabbed all of the watered down drinks and took them away. Fortunately, she made two fresh margaritas on the rocks for my mom and me, which was what we ordered and had been waiting for this entire time. They finally arrived at our table along with our food.
The bus boy was nice enough to notice that we didn't have silverware or napkins. He brought us some right away so we could enjoy our food. The taco salad was really quite large with lots of goodies. There was a cup of jalapeños on the side, and a cup of habanero sauce on the side of my mom's salad and lots of guacamole inside. My bean and cheese burrito also had a side of habanero sauce, but no guacamole or sour cream. It was quite large too and tasted fine.
The food and drinks were really not worth the wait or expense (our two margaritas, taco salad and burrito were about $33). Applebee's serves better tasting margaritas and they come with chips and salsa which wasn't the case here. The service on both occasions that I came to El Tepeyac was not up to par. I understand that new businesses will take some time to iron out the wrinkles, but this restaurant already had a loyal following from its California location. They really needed to bring their experienced wait staff with them to make the opening days at this location more of a success. We wish them well and hope the next time we come that they have their full menu available and competent wait staff to deliver it in a timely manner.
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