El Puerto Restaurant & Grill
| Address: | 1623 E 5th Ave, Tampa, FL 33605, USA |
| Phone: | +1 813-248-8222 |
| Site: | elpuertoybor.com |
| Rating: | 4.2 |
| Working: | 11AM–3PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–11PM 11AM–11PM 12–9:30PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 7
JA
James M
Sometime you can walk into a place and just know that the experience will not be good. Wife and I came in for an early dinner around 5 to an empty restaurant. Wanted to give the place a try being off the beaten path and privately-owned. Server was robotic and came over three times with 5 minutes asking for our order. Not a lot of time to review the menu. The rush stopped to a dead halt upon ordering. Wife ordered their mixed plate which included skirtsteak, short rib, sweet bread, blood sausage, pork chop and chicken. I settled for a seafood fried rice dished. Hour later (no joke) dish arrived. All the meats on wifes dish tasted the same and dry. My fried rice tasted like the left overs Ive had in college after a binge night out. With no one in the place youd think I can get a refill on my water without having to call over the server who was 5 feet away doing nothing. Seriously, give me a little "like" in the cooking and a server who enjoys the art of serving. I dont have to have LOVE every time even though Im paying for it. Needless to say, check this place off to taking one for the team. Wont be back. On a side note -theres a scent of mold I couldnt shake...get your vents cleaned people!!!
AS
Ashley Delgado
This place has outstanding food and serves a big portion for each plate, it is definitely worth the price. You pay for what you get. The servers are very sweet and friendly. You want respect give respect and itll all be okay. Being a server isnt easy and In my opinion for those who are very unpatient need to stop and realize what its like to be in there shoes for a moment. Dont get mad or frustrated if an incident occured with your order. This restaurant gets extremely busy in the weekends and These ladies do the best they can to help out every customer. And one main thing i see that i know for a a fact bothers the servers, People come in and act like they own the shop and sit themselves down, thats not how its done. Have some respect for yourselves and wait patiently like its done in any well known local restaurant. You must wait at the door or bar area until you are seated. Atleast go up to the server and ask for a seat. They dont need any assults or attitude from anybody because itll just make you seem like a fool. Other then the chaos people over exxagerate about, Every food they serve is done freshly and made by love. Enjoy ❤
EL
Elias Hernandez
El Puerto is NOT the kind of place you want for a romantic dinner or a quality “top of the line” restaurant experience. Its funny because some of the local websites that I looked listed El Puerto under the "romantic night out" category, but we experienced quite the opposite. I made reservations for 7pm this past Saturday night and we showed up to the restaurant on time only to wait almost 10 minutes by the door before we were greeted by an overwhelmed server who just pointed us out to the bar. I kindly asked about my reservations for 7pm and there was no list or paper with anything written, the waiter just insisted, “it did not matter” because we had to wait anyways. Therefore, after that whole “Soup Nazi” experience, we at least expected top of the line food to justify the lack of service, but we were wrong again! The food was average at best and not worth the price. Like I always say… It is what it is, and El Puerto IS NOT one of the top restaurant in YBOR, and their poor service in combination with a mediocre food quality makes this place a $15 cheap lunch spot and nothing else….
LI
lifeisweirdiful
My wife and I were driving by El Puertos and decided to try it. Weve heard about the slow service but it was 5:30pm on a Sunday so we gave it a chance. The restaurant was about half full at the time. We ordered the ceviche mixto and waited and waited and waited. In an hour our appetizer showed up and it was good but I was already annoyed at this point. Then we see another couple getting their dinner which was strange since they came in after us. They didnt seem to like what they received, but were eating it anyway. It turns out they were eating our order! So now its at least another hour to get our dinner. Id had enough, I offered to pay for our appetizer, they apologized and said its not necessary, so we left. So, its all true the service is terrible and the sad thing is they dont seem to care after all the terrible reviews. All the servers have absolutely no personality. They dont smile, they dont look you in the eye. They walk away from you while youre speaking to them. Total indifference. So if you want to give it a try, bring a book, drink the water, make a night of it.
JU
Justin Lampert
Ill open up my review by saying that neither myself, nor my girlfriend got the designed food for this type of restaurant: I ordered the burger and my girlfriend ordered ravioli. The service was slow, confused and inaccurate. They couldnt get my drink order right (a Coke Zero) and when I politely asked them to check to see when my food was going to come out, the server looked like I had just committed some type of sin. My food was straight awful. The burger was ordered medium well and came burned. It was a generic flat frozen patty with a slice of cheap American cheese food product. If I wasnt starving, it would have been 100% inedible. My girlfriends ravioli was previously frozen "bag" ravioli and had a weird green tint. When I asked the waiter what was in it, he said he wasnt sure and would have to check. While we were there, another patron found a hair in their food and returned the dish. This place just costs way, way too much for any type of pathetic/awful dish, regardless of whether or not I ordered Colombian food or American.
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Xavier Murillo
My fiancé and I decided to stop here for a late lunch today after a Google search for restaurants near IKEA. Let me start by saying, the service is TERRIBLE. We were not greeted upon walking in. No welcome or good afternoon. After seating ourselves, the waitress just laid the the menus on the table. Didnt even introduce herself or ask how we were doing. Food took forever to come out. When it finally came, she just set it down and walked away. Didnt tell us to enjoy or ask if there was anything else she could get us. The food was honestly very delicious, but with such poor service, we will not be back. This seems to be a regular complaint of others after reading the reviews. The waitress seemed like she hated her job and put no effort or pride into serving her customers. Bad representation of the restaurant. Just lost two customers for the poor service alone. I recommend management doing a reevaluation of staff.
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Linda Best
Needs attention to important details. No servers were even trying to smile and all seemed uninterested in customers. We were seated and waited on promptly but were not served until 15-20 minutes after almost everyone else who came in after us. 50+ minutes is way too long for a couple of steaks, fries and a salad when it was not busy. The steaks had some gristle but the knives were not able to cut it at all. Rather than wrestling with it, we took almost everything home to use our own steak knives. $50+ for 2 people and nothing was done to make up for the extremely long wait. The salad dressing was very tasty, as was the chimichurri and hot sauce. I dont normally eat bread but I was grateful for the one roll each and butter we received, as otherwise we would have been very hungry while waiting for our food. The steaks lacked a bit in flavor.
