On The Border Mexican Grill & Cantina
| Address: | 1512 S Randall Rd, Algonquin, IL 60102, USA |
| Phone: | +1 847-960-3915 |
| Site: | ontheborder.com |
| Rating: | 3.6 |
| Working: | 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–10PM 11AM–11PM 11AM–11PM 11AM–10PM |
Location
Photos 100
Reviews 6
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Andrew Thornton
Ive gone here a number of times. It has never been particularly great food but its fine and there are things I can eat. Its not a place me and my wife go regularly as there are much better Mexican restaurants not that far away but the location is convenient to us so it seems every 3 or 4 months we probably end up in here. Last night likely ended that. The actual meal portion was the same fine experience we normally have. Decent food, not spectacular but fine. The service was fine, a bit slow to get our order and get chips/salsa but nothing terrible and the waiter was friendly, got our order right, and our drinks were staying mostly refilled. It would have been another decent 3 star night at On the Border. When we went to ask for the check though we were told their systems were having issues and it would be a couple of minutes. We then didnt hear from anyone for 20 minutes. At that point we managed to flag the waiter down who advised it would be a few more minutes. He then realized he had already printed our check before it went down but we didnt have cash and the pay system was down too. Upon review it was wrong anyway as something for the table behind us got added and he had no way to fix it because the system was down. We were told he had just been told it should only be another 5 minutes. We waited another 20 minutes before hearing from anyone again. At this point we had been down eating for 40 minutes and really needed to go, my wife had to work early today and we still needed to pack for a trip were leaving for once she gets out tonight. He advised he would check with his manager to see if our check could just be let go as we had kept it pretty cheap and had already waited a long time. We appreciated it and he then was gone another 10 minutes. Finally coming back he said the manager had found one of the old school credit card machines where you take a print of the card and as long as we were cool with that it would work. At this point it was fine as we just wanted to go. They ran it... and when they brought it to us we realized they had charged us wrong, overcharging by 3.00 for one of their items. He dropped the check so quick though I didnt catch it and after 10 minutes I literally had to go searching through the restaurant to find our waiter. this was an hour after we asked for the check. They did fix it (mostly, it was still wrong but only by a few cents and I was done arguing). We never during all of this heard from a manager or anything. Our waiter was apologetic but we barely heard from him during this time. They werent that busy and while I want to cut him some slack on a personal level because Im sure having their entire computer system go down was stressful and he had a lot of unhappy customers to deal with, it made for an extremely negative experience. That the manager never came around I found unacceptable. While Im also not one to expect freebies or comps at restaurants, I found it rather rude that nothing was offered to us for an hour wait. (whether it be something being taken off, a coupon for next time, something) If everything goes well youll probably get a perfectly adequate mediocre Mexican meal. If anything goes wrong though, good luck as they seem to have no idea how to handle such a situation.
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jennifer girardi
Im almost lost for words on how bad our service was tonight. Ordered a bottle beer - Got a draft. Ordered a margarita - found out that it was a $13 drink in a cocktail glass filled with ice , ordered quesadilla with chicken and cheese only - came fully loaded after the server repeated the order outloud to us ( when I mentioned the error to her as my niece is 7 months pregnant and onions upset her stomach) the server arrogantly snapped " Well yeah - the menu says it has onions and peppers in it". Small portions for all 4 poor quality meals and then when we mentioned anything that wasnt correct when we were asked how things were , we received the worst customer service ever. Was rudely told we ordered the wrong items and that we must not know what we ordered. Amy the manager came over with a very rude confrontational attitude. We will gladly spend $155 at another restaurant. This was an outright abomination. If our server had made these mistakes but corrected them, we still would have given a minimum of 20%; however, in this case, she made us feel as it was all our problem. I dont need to pay extra to be berated and get poor service. The manager came over and defended her server and not the customer which I have never had happen before. Please find a local Mexican restaurant that has better food and appreciates your business.
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Alyce Schank
Employees were courteous, helpful & polite. The food was good and portions were large enough. Only one complaint at the table......On the Brunch Menu the Soft tacos with steak; the steak was tough & we were not asked how he wanted it, they didnt know what a basted egg was but that was okay, we just told them how to do them. The drinks were ok but a little on the weak side but for $2.00 & $3.00 we cant complain that much. Wed go back because we enjoy all types of food. The parking lot was a problem, it seemed that the 3 Handicap spots were shared by 2 restaurants, so they were occupied and the Handicap spot we used belongs to a vacant establishments. If it was a restaurant, that lot has to be a disaster most of the time. (4 restaurants in the close vicinity.
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A Private User
the only thing i REALLY like from here is the queso. other then that im never returning. let me put it this way, the past 4 times ive been there have been paid for by Resturaunt coupons i recieved fom the manager for them messing up the meal. the cever takes the order properly but the kitchen just doesnt get the message. when you do mention there is a problem the manager wisps you away with a coupon to settle any issue and hurries on with their day. hence my 4 free but i the end, incorrect meals... :/ the only reason i kept going was i had a new coupon i couldnt let go to waste and no where else does the queso like them. on another note, if you tire of the food quality, atleast their waitresses are something cute to enjoy
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Shana Shattuck
4 of us will not return. The server should not have been customer facing. Her uniform was ill-fitting and completely filthy. Her conversation was rather loud and rough - probably because she was not able to communicate with her tongue piercing. Her dental hygiene was lacking with only a few teeth. Her body hygiene was horrible with dirty hair and looked like day-old makeup. This completely ruined any of our appetites and we were seriously concerned about the possibility of her spittle over our drinks, food or us. While she should be responsible for her own hygiene - On the Boarder management should be ashamed that they schedule her to serve customer entirely.
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Douglas Blake
This is a great place for family dining as well as for date night. The food is good and reasonably priced and has a full bar area for those who which to indulge in a margarita, etc. The only odd thing is the dining room setup where several tables are right next to the kitchen doors and the noise and traffic can be distracting. I wish there was a divider separating dining from kitchen access. The parking can also be an issue during peak times where the lot is shared by a half a dozen restaurants and fills up at peak times. However, well worth the effort.
