El Torito

Pros: Festive atmosphere, Variety of menu choices, Reasonable Prices
Cons: Slow service, Crowded entrance

On a recent trip to the San Francisco Bay area, my husband and I found ourselves looking for a nice, reasonably priced, restaurant after a hectic day of travel. The Hotel Clerk at H oliday Express Inn & Suites-Oakland ...

Pros: gigantic margaritas
Cons: not-so-great grub

You know you're in a chain restaurant when there's a greasy laminated standing flip-book full of pictures of specials, lots of co-branding, and copy that reads like it came out of a restaurant catalog. Food servers run around in sneakers and are...

Pros: Chips were thin and not greasy & nice view
Cons: Poor food quality, crummy flatware, lackluster menu offerings

We had not been to an El Torito in many years. A few days ago, a friend of ours said that he had a very nice dinner at an El Torito for a very small price. The latest ad in the Sunday paper had beautiful pictures of some of their specials. We ...

Pros: great food, great service, and a mint on the way out!
Cons: Unclean facilities.

El Torito is a Mexican restaurant chain. I've been to one in Phoenix. The second I walked in the door I knew I was going to have a good time!

I've been to El Torito a couple of times and they've always been great...

Pros: Nice restaurant, great happy hour specials
Cons: Not authentic Mexican food, is very "Americanized"

The Cantina is a great watering hole at El Torito. There are great Happy Hour Specials. They can vary by day, but there are discounted appetizers, margaritas and beer. Two can enjoy a couple drinks and a few appetizers for under $20. On the weekends...

Pros: Very yummy food, nice atmosphere and wait staff
Cons: maybe a little high in price but not too bad

While on vacation in California my aunt and uncle raved about this restaurant and said we just had to go. Well, they took us and I am glad! It was so good. I was kind of hesitant at first mainly because it was a new and different place. It isn't...

Pros: Absolutely top notch quality food and staff!
Cons: Not enough of them!

I have been to two El Toritos, one in Torrance and one in Irvine. I used to live in Irvine, so I have of course been to that particular one many times.

If you're feeling like mexican food and are thinking of trying someplace new, it can be...

Pros: No pros on this
Cons: Service was ok, margarita was fair, stir fry veggies were good.

Have eaten in many El Torrito resturants but never one with such lousy food. I ordered the three soft taco platter, each had a sprinkle of cheese that amounted to 1/8 tsp. of cheese. They were tasteless. My daughter had a tostada, an hour later she had cramping in the abdomen. Perhaps unwashed lettuce caused this?
We were very disappointed in the food.
The service was ok.

Pros: Close to San Francisco airport. Easy parking. Good polenta
Cons: poor service, uninspired food, poor presentation.

It had been years since we visited one of these restaurants and had great memories of the meal. We arrived to the store in San Mateo/Burlingame and we were greeted well and seated quickly. The waitress though was very unattentive and the meal was poor. The beans were dry and somewhat hard, the rice tasteless, but the polenta was tasty. Unfortunately we didn't have time to send anything back but felt that this is an upper scale mexican resturant and the food was not worthy of the prices it charged.

Pros: The Chips and Salsa. The Suprema Margarita, the tortilla soup and the Mexican Cesar Salad.
Cons: No passports allowed as Id for drinks. No help from Management. Bad Service.

If you're foreign and want to try out El Torito, go everywhere else but the one in Northridge. I love the chips and salsa, the tortilla soup the Mexican cesar salad the drinks and the food. The treatment towards foreigners is the worst. Its almost discrimination against everyone that's not from the U.S.

I went to El Torito in Northridge, located on Tampa and I got embarrassed. I used to go here all the time, so I decided to take a girl from Mexico here. I told her how great it was here and that we should have some drinks here. She's the legal age to drink so I told her she should have no problem getting a drink. It turns out that no passports are allowed as legal identification, only DMV id's or drivers licenses. I asked for a manager and he said sorry, there's nothing I can do for you. That's the last time I'm going there.