El Dorado in Garner: Don't go if you like eating or sitting.

My husband, son and I went out with my parents, sisters and their kids (my son's three cousins) for dinner last night.  Everyone had agreed on Mexican, and one of the closer places that we've visited a few times over the years is El Dorado in Garner.  We piled the six adults and four kids into three cars, and caravan-ed over.

My parents beat everyone there, so they went ahead and got a table.  The first sign that we might have problems was when we got to the table and they didn't have enough chairs for all of us.  The waiter asked how many more chairs we needed (hint:  enough for all the people still standing).  Then they didn't have enough high chairs, because I guess they've never had four whole kids in the restaurant at once.  Fine, we just switched the two older toddlers to booster seats.

Eventually, everyone had somewhere to sit, and we let the kids dig in to the chips and salsa.  Our waiter, who was tragically born without a personality, eventually came and took our drink orders.  Our drinks arrived, and we were ready to order.

Unfortunately, our waiter was apparently not ready to take our order.  As our drinks ran low and we ran out of chips and salsa, he continued to walk by us to the kitchen or other places, not glancing our way.  Look, I've waited tables and I know no one is thrilled about getting the table with all the kids, but he was treating us like we had leprosy.

Also, this was a Thursday night in a small part of town.  They were not busy.

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Asking to speak to a manager vs. Just peeing on the floor

Went out with the family to On the Border in Cary tonight. The food was awesome (mmm...avocado enchilada) and the drinks were pretty good, too. Unfortunately, that's where the praise ends.

The problems started when we got there. We arrived on the early side of the dinner rush, since Friday night restaurant waits are notorious for their length. We asked for a table for five adults, two high chairs, and a sling (for a carrier carseat). This is a few people less than when the whole family goes out, so we were pleasantly surprised to hear that the wait was only 20 minutes. Awesome. So we snagged some chairs, and commenced with waiting.

20 minutes passed. The kids were starting to get a bit fidgety. Okay, no big deal, they underestimated the wait a little bit. Maybe if one of the four hostesses standing around up front was actually serving or bussing tables, and not just holding the wall up and chatting, but, okay, cool whatever. We'll give them a few minutes.

30 minutes. My son has started to throw intermittent hungry/bored tantrums, and my niece keeps trying to wander off towards the bar, and I'm very tempted to follow her. My 2-month-old nephew is starting to stir, and my sister had really hoped we'd have a table before he woke up so she wouldn't have to feed him on a booth in the entryway. We ask the one hostess who actually appears to be working if they have any idea when our table would be ready and, oh, don't worry, a big group just got their bill, they'll be clearing out in just a few minutes.

We finally got sat after forty minutes of waiting. Now, I know that forty minutes really isn't a terrible wait for a Friday night. The problem is that it was twice as long as they originally told us. If they had just told us at the beginning the wait was forty minutes, no problem! And I'm not just hating on restaurant workers, here. I've waited tables, and I know that you always tell the customer the worst-case scenario on wait time; you never undershoot it!

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