El Fuego - Milwaukee

We were quickly seated in the bar section on a Monday night. Thankfully, we had excellent service from Valerie. She was warm, energetic, and attentive. The margaritas were strong and the food was plentiful and met our expectations. The restaurant was conveniently located just a short drive from our airport hotel. The decor was lively and colorful, featuring a spacious bar.

I used a mobile app to make a reservation for a table for 8 people for a birthday dinner. Our group arrived on time and found the restaurant to be relatively quiet with plenty of empty tables. Unfortunately, our table was not ready and we had to wait for over 10 minutes while they put one together for us. Once seated, I noticed that there were no food options available for under $13. The standard taco plates with rice and beans ranged from $13 to $21, which I found to be exorbitant compared to my usual Mexican restaurants where I pay much less. The food was very salty and lacked flavor. Fortunately, there was a great mariachi band performing. Despite indicating on the reservation app that it was a birthday celebration, the band did not come to sing to our table until we had finished our meal and had to flag them down after waiting for about 20 minutes. I would not return to this restaurant and would not recommend it to others.

The service at this restaurant was terrible. It took a long time for us to receive our drinks, and even longer to order our appetizers. The waitress never returned to take our main course order and only asked if we wanted to order more after bringing our appetizer 30 minutes later. She also forgot to refill our drinks or check on us during the meal. We were looking forward to eating here but were ultimately let down by the very bad service. We are not sure if we will come back in the future.

The food wasn't great, but everything else was excellent. I dine out frequently and maybe it was just an off day, but I tried the three enchiladas.

The food was very good, service was good. We had a reservation and had to wait for almost minutes before being seated. What's the point of having a reservation if you still have to wait a hour for a table??