Often reviews do not reflect the quality of the food. We go to restaurants to eat.
I've eating here a few times. To their credit, they have homemade sauces and try to strike a somewhat skewed  balance between Mexican and norteamericano Mexican food.
It's a chain restaurant. They serve what Columbus people want to eat. If the people wanted great authentic Mexican food, no problem, but that formula does not work in town. Â
Service is the least important part of any review.
Really!? Service?
We're all out here desperately trying to find a restaurant that serves freshly prepared foods in a restaurant culture proliferated with boxed, factory produced un-foods.
In Columbus, other than fresh hamburgers downtown, Mexican restaurants (by the nature of the food) offer up your best bet of finding unprocessed food - Simple Carne Asada with cilantro and onions. Â
Anytime a meal, actually prepared from scratch, comes out of a restaurant kitchen we're thinking it's a great start. We'll work on the wait staff later. Â
If you're eating and don't like the service, get up from your fat behind, grab a waiter, go to the kitchen, talk to a manager. Do it with a wide smile, but get 'er done.
The wait staff is in an impossible no win position. Serving food they have zero control over, hurried by management to, "Do more!" and in the customer's eyes, responsible for everything.
And guess who pays their salary?
Service is the easiest thing to fix in a restaurant so quit frowning and picking on the wait staff.
Also.. learn about empathy: <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thefreedictionary.com%2Fempathy&s=6c14a5b94cf89bb8c394f948d4bc312ad008bd62c8106bef30da078214471147" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.thefreedictio…</a>
Excellent Mexican food in the middle of the heartland. authentic steaks and fajitas with especially fresh salsa. Their "green salsa" made of green tomatios and Jalapenos was out of this world.  Very affordable pricing and good service. We were concerned that some of the previous patrons had not rated them so high but  they must have improved a lot. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Review Source:Excellent food and a great value! Â I had the special plate which had a chalupa, taco, burrito, chile relleno, and also included beans and rice. Â I couldn't believe when it came out. It was so much food that it took three plates. Â This is for serious eaters only. Â I easily split it in to 2 meals. I highly recommend El Nopal.
Review Source:My daughter and I ate dinner in El Nopal on May 25, 2012. We found the restaurant maybe half full with customers and we were seated right away. The chips and salsa were as expected, not great, just average. I ordered a Frozen Margarita and the server asked what flavor I wanted, I said "Margarita Flavored"...I wanted a regular Margarita, not a Strawberry Flavored one or any other flavor for that matter. She brought the drink within 2-3 minutes and I took one drink of it and it was clearly not a regular Margarita. So when she came back by the table, I asked her what flavor it was and she said Lime. I told her that it tasted like it was made with "dirty mop water" and then I told her she could have it back. She tried to sell me a more expensive Margarita that had better Tequila and I told her no thanks....I'll just drink water.
I then ordered Chicken Fajitas and they were $13.50 for the dinner. And at that price, it didn't include any cheese. Wow. That is really expensive for a dish without cheese. So I ordered it and asked her to hold the guacamole. Of course, when the meal arrived at my table in 4 minutes, it was covered in guacamole. Wow. This was not going well at all. The chicken and onions barely had any flavor and it was just bland.
I ate as much as I could stand, (which wasn't much) and waited for the non-english peaking server to bring my overpriced ticket so I could pay and get out of there. She finally noticed we were finished and brought the check.
I can tell you that I will never be back to this Restaurant again. Over-priced food, horrible service and terrible drinks. The recipe for disaster.
So bad, where do I start? I've only been there once (that will be the only time) so maybe/hopefully this was just an off day.
The server was rude and inattentive. Our drinks were never filled, and once our order was wrong, we didn't have a chance to complain because the waiter didn't come back. Our my order was wrong and horrible. I didn't get the beans that came with my fajitas. The shrimp in the fajitas were so overcooked they were like leather. I would have loved to send them back and get something else, but the waiter was nowhere to be seen. Actually, he was to be seen - stopping at several other tables, but never ours. I'm not sure what's up with that - maybe he has favorite regulars or something? I don't know. Either way, it sucked. So we didn't get service, the food was terrible, no drink refills. At the end, I flagged him down and asked for a to go box (because surprisingly, fake crab fajitas are actually pretty good! Who knew?!?) That should clue a waiter in that you are somewhere near ready to get your check, right? Not him. He didn't even put the check into the little adding machine at all, and you can't ask another waiter to get your check because they have to put it into the caculator themselves. Â So we wait another 10 minutes and flag him down again to specifically ask for the check. 10 minutes after that, when I'm seriously getting ready to dine-and-ditch, he finally brings the check over.
What sealed the deal that we'll never come back is that when the manager, who was at the register taking the checks, asked if everything was ok, I (very calmly, not yelling or anything at all) said it wasn't. I said my food was overcooked, we didn't see the waiter and then we had to wait an obnoxious time for our check. Honestly I didn't have a great experience.
And he said "ok," and turned to the next guy. But not - 'ok' like he listened, - ok like how you say 'fine' when someone asks you how you're doing. It's just a reflex. He wasn't listening and didn't care. Bad experience all around.
PS - and no  - they were not overly busy. Probably about 6 or 7  tables in the entire place, and there were at least 2 waiters plus other people bussing and carrying out food.
El Nopal is a great mexican restaurant..among the best is Columbus. Â It is part of a local chain of El Nopals, with the others being in Seymour and the Louisville area. Â I've yet to eat something that I didn't like here. Â Service is friendly and attentive. Â Great lunch prices, and they have lunch punch cards that makes your 10th lunch free. Â Delicious margaritas, full dinner menu that contains everything you'd expect from a mexican restaurant.
Hope they stick around...the building they're in is cursed. Â 3 restaurants/bars in 5 years have gone into and out of business in this building.
The 5 best restaurants in the 2015 Denver Restaurant Week
3,611 Views | Category: Denver
The complete list of 2015 Denver Restaurant Week businesses
1,972 Views | Category: Denver
The tourists' guide to Portillos: 5 must have dishes
3,318 Views | Category: Chicago
Pho = Pronounced "fuh" not "foe" for pho-king sake
2,915 Views | Category: Denver
Indulgery selected to exhibit at Collision Conference
2,987 Views | Category: Press Releases
Not Logged In
BUSINESSES
Local Businesses
Near Me
My Favorites
SOCIAL
Blog & News
MY ACCOUNT
Login
Register
Contact Us
Add Your Business
