El Porton Collierville

Visited this location and chain for the first time and last time on June 4^th.
Prior reviews indicated fast friendly service and good food.
The service was slow, haphazard, and unimpressive. The hostess appeared harried and wasn’t engaging as she could/​should have been. My companion is in a wheelchair, so we move slower than others. When being shown to our table, the hostess didn’t wait for us. For another groups, she dropped menus on the table and was ten feet away before the first guest arrived at the table.
Our server attended 3 – 4 other tables before acknowledging us. His affect was dull and not personable.
The appetizer, «Choriqueso», was a great idea in theory and a huge greasy disappointment in reality.
The food was generally average Mexican fare. Decent chips and good salsa (once pepper is added) were the claim to fame. The chipotle pineapple margarita was ok, but only a 2 inches length of salt around a wide rim glass seemed cheap. My companion’s meal didn’t have rice and beans, a staple of compliments. Mine only had beans.
Nausea hit late at night, and lasted hours. Maybe the greasy Choriqueso? Maybe the food in general?

The food here was just okay. The service was very impressive. The waitress seemed like she was rushing us from the moment we sat down. When we asked for a few minutes, it turned into 10+
Minutes until she returned. I had the Super Chimichanga with beef. It was okay, but nothing to write home about. My wife had the Enchiladas Verde, and again, just very average. My mother in law had the Tortilla Soup, and it was not very hot, and quite watery.
I don’t think we will be returning here.

Wonderful food! I had always been a Ponchos fan, but not anymore. :)
Great dips, pretty good service and clean.

The food is always is delicious but I do have an issue when I’m eating my lunch and you bring a nasty mop bucket in and mop the floor right next to me. I could understand if there was a mess on the floor but this was not the case. I cannot explain to you how unappetizing it is to try to eat your meal with the smell of Lysol right next to you.

Best Guacamole– I was scraping the sides with chips long after it was gone.
I haven’t come here in years because of bad experiences throughout my childhood. I just couldn’t find anything I liked. I came with a large party for a birthday party and had a much better experience. Though I wouldn’t come here for my birthday as the birthday song was lackluster at best even with the entire staff out there singing. Have some fun with it, peeps!
I expected the Super Chimichanga to be ground beef but it was beef strips. It was the tastiest thing all night and I would definitely get the beef version (even though I normally am not fond of beef).
To Try:
— Pollo Hawaiiano
— Pasta Fajita
Liked:
— Charro Beans
— Chipotle Sauce
— Guacamole Mexicano
— Jalisco Burrito
— Salsa
— Super Chimichanga (beef)
Ok:
— Grilled Shrimp Tacos (chipotle sauce)
— Seafood Burrito
Disliked:
— Rice (bland)
— Shrimp Diabla

My husband and I live in Collierville and have been to this El Porton several times in the past few months, but I think we’re looking for somewhere else after the last two visits.
We love the tableside guacamole– but the last two times we’ve ordered it they just showed up and chunked a bowl down on the table. The first time I had to send it back because it had tons of jalapenos in it. IF they had done it tableside (as stated on the menu) I would have told them to give them to my husband.
We got a coupon in the mail and decided to do «the deal» for $ 19.99, but also to upgrade the guacamole on Sunday night. (11−15−15) I showed it to the waiter when we ordered. When we were finishing our entrees the waiter threw a full price check on the table. When I reminded him that we had a coupon he snatched it and walked away leaving our plates sitting in front of us. Another person came out and told us that we had not ordered a basic appetizer. I pointed to the coupon where it said you could upgrade the guacamole for $ 2.99 and he stormed away without comment. Our waiter came back and dropped the check again. Since the deal had included dessert, I asked if we could still get a flan. He stormed away– still leaving us up to our elbows in dirty dishes. Two staff people were very hostile to us over this coupon and it really ruined the whole evening out. As we were leaving the hostess didn’t even look up from her cell phone or say a word to us. We will gladly go somewhere else, it’s not like there aren’t other options.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been to this location, and we decided to get takeout for a group last night (6 meals) and we each said during & afterwards how good the food was! We got chicken fajita nachos, shrimp fajita quesadillas, chicken and beef chimichangas, a combination plate and cheese quesadillas for the kids. All excellent!!! Thank you for a great dinner ElPorton!

The salsa and white cheese dip here are amazing. We often stop in and pick it up to go. My husband loves the tacos here. Always consistent quality.

Worst service ever… I asked for spinach and chicken only she came back with bell peppers and onions !!! Then sent it back they just threw spinach on the quesadilla on top of the bell pepper? I got to the point to where I am not paying for this … Low budget place with terrible service

Service was horrible, the only thing worse was the food. Had to ask twice for refills, salsa was awful, and the chips tasted like they were from those clear bags served at any concession stand, I will never eat at any other Mexican restaurant other than Casa Mexicana!

After living in California, we learned what real Mexican food is. So does El Porton. Even the skinny margarita was good! Highly recommended.

Chips and salsa are good but the taco salad/​loco left much to be desired. I wouldn’t recommend it. Probably the smallest I ever had. Not enough lettuce, meat, cheese, 1 tomato etc. and the taco shell could’ve been for a child.

This is neither authentic nor good! And our hostess was rude, just throwing out menus onto the table and walking off without a word.

Pretty good local spot with fast lunch service. Tortilla soup could’ve been hotter but want too salty and had nice pieces if chicken and avacado. Grilled shrimp tacos were tasty with a light mayo and fresh cilantro slaw filling. Service was efficient but stoic not your typical fiesta experience we’ve had in the past here. Maybe margaritas would help next time haha!

Seriously the WORST service ever! The food was ok at best. I went with my friends and he gave us one check instead of splitting it, so we put down who had what on the check. He then proceeded to take 20 minutes to get back to our table after we flagged someone down to get our waiter. When he did come back he started to cuss in Spanish at us and then finally, finally split the check only to get it completely wrong. I will NEVER eat here again!

It was generic good faux-​Mexican food. The portions were large. The cheese dip was good. The service was good.

I ordered food from the Collierville location for me and some co workers, and the food was AWFUL! For starters my ordered was wrong based on what I called in. I had a order of Chicken and Beef nachos. The chicken in the chicken nachos was not shredded it was literally a whole chicken breast on top of nacho chips, there was very little cheese. The beef nachos was an item that was left off the order, the gentleman at the bar went to the back to place the order for the nachos, he came back within 2 minutes with the nachos. The ground beef was literally thrown on top of the nacho chips that was extremely soggy. I had a order that was a chicken fajita, there was NO chicken but melted chesse. I must say I was SO disappointed. My very first time eating at this restuarant was a month ago and the food was good. This second experience was awful and it maybe my last visit.

This is my «neighborhood» Mexican restaurant … The nearest to my house. My wife and I have been going here for more than 10 years. We love the margaritas, and the food totally satisfies our cravings for Mexican food. The menu changes recently have really impressed us. We have tried all of the tapas, and they are all very good. We love the staff, too. They have always been very kind to us.

The food at this Mexican place is above average. It is very fresh and always taste good. My only real beef with this place is the language barrier. The last waiter we had I don’t believe had a very good understanding of the english language. It took us close to 10 minutes to order for 5. We went around the table, and each order he had trouble understanding what we wanted. When the food came out, most of it was wrong. They quickly fixed this, and we had a nice meal. I would still go back for sure, because of the great food.

I love me some Mexican food and El Porton fills the void. We went on a Friday afternoon, so it wasn’t too busy. We ordered the queso fundido (chorizo, cheese and peppers melted together into a wonderfully bubbly concoction to which you can put atop flour or corn tortillas), my husband had the steak tacos and I ordered chicken enchiladas. My husband’s tacos were phenomenal. The steak was seasoned so well there was no need for any other toppings. My enchiladas, however left a lot to be desired. Being a Mexican food gal, I’ve made my fair share of enchiladas and I felt these were made completely wrong. The chicken was very dry and it wasn’t shredded enough– think big, tough hunks of meat. It had little to no seasoning and sat inside the corn tortillas with sauteed green peppers and onions. I prefer my enchiladas simple. Cheese and chicken only please! The sauce seemed to have been simply ladled over the top, rather than baked into the actual enchilada. There was no sauce inside the shells, so it felt like I was almost eating a really bad taco with red sauce covering the tops. I took 2 bites and then shared the rest of my husband’s tacos.
I will definitely be going back as I feel I made the wrong ordering choice, and everything else we had was delicious. My only issue, there were tons of flies all over the restaurant. And they were the annoying kind. They were landing on everything– the table, the food, our drinks and our bodies. It was so bad, when we were leaving I noticed the couple next to us swinging their arms to shoo them off and rolling their eyes. We all had a chuckle.