El Sombrero

I honestly don’t know how this place stays in business. We recently moved to Flowery Branch and have been experimenting with local restaurants, and we visited this restaurant once before. Service was poor and the food so-​so. To be fair we decided to give it another shot. Bad decision. The services is slow to nonexistent. Our waiter would disappear and not return for quite a while. He wasn’t serving other because we were looking for him. The food once again was so-​so, but the jalapenos cheese dip was the worst. I spotted some specks in the cheese but you couldn’t tell what they were they were so tiny. I asked the waiter if they had served us the cheese dip without jalapenos, but he confirmed the microscopic specks were jalapenos. What a joke. The was the last shot for El Somrero. Adiós.

Love this place. Service is usually fast, unless it’s a weekend night then you’ll be waiting a while. Cheese dip is always great.

Rude over the phone, when I arrive for my pickup order, I was left standing at the entrance as several spoke amongst each other for several minutes with no one addressing me. when I was eventually greeted they continued to finish whatever they were doing before attending to my order.

I used to come every weekend when I lived in flowery branch. That was 5 years ago and now the customer service is horrible! They told us we could sit wherever we wanted ok cool thanks. We waited 10 minutes for our waiter to get our drinks then 15 minutes later he and asked us if we are ready to order. How in the world were we going to order if he didn’t even give us the menu?!? He Said oh and gave us a menu that was under his arm. He never came back so we just walked away! I have never been to a restaurant that horrible!

If you know what to order, this place could be your go-​to Mexican restaurant. The choriqueso dip is to die for. Its Mexican cheese and sausage mixed together with fried chips on the side, and an extra side of heart attack. They have tex-​mex AND real Mexican food options for the experienced foodies, or natives.
I’ve noticed some others mention the service. True, the staff is not chirpy and won’t give you fake smiles, but they will come to your table when needed. They pay close attention to a head nod or a hand signal, and the food comes out pretty quickly.
The bathrooms are clean, but could use a little attention during peak times. No weird stuff in the kitchen from the few glances I had.

The service here was horrible. We sat at our table for 15 minutes before a server ever came to our table to greet us. We had to wait 10 minutes every time we needed anything like drink refills or more salsa or our bill. They brought out the wrong food & then we had to wait for them to remake the one we ordered. The food was just barely okay. I’ll never go back here.

This is the Waffle House of Mexican restaurants. It’s hit or miss. Sometimes the service is horrible. It’s usually eh okay. You will usually see at least one staff member sitting at a booth on their phone. The food is usually pretty good, but sometimes not. One thing is consistent: The margaritas are awesome. This is the place you can take your kids and not feel like you have to constantly hush them. The management is not friendly and, from my eight years of experience, doesn’t give a crap if you are dissatisfied or not. That’s just the way they roll. There have been times when my food was absolutely horrible and because the manager wasn’t even at the store they couldn’t even take it off my ticket. They said I could come back later for a refund LOL. That’s just the kind of thing you come to expect from this place. But the salsa is amazing (we have been known to stop by and pick up a huge container of it for home) and the drinks are good. The fact that it’s family friendly makes it even better. Overall, it’s not a horrible place, but you can definitely expect hit or miss service and food quality. There are two Mexican restaurants closer to my house and yet we go to this place.

Excellent service I ordered spinach quesadilla with mushrooms it was slightly burnt but I ate it still not to bad the waitress forgot my order of slice a avocados got them after I reminded her
I would recommend this is a good place for friends and family

4 stars for the Excellent, amazing and tasteful food. But I would for sure knock one star off for the service and their attitudes. Maybe they need to hire female waitresses, but every time it’s the same males with the same attitude.

I’ve come to El Hat (Sombreo) since it opened, and in gainesville. Std mexican restaurant, sporting teams often here because its cheap, get a speedy with rice and a beer and some chips. With this location, they are slow, don;t seem to care too much, no rush, most servers are gone or texting or something. I’ll come here for a mexican fix on a week night as not to have any rush and it’s fine. Come Fridays or when large crowds are here, plan to wait, food quality is not really there and long wait for the check.
Chips have been hit and miss– like em hot, and freshly made which i’ve missed last few times. Will continue to come once a year but need to boost up the attitude and willingness to show customers a good time.

Where do I start. I love Mexican food, however I would have rather had anything but this. The margarita is the only good thing about this visit. The enchiladas tasted as though the sauce came from a can. I expect tamales to be traditional and not what I received at all. I agree with another review. No one smiles here and unless you know the staff there is no real interaction. I won’t be returning to give it another try.

Nobody in this place smiles. All of the employees act like they have no interest in being there. This is something I have noticed after 3 visits. I wanted to make sure they weren’t just having a bad day before writing a review.
The last time I was in there, my bill came to 9.04. The receipt printer was printing so light that you couldn’t see the ink on the paper. The lady taking money wrote $ 9.04 on the receipt and I signed it. A day later when I checked my account, the charge was for 10.84. She added 20% on her own. This ensured that I will never be back in that place again. For the record, I had left $ 2 on the table for the waiter.
There is really nothing special about the food. It’s the same as every other Americanized Mexican restaurant.

Have come here a few times with my sister and her husband. The service has always been timely, courteous, friendly, and professional.
The food is always good and fresh and served as ordered with no issues.
Will continue to come here when in the area.

Horrible service and rude. They just drop the chips and salsa on the table and walked off. Never received the queso dip after asking twice. Man just bad!

Indeed the salsa is worth the rave. Yet, the food is ok… Most of the food you’ll order at any Mexican restaurant is microwaved as they have most of this stuff already made for you and they only have to reheat, dress and serve. Nonetheless, it is much more obvious at this restaurant. It is fairly cheap to eat here, but whereas at other Mexican restaurants you may feel like you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck, here you’re just getting what you pay for which is fair, I guess.

I’m a vegetarian I do not eat beef. I called in an order and ordered cheese poblanos. I picked up the order and came back to my office to eat lunch. My meal had beef in it and I could not eat it. I did not have time to take it back. I called and the woman argued with me that I ordered beef. I don’t eat beef ever and know for a fact I would never order anything with beef in it. I am out the ten dollars but wanted to share this place has zero concern for their customers. A we are sorry was called for not argue with me about what I ordered when I know I did not order beef! I’m a business owner in flowery branch and I assure you we have had our last company lunch at this establishment. Very rude

This place was discusting! When we walking in the entire weight staff was sitting at a table in the middle of the restaurant talking. I have a toddler and after sitting down he got dust allll over his hands from the shelf next to the table. He also grabbed a butter knife that had been left behind. This place needed a major cleaning.
Our waitress was nice enough but the food was gross… It seemed like something out of a can just warmed up and put on my plate. We will not be returning.

Decided to try this place… should have just moved on.
The food is sub par at best. The good is not fresh when it comes out. The service is almost as bad as the food.
Carne Asada came out and was barely warm. The meat had no flavor and tastes like it was on sale when purchased. No quality.
The Taquitos Mexicanos were also lacking in flavor. The waiter never came back to check if we wanted another drink and when the food was clearly not eaten, didn’t even ask how it was.

Terrible. My wife’s burrito with steak tips was soup. My chimichanga was a burnt nasty mess also swimming in sauce.

It’s not the worst El Som location but it’s still pretty horrid. I went in today with my gf and I thought I was just gonna get something hard to mess up.
Boy was I wrong. Taco Bell employees even understand not to do this. So I ordered 3 hard tacos. The first thing I felt after biting in was liquid pouring out. I’m not exactly sure as to what it was. Anyway I kept eating. By the time I got to the third all the liquid from the first two had leaked onto the plate. The taco shell was so soggy i couldn’t bear to eat it. I was wishing I had just stuck with chips and salsa. Needless to say I paid and got out of there, want be visiting this location for a long time to come.