El Maguey Mexican Restaurant

Not impressed with this location. The service is slow. They ignore you. They don’t check on you to refill drinks or see if everything is ok. The tortillas (not tortilla chips) are over-​warmed and end up crispy and fall apart as soon as you pick them up. It IS close, but I’ve made my last visit there.

Service is slow, seems like the staff cares more about their cellphones. Margaritas taste. Well I can’t even describe it just tasted like water. Food is not that good, I don’t even know why they call themselves a Mexican restaurant no way near the real Mexican food. DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY HERE!!!

As usual the service is horrendous, I had always hesitated to try the tamales here but I figured, «What the hell». Well, «What the @#$%», is how I felt when I left. I got the No. 8 lunch special, which is a tamale and a burrito with a side of rice. The tamale tasted like it was reheated from yesterday, extremely soggy, bland, and just inedible. I guess my first warning sign should have been how the hell the food got there after only 2 – 3 minutes after ordering it. I really want to like this place since its close to work, but I doubt that will ever happen.

Im getting used to the slow service, really enjoy the «mix» meal with bacon chix steak n shrimp…
Wish they had a real online menu, especially one that shows meals with chicken…

I’ve been to this location three times now and have never been particularly ecstatic to go, but it’s close to home so it’s convenient. Dining in, the place was alright. Service was slow, but the food was ok. Today, though, I tried carryout, and that was a mistake. My order was simple — six tacos. It can’t possibly be messed up. Yet it was. I paid nearly $ 15 for six tacos, which seemed high to me but since they don’t itemize the receipt and I was kind of in a hurry I decided against making an inquiry about the price. I figured in the end $ 15 was alright as long as they were fresh, delicious tacos that I could celebrate a cinco de mayo lunch with my wife with. They were awful. The beef tacos, which were supposed to be hard tacos, were incredibly soggy and fell apart the moment you unwrapped them. Furthermore the ratios were all off. There was no lettuce, no tomato, not a vegetable to be seen on them, but instead the tacos were just these heaping gobs of ground beef topped with cheese that somehow fused together almost the way mozzarella does. The taste and texture were just terrible. The chicken tacos were slightly better, but only slightly. They once again lacked vegetables and were soggy, but at least the chicken tasted ok. Just to make sure that all variables are known, I doubt that the tacos got soggy on the way home. I live 7 minutes from the restaurant. I have no proof, but I wonder if they simply made the tacos when I ordered them for pickup an hour in advance and left them under a warmer or something. They were way soggier than what you’d expect from a short drive home.
In summary, a Mexican restaurant ought to be able to make the most basic of foods — the simple taco, but El Maguey managed to make the most farcical tacos I have possibly ever eaten.

I’ve been going here since it opened, at first, the service was excellent and it’s just been going downhill as time goes by. I don’t know if there is a different owner or they are understaffed. Now, it takes a long time before they take your order and the waiter will walk past you several times. I think they have one person to take all the orders. Once you do order, the food will get their pretty quick. If you need a drink refill, forget about it. It takes forever to get your check also. The food is the same decent quality you can expect from El Maguey though, but the worst service of any location I’ve been to.

My family and I have dined here as few times and the food is definitely better than the service. If you’re a fan of their food try the Hwy K, O’Fallon, MO location. The service there is much better and therefore a better experience.

«Chips and salsa are just okay. The food is awful and the service is even worse.» The margarita’s are terrible too and the food has absolutely no flavor whatsoever…
It reminds me of the mexican restaurant in the movie «Brides Maids» where everyone gets sick… I wanted it to be good since it’s close to home, but after a few attempts I will never go back… The worst around!!!

Salsa was kind of weird granted I downed the whole thing.)
Got the Macho Burrito… pretty good.
Staff is friendly. Manager seems a little up tight, kind of like he might hate his life, but maybe he’s just having a bad day – we’re all entitled to that.

This location is horrible!!! I ordered a margarita and it tasted like dishwater! When I asked them to take it off the bill since I took one drink of it, the manager blamed me for it tasting bad! He took it back to the kitchen and when it wasn’t off our bill and we complained again he brought it back out and told me to drink it!!! Drive the extra 5 minutes to the other Lake St Louis location!!! This one is the worst one around!!!

This one is better than the others in the area. The food is average, the margaritas are very good and the waitstaff is very nice and friendly. Not authentic Mexican, but its ok.

This is the only Mexican food place close by that has a real Mexican cook. Story goes that there is no good Mexican food in Missouri. That’s very close to true, but El Maguey has several good dishes on the menue. Tacos de Carne Asada with spicey green sauce upon request is realy very good. Chile Verde made with Pork is another very good dish. There good with Chicken also. Sea food dishes don’t even come close to what they do closer to the boarder. Salsa is never made the same twice. All in all there about three star. Staff are good but distant. I’ve been told stories about debit card numbers being used to bump tips and even airline tickets to Mexico being bought with stolen card numbers. I have had no proublems of this kind.

Solid 3 stars. Not a bad place. Wait staff are usually friendly, but not especially outgoing. Food is prepared quickly. Pricing is good.
I’ve eaten here several times — kind of a family favorite, and very convenient. They are stingy on the frequent diner card (last year … not sure if they’re still doing that — I stopped after I realized that they don’t punch a star per entrée, but per ticket … yes, there are ways to game the system, but I’m more interested to see how the vendor manages the program), and on the ‘kids eat free’ Mondays. We had several adult entrees, but only one free kids meal. Maybe it’s lost in translation.
All in all, a solid choice.
Can get kind of noisy, with large group. s

I’m sure there is better mexican food out there, but I just love El Maguey. It’s relatively inexpensive and has filled my memories with copious amounts of cheese dip (well, more so my arteries). I really like this particular El Maguey b/​c it’s one of the only ones I’ve been to that will actually provide the flour tortilla shell with the fajita taco salad. Whenever I go to the one near my house, they say they don’t have the shell (even though their menu depicts otherwise). I think I gain two pounds with every visit, but at least I leave fat and happy.

Great service. Solid food. Chicken fajitas are yummy.