El Parador

Not very good for parties or big groups.
Love the tropical décor. Good chips and salsa. Everything is always good here.
But when we went back for our engagement party we were disappointed. They are good for dinner but for big groups it was not very well organized, the food came out at different times. Some people were done eating before others got their food. The menu was also confusing with two different prices next to each item.
Our server Raven was very nice though and we knew it wasn’t her fault.

They have great service and the food is OK… a little hit and miss. I would say that it is a great place for group meetings, they seem to have that down. Great meeting rooms that are quiet and if you are lucky enough to get Brandon as your servicer you will be very pleased. The salsa is VERY good!

(Tucson)
Ambiance 4 stars
Service MINUS 5 stars
Food 1 star. When it FINALLY arrived, it was slightly warmer then room temperature. I ordered a trio of items. They gave me 2 tamales (flavorless) because they were out of pasillas… and didn’t ask me if that was OK.
Finally they added an 18% tip to the check which I refused to pay. Paid in cash and walked out, NEVER to return!
I would NEVER recommend this place for food.
Salsa dancing MAY be single good thing here. Never tried it myself.

How the mighty have fallen. This was once, some 10 – 15 years ago a great place. Now, I have sworn it off after tonight’s experience. There are too many other places that actually care and don’t have to say, «Sorry» or «I’m sorry» every time they come to or leave your table.
By the clock it was 23 minutes after being seated before we got water and chips and a chance to put in our order. We’d decided on appetizers and entrees from the web menu but left if open to hearing about the specials for the night. There were no specials so we stuck to our script: Table-​side Guacamole (total fiasco), Sonoran Shrimp Cocktail (warm shrimp with great cocktail sauce), Topopo Salad and Pescado Parador for entrees. Ordered an «Amnesia» Margarita for my gf and a Negro Modelo for myself.
Wait 17 minutes:
Catch the hostess and request our drinks. GF gets hers a minute or so later just as the Guacamole order came but we waited for a table next to us to be served. No problem here, other than the long wait. Meanwhile my beer still hasn’t come. Waitress comments about how hard and unripe the avocados are for the guac but keeps pressing on, while telling us, «these are so hard». I tell her to go maybe go get a new kit. She says, «Yeah, that’s probably the best idea.» UGH!
More time passes. People seated near us having their entrees lean over to say the service has been horrible and hope it’s better for us. WTF? We’re already thinking is totally unacceptable.
GF finally gets her «Amnesia» as we wait for the table guac. I’m fuming mad but simply state, we’d like our entrees if they’re being held b/​c of the guacamole order. Keep in mind, I had about 5 or so open tables in my sight line. GF reminds the hostess that I ordered a Negro Modelo (I was so ticked at this point I didn’t even think of it).
The guacamole that we did finally get, had measured plastic containers of garlic, cheese, jalapeño, etc. It was edible but barely. If you have a good guac. then just make it. That’s not the case here. I’ve never had to crunch through guac before and this was on the remake!!!
Waiting to save the day with some of the great food they used to serve, we had some more chips and salsa and choked down some guac. Entrees come and her salad has the dressing on it, despite the simple request of having it on the side, my fish was luke warm and the veggies were clearly frozen and steamed with some bland «herbed butter».
We were over an hour after our initial order before we got a chance to eat our mediocre entrees. The Pescado Parador was ok w/​out the packaged veggies even though it was no more than warm when put in front of me.
If the food was fantastic and beyond compare, maybe some of this could be forgiven. Fact is, the food the was mediocre at best. Regardless, the service was horrid. I never once had anyone even stop by to ask if I’d like some more water, let alone come with a pitcher. Blech.
DO NOT GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THIS PLACE.
This is a textbook case for one of the restaurant remodel shows.

We went here for dancing on a Friday night. Very disappointed.
1) Cover charge was way too expensive. $ 7 per person, even though website says women get in free before 11pm.
2) Band hardly played at all. We arrived around 10:15. They finally started playing around 10:40 (even though website says starts at 10). Then they took a break at 11, and when we left at 11:20, they were not even close to starting again. $ 14 was waaay too much for only 20 minutes of mediocre music.
3) Nobody was there. Place was dead. I think the only other people there were friends of the band. In fact, 2 other couples that were there when we got there left soon after the band started playing.
4) Band music was just mediocre. And they seemed to play only salsa music. We were hoping for a Cha-​cha, bachata, or meringue.
5) Dance floor was tiny.
Note: We did not try the food, so I cannot comment on that.

El Parador hosted my company’s annual leadership dinner this year. We will not be returning and I will choose not to return as a patron.
For around $ 22 a plate we were given a buffet of rice, beans (not refried), shredded beef, and shredded chicken. That’s it. Tortillas were available as well to concoct the most bland soft tacos you’ve ever had.
The chips and salsa were delicious but that’s about the only positive thing I can say about the food.
The drinks, which were not served by the wait staff (I’m not even positive there was a wait staff) were expensive and watered down. A 12 oz Margarita was so iced down that it probably contained about 5 oz of actual liquid.
We found out later that soft drinks were included in the cost but nobody offered us drinks and that information wasn’t made available. As our group of about 80 had to get our own drinks from the bar, the bar staff was completely unprepared, as if they had no clue two large parties would be there that evening. Consequently my margarita took about 8 – 10 minutes to obtain.
Overall, the food quality was the saving grace. It would have been nice to actually try more (we found out a few days later that not all the dishes we were promised made it to the buffet). The was not good enough, however, to overcome the pretty horrendous service and lack of preparedness. I will choose not to give them my business again as there are far too many excellent Mexican Restaurants in Tucson.

I was going to rate the place 4 stars when I went there. But the owner was such a b! tch. After bringing more than 200 people into the place, this person is so hard to work with. And did not deliver as promised. I would watch out dealing with them.

Well, we went on a Saturday night. It was slow as far as we could see, but the waitress told us that there was a big party somewhere in the back part of the restaurant. With as long as it took to get our food, I’ll have to believe her.
I ordered the flat enchiladas. Nowhere in the description did it mention onions. I’m not a fan of onions, but I’ll eat a few –a few. Well, once we finally got our food (35+ minutes after we ordered), my enchiladas were covered in raw, red onions. I picked as many of them off as I could, but then there were a ton inside too and they were close to raw as well. It was awful. I couldn’t even eat the side of refried beans as they were covered with raw onions too. Hubby’s food was ok, although, he ordered carnitas, but they weren’t really ‘carnitas’.
The waitress asked us to come back, but while this wasn’t her fault, we won’t be going back. I’ve lived in or around Tucson for almost 39 years. This was the 1^st time I’ve ever eaten there. Now I know why.

Go here for the Salsa Dancing, NOT the food. This is some of the worst Mexican food I’ve ever had.

This place is just okay. The food is decent and the portions are pretty big, but the service is slow and in most cases mediocre. I would only come here if I had a Groupon or other deal.

Went on a Saturday night around 8:30 for dinner and then to stay for the live salsa band. The place as pretty dead and I was surprised. Our table of 8 all liked the food. I liked that they had green corn tamales on the menu. They were good. Live salsa band was awesome and since we had dinner there there was no cover to stay. It was a nice for a Saturday evening. Looks like they had nice bar area also.

This is a great place to go salsa dancing! There are always a lot of great dancers there.
Water is easily accessible, which is great when you’re dancing up a storm.
My only qualm is that the floor is kind of small and sometimes ladies heels find your feet.

Oct. 20: Tucson Business Week reports that in early January 2012, El Parador will be publicly auctioned off. We have a couple months left to dine at this 50+year-old restaurant that’s been am important part of our community.

I’ve actually only been here for salsa, but it is right across the street from my house. A former roommate of mine would stay out until 2am dancing here, but she’s a blue-​eyed blonde (very attractive, it turns out, in the salsa scene).
I always had quite a bit of fun here; the band is always great, and the dance floor is nicely sized. My biggest qualm were the drinks: dinky and waay overpriced!
You work up a thirst dancing, and sometimes you need more than a swallow’s worth.
I also thought the cover charge was a little steep.
To go here explicitly for salsa, you have to be pretty committed. If you aren’t bothered overspending, El Parador can be a lot of fun. Just be sure to check your bank statement in the morning!

Mediocre food and terrible service combined to make this a D grade lunch experience. The fake plants were weird and kitschy, and the cooler was set about five degrees above comfortable. All that being said, the guacamole wasn’t bad.

Use to be a great place but not sure what has happened. Ceviche-​Smelled rotten. Shrimp were freezer burned. Blah!
Fish Taco-​Served on a standard tortilla that looked like it came from safeway.
Service-Couldn’t have been worse. Do not waste your money here.
Only thing that was good was the can of Tecate. They managed to serve that cold.

Wow, there are some horrible reviews of this place, but we thought it was decent enough. Atmosphere is either lovely or a little odd, depending on your perspective. The giant mural and foliage in the atrium-​style dining area seemed attractive to some of our party and distracting to others. The food was okay, not too big on flavor, but enough to make us all feel sated. Everyone enjoyed their lunch plate, but it wasn’t food that we’d rave about, by any means. My cheese enchilada, bean tostada, and carne seca taco were tasty. The salsa was not spicy and the chips bordered on stale.
That said, the margaritas were delicious! :) Plus, our waiter was amazing, very friendly and helpful in recommending the best menu choices. Always checking on us and telling jokes. He really set the mood for a nice lunch and he was very good with our 18-​month-​old daughter… even when she threw bits of burrito on the floor.

Here we go — unfortunately we dined here. Wasn’t too impressed to be really really honest.
We went for the Sunday Buffet which is fine no big deal. The buffet table was a mess-​their buffet warmers were disgusting because they had napkins tied around each handle which made it clumsy to open.
Chips were stale-​salsa was pretty bland.
Our waitress was exhausted and we heard her discussing with her manager how she was ready to go and tired. Which honestly showed while she only checked on our table once.
The food was mediocre-​the ground beef was tasteless.
The one thing that I must say I was impressed with though was the green corn tamales – those were delicious. As for everything else though this did not even up how I am rating this restaurant.
In my opinion I will not be going back. It is really too bad and after reading all the reviews I wished I would’ve read them first before heading to this restaurant.
Oh well lesson learned.

My wife’s in love with this place. I’m in heavy like with it. We’ve been here a half-​a-​dozen times for the wife’s department breakfasts and for supper on our own. Come to think of it we’ve even catered from here as well for an event at church. I guess we’ve run the full gambit with El Parador.
Their service is usually pretty sharp and the food is excellent. The only issue I’ve had was a timing screw-​up on the catering bit, but dining in or taking out have always been solid.
The wife loves the chicken flautas, but I’m more of a chimi man myself. Either way. it’s going to taste great and the chips and salsa are some of the best in town.
We’ve not been around for it, but they’ve got dance nights and live music on a regular basis as well.

Chile rellenos in the Tucson Area rated according to the Homeland Security Advisory System with three word descriptors.
El Parador: onion as garnish? Yellow
See photos.