El Rinconcito Mexican Sea Food Restaurant

As a lover of Mexican food I dine out for tacos etc on average 10 – 15 times per week for good mex breakfast-​lunch-​dinner.
It is very hard for me to leave a negative review for food that I love so much. However after visiting El Rinconcito a few times I have finally given up on them. The food is decent and is the only reason I ate there more than once. However I have never encountered such a rude staff in a restaurant. Not sure if it is because we are Caucasian and they wanted to make sure we did not return… or if it is that they are just not nice people to anyone. No smiles, no refills, no check at the end, no thank your upon payment. How anyone in a service industry can stay open with attitudes like this is beyond me. I live near this restaurant and frequent many of the Mexican restaurants in our area and get along with all of the staff and owners at these other restaurants so I am not being picky on what to expect.
After the first visit I thought we just got a unfriendly waitress, the 2^nd visit I thought oh shit we got a unfriendly waiter, the 3^rd visit I thought WTF did we ever come back. Never again! These peeps are A-​holes

This place charge me 5 $ for a taco! Even a taco very poor and no tasty. Also the waitress give me a wrong plate. Dont lost your money here!
Este lugar me cobro 5 dolares por un taco! Incluso un taco muy pobre y sin sabor. Tambien la mesera me dio un plato equivocado. No pierdan su dinero aqui!

One of my favorite sea food places to go to in Vista! I always try a new shrimp dish and it never fails. Love the people doing karaōke, always entertaining. Not the place to go if you don’t like loud music ;) always get a michelada! Today I tried the corn ice cream. Delicious!

It was good. I wouldnt say it was the best, way way too much competition for that. The place was a big dining room, with a salsa bar. The night we went was quiet but I can see its set up for music and bigger events. I ordered the california burrito. It was A OK. The service was just OK too, you have to ask if you need a drink here, its not just assumed. As you can see in my picture I pretty much inhaled most of the burrito which was about forearms length but kinda of dry, too much tortilla to meat/​guac ratio. It did come with free chips and salsa if you dine in. The salsas served here are on the spicier side if your a mild kind of person. Which I am not, so I slathered the dry parts of my burrito with it.

The food was awesome and to top it off it was karaōke Sunday! A show with the meal. Bring your ear plugs…

This place is a rip off. Ripping off its own people! $ 4.50 for a bottled beer and $ for a refill of soda. Who charges for a refill? I ordered fish tacos and was not impressed at all. It lacked flavor and the pico de gallo and sour cream/​mayo didn’t do much for it. This was my second time here and this time they had super loud music/​karaōke and couldn’t even hear the person sitting across from me. I definitely will never come back here again and regret coming a second time.

We have been here more than several times. The food here is Good and Good
Portions. Pricing well average like any other restaurant. The staff is nice. We always get greeted upon entering. We have been here during different days of the week, when music is playing of the Music machine at a decent noise level. We have been here when there is karaōke going on and its actually pretty good. The only one where we had to get up and go was when they had live band
playing. The square footage in that location does not calibrate with the noise or amount level. The location is not a Hall to play a band in there and sound good. Sorry but it was horrible. Thats the only down comment I have to post about this location.

I have been here twice for my dad’s birthday because he is a Mexican seafood fanatic. The first time we went, I wasn’t too pleased, the server was rude and the food was just eh… The second time though, WOW! I don’t know what happened but the food was delicious and the server we had was super nice. (Still not the fastest place to get your food and drinks) but I am sure we will be back next year for his traditional Mexican seafood birthday dinner!

LA comida solía ser excelente en general. El servicio era bueno. Sus ceviche Verde uno de Los mejores que había probado, Pero ultimamente el servicio es no muy bueno; y la comida esta cambiando de sabor. En especial el ceviche ya no es sabroso Como lo era. A el dueño u encargado, sería de suma importancía dar más atención ha estos detalles. Detalles que son importantisimos.

Wow I don’t understand how this place has 4stars!!!
With such HORRIBLE and I mean HORRIBLE service they never asked if we would like something to drink we had to call them over! they never refilled our drinks it took us 5min just to get menus 10min to get drinks 35min to get food and never got our bill we walked up to the cashier to ask for it and she ignored us twice wow never coming back

not sure if i didnt order the right food but it was just ok. The music as a plus.

Excellent octopus ceviche. Reasonable pricing and great service. Can’t wait to try some of their other dishes.

I’ve been here a number of times and each time I’ve had nothing but a great experience. The food is delicious, as another reviewer mentioned, it definitely stands out among the numerous Mexican restaurants in Vista and surrounding areas! They have plenty of options on the menu to choose from!
The prices are a definitely more expensive than other places, however the food is above par so I would say that the prices reflect the quality of food (at least I hope)!
Typically when we go there is a singer in the restaurant and that adds to the ambiance! I’ve never had a problem with our waiters/​waitresses, always have received excellent service! Used a
coupon and the staff joked about it a little but they accepted it without a problem. We will definitely be back!!!

There was a man singing today (sunday). Although he was pretty good and I liked the songs, it would have been more enjoable if it wasn’t so loud. The food was great and the service was too!

We came to this restaurant because of the Unilocal deal. Hungry on a Saturday afternoon we thought this was a good deal paying $ 20 for $ 40 worth of food. So upon entering we sat down at a Booth style table that was super wobbly but we stayed there anyway. The waitress brought us out the chips and salsa right away. They had a live band playing, which was nice but WAY TOO LOUD for my liking. My boyfriend and I could barely even communicate, and in turn made ordering a little bit Awkward because I could barely hear myself as I was asking for my oder. I wouldn’t think this is a great place for kids, they didn’t even have a kids menu. And $ 12 for a quesadilla, which most kids would want, No thanks. I opted to get my toddler a chicken taco which was pretty messy for her to eat. I ordered the chicken flautas and my bf the chicken enchiladas. We both agreed the food was mediocre. Nothing special, the chips and salsa and horchata was my favorite. We were done with our food like 20 minutes before the waitress brought our check, and it wasn’t even busy. Customer service could have been a lot better. Overall we would have paid close to $ 50 without the Unilocal deal. Probably wouldn’t come back again without some sort of coupon.

* Food: Delicious, 5 stars. It’s hard to find a Mexican restaurant that stands out from the crowd in Vista this is it. Big menu with lots of options, a group of 5 of us all got different things and we were all really happy (I had the bacon wrapped shrimp, would recommend!)
* Service: 3 stars — It was ok, but they definitely could have benefited from another waitress, there were some times when we were getting thirsty
* Atmosphere: Depends on how you feel about really loud Mariachi music… like hooked up to amps. The Mariachis would only play when someone would come give them money, otherwise they just sat there (weird). When they played, it was hard to carry on conversation. If you don’t like talking to your date/​friends/​family, this is a bonus… otherwise, you might stare in disbelief when another patron slips them a buck and they crank it up to 11.

Had the fish Tacos along with Carne Asada plate. The food was delicious. The portions were generous and filling. Our server was great, he was really nice and attentive to our every need. We used a certificate from
in which you spend 20 $ for 50 $ of restaurant credit. Great deal. My brother tried the California Burrito and liked it a lot. The restaurant was pretty clean as well. I recommend this place to anyone who desires some authentic Mexican food.

I rarely feel crapped out when i come out of a restaurant. You normally get treated nice enough to just say «im going to give you a bit less than standard tip» as a sign of disatisfaction… but wow! When the people cant even respond in english. it shouldve brought a red flag on customer care. Even with me knowing spanish, i still feel they should at least have someone!
I ordered a burrito that at most places, comes with a side of ride and beans, or is just too massive to need it. Not the case. I got more tortilla than burrito but ay, i gotta eat. As we are eating, the music is blasting harder than those edm concerts or house parties (and i know bout volume control… i dj! Lol). I get playing some corridas for the people but really?!
The end is where i was like (censored) this! My wife had some coupon book that we paid like 40 dollars for, and we randomly decided to go there because of it and somehow, they didnt even understand my spanish! Some lady waves some printed coupon and says in spanish that «this is the only coupon we accept» so, we paid and broke the heck out of there!
I reaaaaly dont plan to come back here.
Add: my wife reminded me that they didnt even bother to refil our drinks the whole time we were there. And we also noticed that the coupon/​spanish/​attention issues were really common with other Unilocalers. Thanks for making my people seem like jerks, «el rinconcito»

Food was good but definitely way overpriced. They have gift certificates on
and also through Unilocal which I would recommend if you are going to eat here. They provide free chips and salsa but the salsa is pretty hot if you’re not used to spicy. The service wasn’t very good. She brought out the chips and salsa first and didn’t bring the drinks out til five minutes later and we needed the drinks cuz our mouths were on fire. Food took a while to come out even though there was only one other party in the restaurant. The menu was pretty hard to understand since it was mostly in spanish and there weren’t english descriptions for everything. The tacos they serve are pretty big in size so I guess that’s reasonable for the $ 2.50 but I did see that they serve chicken quesadillas but for $ 11. Like whaaaaaat?
Pros:
Good/​ok food.
Cons:
Too pricey
Bad Service
Menu is confusing to read, mostly in spanish.
Music was loud at times

Tried this place out for a casual work dinner. Absolutely fantastic… No one speak English however they are very nice people and the the food is fantastic!
You have to get the green cerviche it’s fantastic!!! Camerones Notenos spicy and amazing!
Found another good spot. Thanks Unilocalers!

Today 11÷19÷13 was the second time my bf and I come to eat here. service is awesome! Food is delicious we really recommend this place!!!