El Faro

I come here all the time. Excellent portion and the price of the food is just right. Also great service. The food comes out fast. Hot plate coming right up.

We order off the catering menu — Taco bar is fantastic, fresh, authentic and a great price.

Always has been my favorite location for El Faro’s! :)

Right next to my boyfriend’s house, El Faro is a go-​to! They have excellent authentic Mexican food with great prices and friendly staff. Their food is always ready very quickly and they are very generous with their salsas.
Good location for dine in or take out. When dining in, you get free chips and salsa. Would recommend to anybody in the area!

Fantastic burritos. Very close in taste to my favorite from El Farol in Summit Illinois (I don’t think the places are related). I’ve never found a place with this kind of burrito «recipe».

Worst Mexican restaurant ever. Ordered tortas for lunch. Picked up food and went back to work to eat our lunch. My workers and I started eating and quickly realized something was wrong with our food. It tasted like there was some sort of cleaner in the meat. Called el faro to express our dilemma and all I got was attitude. Headed up there to show employees the horrible tasting food. Which quickly was followed with more attitude and the cooks and or cook started speaking profanities and insults in Spanish about myself and my co worker. Not realizing I speak fluent Spanish. Horrible horrible place!!! Never ever again! Do yourself a favor and stay away. If I could give it negative stars, I would!

Worst experience ever, they closed at 11:00 pm, but today I got there before 10:30 and they told Me only Togo orders, I was not expecting to be but 20 minutes top, needless to say this is the second time I experienced this in other occasion they told me that some items were not available because they have turn off the fryer, most of the restaurants will keep the same service until closing, so now you know if you want to have dinner go befor 9:00 and you might get service. Very disappointed.

Nothing beats burrito Wednesday.
3 big flavorful burritos for $ 10.95.
I always get barbacoa which is steamed cow meat. It’s almost the same as stew meat. Steak is great too. I like this faro out of all the other faros in Elgin.
Their green salsa is great more mild than spicy.
Another great item is the gorditas with shredded meat. The horchata here is excellent.
The place is always clean, great service.

Get here early as the lunch crowd usually fills up the limited seating. The food is ok. Not the best Mexican food but if you’re looking for decent food and a reasonable price then this is the place for you. The steak and chicken could use more seasoning on. It can taste bland if you do not add any salsa. The chorizo is not as greasy as most however its a bit mushy for my liking. I prefer chorizo to be a bit crispy. The place has its own «chips and salsa bar». You can help yourself to chips, pico de gallo, their red or green salsa, and jalapeño slices with carrots. I’ve had the regular burrito and burrito suizo and I prefer to eat the burrito suizo as the sauce and cheese help elevate the flavor no matter the protein you chose.
There are daily lunch specials. My favorite is on Wednesdays. 3 burritos for $ 10.95. That’s less than $ 4 for a football sized burrito!

Chicken enchiladas are amazing. Good prices, service is satisfactory, pretty clean. Hard to see from McLean but worth the hunt.

Great authentic Mexican food for a good price. Their horchata is great too, and they have plentiful servings of food. Restaurants a little small but this is the best El Faro of the three in my area!

We have been in El Faro numerous times for their burritos. Always good and always filling.

Place: this spot is decent sized. It’s not a huge spot and not small where you feel crammed in. But it is hard to see from McLean so you might have to look out for their sign or neighboring spots. Their bathrooms are maintained and seats and floor stay clean. I constantly come in here and see an employee cleaning something.
I also wouldn’t recommend this particular location for any parties or large sized groups due to seating and how busy it gets during lunch time.
Food: I’ve tried torta, taco, and burrito. So I’m basing my review on these foods. I like the streak the most. Good flavor and it’s not dry. The Carnitas (shredded pork) is dry and doesn’t have much taste. The Barbacoa contains absolutely no flavor at all. I would recommend the three items I’ve had here just be more selective with meat choice. Steak and chicken can do no wrong. But the rest comes down to preference.
The waitress is always nice and polite when I come in. I work nearby and come in all the time. I’d recommend this restaurant AT LEAST for a first time try.
I also want to note this place offers daily lunch specials and Menudo on weekends. They also have chips and salsa that you can grab yourself (self-​serve). They also have jalapeños, lime and red/​green available to grab

Of the three El Faro’s I’ve been to, this is the nicest one. Not a bad place to grab a bite (the burritos are HUGE and usually a good deal) and catch up on your Mexican soap operas if you’re into that kind of thing ;)
Portions usually border on the generous (did I mention the HUGE burritos??) and pretty well priced compared to other places. It’s not the dirtiest place around but far from the cleanest either. For the location to my daily routine and the money, it’s not a bad place at all.
There are other Mexican places within a short drive I’d prefer to go to, but overall, I’ll be back in line for my HUGE burrito :)

Authentic Mexican food made by the people who invented it. Well priced not badly proportioned. The flavor is pretty good.

This El Faro location is great for a quick lunch. It’s a smaller restaurant that gets quite crowded at lunch time so the earlier you go the better.
It’s definitely nothing fancy. You place your order at the counter and get your own drinks, chips and salsa. But it’s authentic Mexican food served fast and at a good price.
The chicken taco salad is one of the BEST I have ever had. It’s huge and comes with rice and beans on the plate. The salad is actually more than enough food, it is loaded with chicken, so I rarely have room for the sides, but they are tasty.
I love that they have a little serve yourself pico de gallo/​salsa set up. Both are fresh and yummy.

Oops, accidentally posted this review for the wrong location in Elgin… so here it is in the correct place now!
This place is near a friend’s house so we decided to give them a try for dinner take-​out. The carnitas (pork) in my burrito was dry! I’ve never had dry carnitas before so I’m not sure if this was leftover from the day before or what, but I was very disappointed. The other ingredients in the burrito were fine and they are HUGE! One burrito would easily be two meals for me. My friend had the steak burrito and he said his steak was also on the dry & not tender side. Hmm. Perhaps they didn’t have as busy of a Monday or Tuesday lunch hour so this meat wasn’t fresh…
I will say I loved their refried beans and rice! So flavorful I could have eaten those as my entire meal.
I’m sure we’ll give them a try for other stuff again so hopefully I’ll have a better review update to share in the future.

I love the El Faro chain — I have been going to the one in East Dundee for years but today I found myself in this part of town.
I got the El Pastor Burrito — dang, I forgot how huge they are. Like a different reviewer noted, this thing was as big as a football… and only $ 5 with tax! It was so huge it’ll be lunch for two days.
The flavor was great and the salsas made my sinuses burn — which is a good thing this time of year-​clears the sinuses! :)

Been coming to El Faro at Tyler Creek Plaza for lunch for a few years and have never been disappointed.
Absolutely love the Enchilada Suiza and the Rice and Beans are always fresh and delicious. The freshly made salsa and other condiments are delicious. There is also always a selection of homemade Empanada’s and the Horchata is so tasty.
Entertainment is always guaranteed with a flat screen that runs Mexican soaps at lunch. There are daily lunch specials to save you a few $.
About the only downside is if you come towards the end of the lunch crowd you are left with plastic forks and knifes when they run out of regular silverware :)
They place looks very clean and the staff is always cleaning up so you feel good about the food quality. I can only recommend you check it out.

Quick stop in for lunch was damn good, plenty worthy of some Southside praise. Low prices, plenty on the menu, and they had just what I was looking for… a Vegetarian Burrito. Rice, beans, lettuce, tomato, guacamole, cheese, and sour cream packed into a freakin’ football-​sized burrito for only $ 4.70! Can’t beat it. The veggie ingredients were fresh, the rice and beans melted the cheese nicely, and I had my order and was out the door in less than five minutes. Pretty clean, and plenty of space to sit down and eat if you have some time. If you can beat all of that, let me know.