El Toro Cantina

If i could give them no stars… I would. Terrible service. TERRIBLE! SO RUDE! That is probably why they closed down.

Absolutely the worst restaurant I have ever been to. The service was horrible the moment me and my friend Walked in the doors, the $ 1 tacos on Tuesday aren’t even worth 1 cent they are cold, sloppy, and disgusting, they are basically frozen cafeteria food. Also if you want chips and salsa like most Mexican restaurants you won’t get that here they charge $ 4 for that! The margaritas were literally watered down to the point where it tasted like a diet lemonade. I also tried speaking to a manager for over a week, finally for to speak to one to discuss my concerns about my visit, and they acted like there’s nothing they can do about it, and left me hanging, also se
Very lazy and this is a horrible buinsness they are running, DO NOT GO! I PROMISE!

Worst Americanized cantina I’ve been to! When I first walked in there was no host seat, it took the bar tender a couple minutes to realize I and my party were there. Although the menu looks appealing the items on there are not all that tasty. The place is currently in constructions and looks a bit of a mess, extremely short staffed, I only saw a total of 2 staff there. Not my best experience, I do not reckoned this place at all.

Came here to eat before seeing a show at el ray on a Tuesday.
Pros: they have some sort of happy hour every day until 8pm. On Tuesday they have $ 1 tacos (2 types of veggie options for the vegetarians out there, fish, chicken, shredded beef and something else). Must purchase 2 drinks but I don’t think they even checked. Tacos were good and filling. Drinks were strong. Our food came out quickly.
Cons: place is small but it was busy and there was only one server! People were complaining waiting for drinks, checks,
Chips and change. We had to wait for our second drinks forever, they didn’t tell us the wine we ordered wasn’t on happy hour, and instead of splitting the bill like we asked she just charged it all to my card.
Overall, it was good and we will probably be back because of the happy hour prices and times. Hopefully it won’t be as busy best time.

I only came here for drinks, and did not eat. But the margaritas were on the weaker side, and did not have too much of bite to them. However, the service was great and friendly. It’s not a bad place to go see a game, but with so many options in this city, it doesn’t really shine or stand out either.

Firstly this place is overrated… My friend and I were looking for taco tuesday and found this place that had good reviews. We ordered tacos but the meat was not cooked all the way and their service was good at first but we had to ask 3 times for iced water.
Although we had to ask 3 times for water the food came out really fast! I ordered nacho grande, 1 taco pollo asada, shredded beef and jalapeño poppers! The tacos were okay, their nacho grandes were good with guacamole and their jalapeño poppers were so good will definitely come back for these!
For drinks I tried their mango mojito which was too sweet and their mango margarita which tasted pure alcohol and no mango flavor :(I was kind of disappointed…

I’ve been here a few times and usually have a pretty good experience. Nothing spectacular, but the service and food quality you would expect at a typical bar. My last visit killed it for me. I got terribly sick from my food. I hope after they finish renovating they make some adjustments to their sanitation because that’s just not cool!

The worst! Came here on a Saturday night for dinner and margaritas with friends… the place was a ghost town and I now see why. Where to begin?
1. The service was horrible, our waitress was no where to be found most of the time even though there was no one in the restaurant. She also had to come back and make sure she got our margarita order right, and didn’t know how much margaritas even were (we had to ask because they weren’t on the menu, yeah strange huh for a Mexican restaurant)
2. Creepy customers. A super drunk man came up to our table and asked «if I asked to buy you girls a drink, would you accept?» We were all silent because clearly we felt awkward, then one of my friends said «maybe» and he said «OK so you aren’t mormon.» WTF? We saw him later passed out at the bar. Mess.
3. We ordered chips and guac for the table, the waitress clearly forgot to put the order in because when a group that was seated long after us got their guac and chips before us, we were worried they had delivered ours to the wrong table. Finally 5 minutes after that we saw our waitress look our direction in a panic and then our guac and chips came out shortly after. Either they took ours to the wrong table or she forgot the order, either way, annoying.
4. The last straw was THERE WAS A HAIR IN MY FRIEND’S FOOD. She ordered a burrito which came with a side salad, halfway through her food, she pulled a long hair out of the side salad. None of us could really eat after that.
Moral of the story, just say no to El Toro Cantina. Not only is it NOT authentic in any way, but you’ll probably get a hair in your food or creeped out by the regulars. YEAH NO.

Christina the server here is more than a reason to visit this restaurant she provided us with outstanding service and her personality is un compared. If you have the opportunity to visit this establishment I reccomend Christina you won’t regret it at all a true asset to this location. I highly recommend this cantina for food and for the amazing service. Management should recognize Christina for her beyond notable service. Thank you for the amazing first experience Christina :-)

I only came here because my boss used to love this place… I don’t even know why.
It’s the same owner as Busby’s, and their food selection is very Mexican-​American, which is why I thought it was safe to order a quesadilla, and only a quesadilla.
The chips and salsa are not free.
The jalapeño bread is more like plain flatbread with 2 – 3 jalapenos sprinkled on top.

I’ve been to El Toro several times… mostly because it is close to my work. But if it was up to me, I wouldn’t have a reason to go back. Drinks are weak. Food is bland. Service is mediocre. I wouldn’t recommend it.
Oh, and it is connected with Busby’s upstairs so you can order off their menu as well… but it ain’t much better. Just sayin…

El Toro has become a second home for as of late. I work from home a lot but sometimes working alone at home is the pits, and you need some human interaction. I found out that El Toro had wi-​fi one day, and that was that. I go in once or twice a week now for a few hours, enjoy the awesome margs and delicious food and superb happy hours.
There are a few people who work here that are hands-​down some of the finest bartenders I have ever had… especially in LA. Ashton and Dave in particular are my favorites here. This is mainly due to the fact I am always there when they work and usually in the day time when it’s not super crowded.
Apparently there has been some management changes recently. One guy, Robert, is awesome. He’s noticed I’ve come in every Sunday since the football season started and shakes my hand each time saying how much he likes seeing me around. He does this to all the regulars. It’s this small gesture that goes a long way. He’s not the problem AT ALL.
So, that said, I like this place a lot. So why not 5 stars? Here’s why…
… But then there’s the other end of this new management spectrum. I guess this guy’s name is Max. I’ve seen him now a number of times. He never says hello. He berates bartenders in front of customers. And on one amazingly absurd occasion, he basically told a Raiders fan to piss off when the customer asked him to put on his team’s game. I later witnessed him being sent home, visibly intoxicated. What kind of place employs a guy like this?
I’m not going to stop going to El Toro, but when i see one of my favorite bartenders getting yelled at for not wearing the proper sports jersey on a Sunday, then being forced to leave a crowded bar to go home and change just so he can assert power, it makes me want to visit less.
At any rate, keep up the good work, El Toro. I dig ya and you putting up with my crazy orders.

This place went wrong… so wrong.
Service is slow, damn near non-​existent. If I’d been in my younger, reckless days I may have dined and dashed, because I really don’t think they remembered our party was there.
I was intrigued by their margarita with jalapeño because as a mixology connoisseur I thought this was up my alley. When it arrived I snatched up the glass, threw my pinky up, and was DISMAYED to see a pickled jalapeño swimming in my margarita. WTF? This is NOT ok…
Once my food arrived (burrito) I noticed it was accompanied by a side salad… I was a little confused by this. This wasn’t even fusion. It was just a salad. I get it, West LA is very into fitness and eating like rabbits, but c’mon. At least make an effort to make it fit. Furthermore, if I’m ordering a stale, tasteless burrito, I’m probably not too concerned with a flipping salad.
What really frustrated me was the crappy service. Everything else was the cherry on top.

Tried this place for lunch. I knew when I walked in, it was more of a fill your stomach before or after you’re drunk kind of place. But was hoping it was one of the rare gem bars where you can get some really good eats as well as your pick of alcohol… Not.
I should’ve known when I saw they had 20 beers on draft, none being Mexican. My advice, eat before you go there. The tortilla chips were bland and thin. I salted them myself. The salsa was like a can of tomato sauce with a dab of seasoning. The guacamole was the most decent thing I had there, but I wouldn’t write home about it. The tacos… I had a chicken and a beef taco. The chicken taco was tender but tasted like it was to be fed to cats. The beef… bleh. I love tacos and have had my share. These were horrible. Really. And they should just skip serving that bland, dry rice and those weird, yucky black beans. Never again. Not for food. Maybe for the three dollar draft beer special on Wednesday. But probably not even.
Truly a place to watch a game and have a beer.

My friends and I came here last night for Taco Tuesday.
I’m not sure if there was a host/​hostess working, but he/​she was nowhere to be found so my friends and I sat ourselves.
After we sat, it took a while for all of us to be acknowledged and be given menus.
The food and drinks came out pretty fast considering the place was pretty busy.
Taco Tuesday deal: all tacos listed are $ 1 with the purchase of at least 2 drinks, but there aren’t any deals on the drinks.
The tacos were mediocre at best, but still worth the couple dollars I was paying for them. I had the carnitas, shredded beef, and the fish taco. The fish taco was the best out of the three.
My strawberry margarita was pretty weak. I couldn’t taste the alcohol at all.
Quite honestly, I’d rather go to a place that has good deals on the drinks than food but I can’t dock off any points for that because the point of Taco Tuesday is the cheap tacos, I guess.
The bill for my two friends and I came out to about $ 125 and we only ordered a total of 7 tacos.
This should tell you how weak the drinks were. Perhaps it’s because my friends and I can drink a good load, which is also why I prefer places that have good deals on drinks than food.
When the server announced that it was last call for food, we told him that we were fine, but then we immediately called him over again and asked if we could order something. He said that the kitchen was closed so he couldn’t put any more orders in. Okay that’s fine and all, but I felt that he could have at least offered to ask the kitchen if they could just take in a last-​minute request. I mean… only like 2 – 3 minutes had gone by since he told us about «last call». But I guess he just wanted to be done with work asap. I understand. Working at a restaurant can be annoying and stressful. I just personally would have been more pleased if he had showed a little more effort.

Seriously, this place sucks. The only reason I gave it two stars is because they make stiff drinks. I was raised, to tip, always, regardless of crappy service. The ONLY time I have ever stiffed a waitress on a tip was at this place, and then she had the nerve to mention it on the way out.
The food is mediocre, the atmosphere is obnoxiously loud, and there are televisions at every booth which not only detracts for the conversation you may be having, but make the place even louder because now EVERYONE can yell at a screen only 6 inches from their faces.
I gave El Toro Cantina five chances, and they blew each one. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when the waitress (the one that I stiffed) took our order, rolled her eyes at us when we asked for water and chips ten minutes later, slid them onto the table without saying anything, sat behind a booth that she must of thought hid her, and texted for the duration that we were there. The last time we saw her was when she gave us the chips. A busser brought our food, and we had to ask the bartender for our check, and the entire time the waitress was in our field of vision.
If you’re looking for a quick margarita, try this place. Other than that, don’t waste your time.

Taco Tuesday has become a mainstay in my life. Chips and salsa, $ 1 grilled veggie tacos, and skinny margaritas all make Tuesday the best day. The booths are really cozy and I love that there’s a TV in each one. I might not be a sports fan but when I happened to be here for the debates and the election results, having an unobstructed view was great.
It’s kitschy, it’s fun, and it’s right across the street from my apartment so keep the margaritas coming!

I went here with my roommates for $ 1 taco tuesday, little did we know that there was a two drink minimum.
Nevertheless, we all ordered a couple rounds of drinks (one of them being a non-​alcoholic) and ordered tacos. We also started out with a round of chips and guacamole and salsa. I don’t know if they are supposed to bring out chips and salsa to start, but they did after we ordered guacamole.
Like many other people have mentioned, the service here is friendly, but slow and hard to get ahold of. Luckily I am able to grab people’s attention pretty easily or else you might have to physically track them down.
Anyways, the tacos came out a bit after our drinks (which actually took over 10 minutes) and were decent. Nothing special, but for $ 1 I guess they were pretty good.
We ended up dropping about $ 20 per person, so not my idea of a cheap happy hour but I guess it was pretty decent.
Not sure if I’ll be back – maybe during happy hour on Taco Tuesday.

This is a great to frequent because they have good deals on food and the liquor here is soo cheap! Next time I’ll return to check out their food, so I can update my review.
Food:
Wasn’t able to try it because I had already eaten before meeting up with friends. From what I was told the food was decent. ³⁄₅ stars
Service:
The service here is awesome! The bartenders are friendly and may sometimes offer complimentary shooters or drinks. It’s a great place to chill on Sundays to watch some football.
Parking:
metered parking on Wilshire. You can try to park in the neighborhoods.

Late update!
— Flat screen TVs everywhere. There are about 6 eating booths with their own TVs. There is 1 flat screen TV on the patio and 2 in the bar area from what I remember. Good place to watch a game.
— Taco Tuesdays. $ 1 tacos with a minimum of 2 drinks per person. This only includes 4 types of tacos: BBQ Beef, Veggie, Pollo Asado, and Yukon Potato.
— Happy Hour: Their Happy Hour menu has improved big time! From 4−7pm you can get $ 5 appetizers & $ 4 margaritas and well drinks.
Looks like Candela has competition…