El Faro 4 Restaurant

I love their Carne Asada Chimichanga. If I could I’d eat this for the rest of my life. Hands down the best I’ve ever had ! The waitress is really nice and friendly. Thankfully I understand some Spanish.

Love it, have been several times! When you see the place packed you know it’s good food!

Hair in my burrito… kinda dirty… go to taco bell… enough said… I would avoid… elgin el faro way better on mcclean

The place looks a little sketchy from the outside but their food tastes very good, and comes in massive portions (chicken chimichanga.) I’ve only been once so I’ll limit them to 4 stars until I have a chance to repeat the good experience, but their first impression was great.

Their service extremely sucks. We drove 20mins and did carry out, got wrong food so drove back 20 mins to return the food and didn’t even get apology. Not only he was rude on the phone but didn’t trust us when we called. I wouldn’t go back there

Excellent authentic Mexican food! I love the ground beef taco’s and the shredded beef burrito which is so big it will feed two people.

Very dive like Mexican restaurant. Good authentic good and resemble prices. Always get to much food then I can eat

Really awesome authentic food. Prices very reasonable. The service if incredibly friendly and accurate with orders. I’ve eaten there and done pick up a lot. My go-​to are their steak burritos, their steak and chorizo tacos with onion and cilantro, and the occasional steak chimichanga (not as authentic… but amazingly delicious. me gusta!!!

My wife and dine here a couple of times a month — typically on Friday night. Authentic Mexican food and great margaritas. Hard to find both in the same location — IMO. Very reasonably priced and the service is outstanding! We need to get deeper into their menu and tend to stick with our favorites.

burnt cold hard tamales.

This is really an authentic Mexican restaurant. The food is great, probably one of the best in the western suburbs. The enchilada plates are very good. Don’t miss the horchata rice drink, very tasty! I would highly recommend.

El faro has been my go-​to Mexican carry-​out spot for years, so when I stopped in on Tuesday night to pick up dinner for my family, I expected the yummy food that I’m used to. Unfortunately, they did not deliver, and we ended up throwing the majority of our meal in the garbage.
I went with the Tuesday special, the taco dinner. As usual, I requested steak tacos, with cilantro, onion, lettuce and tomato. When I opened up my food, my tacos were missing the lettuce and tomato, and the tortillas were so greasy that they were dripping and I needed to wipe them off before eating. The beans tasted spoiled, and the rice was wet and mushy. My husband’s burrito was dripping with oil and the beans made him gag, as well. Finally, the cheese quesadilla, the toughest thing to mess up, was greasy and hard, like it had been deep fried. For some reason, the cheese on everything wasn’t chihuahua, like normal, but some sort of cheddar jack blend.
After spending $ 20 to throw my food out, I will be hard pressed to return to El Faro for tacos in the future.

I have been coming here for years — their food is good, but not great — but you get what you pay for…
You would think that, in an area with a high Hispanic population, you could find a truly great Mexican restaurant. I have not found a really good one in the area — I must not know where to look.
Mind you, the food’s not bad, it’s just not great but it’ll do for when I have a craving for a burrito…

Ordered take-​out here a few times with the bf now and it’s all been delicious. We get a meal and we split it and it’s plenty of food. We’ve tried the chicken chimichanga meal and the steak burrito meal. They were both awesome. I prefer the chicken to the steak, but the bf likes the steak better… just of matter of opinion lol. The rice and beans are pretty good too. The guac is yums as is the salsa. We also get super spicy salsa and it’s really good. We go here every month or so, especially since it’s about $ 10 to feed both of us and super close to the bf’s house.

Good food and you get a lot of it, normally last a few days. We have never had a bad experience with this authentic Mexican food establishment. My only wish is that they would serve real ice tea/​drinks without high fructose corn syrup. I do not eat a lot of meat and there is plenty on the menu for me.

Very good for the price. The free chips and salsa are very good, and you can’t go wrong with the $ 5 steak burrito. Best inexpensive lunch in town.

It’s a 1-​star for now… but I’m not sure I have wiggle room for another one later, and it’s because of the rice and beans… among other things.
See, the beans have to be good for me to really like the joint. They need to have that perfect balance (there that goes again) of fatty, beany, liquidy but not soupy, and the taste? I mean, you know, like good beans! And they have to be refried. No whole beans! Maybe a sprinkling of cheese on top, maybe a bunch, and maybe don’t oversalt the motha****. Their beans are pretty salty. Moving past that, I got my usual barometer for Mexican restaurants, which is the combo dinner, and in most places, this includes a tamale, a taco and a quesadilla, and I’ve gotten this twice here at el Faro 4. I had it once, didn’t remember I did, until I got into it the second time, when I remembered getting it the first time. For the purposes of this review, let’s pretend this was the first time. Let’s review the culprits
1) Tamale — Taken out of the husk, and buried in a thick tomato based sauce. I was not expecting this, because I’ve never had a restaurant do that before. One end of the tamale was hard as a rock, and the plastic fork they gave me couldn’t cut it. Get it? No seriously, it couldn’t. It was also missing the magic fat nugget. If you’ve had good tamales, you know what magic fat nugget I’m talking about. If you don’t, you have to get to El Milagro in Chicago, ASAP.
2) Guesadilla — First of all, smallest quesadilla as part of a meal, second, HAM IN THE QUESADILLA?!? What the weird! Like, I didn’t need an extra anything in there, just good Chihuahua cheese melted into a flour tortilla browned in a pan, or on the grill. I almost felt like it was just folded in half and thrown in the microwave. Or maybe it wasn’t, it just didn’t taste like it. Strangeness.
3) Steak taco — I should have asked for the ground beef I think. The steak was sort of gristle galore, and it was kind of tasteless. I also asked for the taco to have cilantro onion, lettuce and tomato. It came with cilantro and onion, not a dealbreaker, but I wanted it all.
So the rice and beans I judge together, because I eat them together, and since the beans were not approved, neither was the rice. May not be fair to the rice, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
There are so many Mexican places in the Fox Valley, I wish I’d been Unilocaling since I moved out here so I could remember what I like and don’t, this just gives me a reason to keep eating, like I needed another reason though.
Maybe I’ll get a burrito here some day…

Low Key place with BIG FOOD Flavor!
Looking for a small Mexican Family Style place?
Go to El Faro. Seriously– the food and service won’t disappoint.
Great place to enjoy the food, some cocktails and your company.

I’ve lived in the area since ’98 and I’m so glad this place is here! Although I’m not a huge fan of Mexican food, there are a few things that I just can’t help liking or CRAVING from time to time.
Before I review their food it is worth to mention that not all Faros Restaurants are owned by the same people nor it’s a franchise. The original Faro in downtown Elgin belongs to one brother along with some other locations. El Faro #4 in East Dundee, El Faro #2 in Bartlett and El Faro #3 on Lillian St in Elgin belong to another brother. Why do I mention this? Because not all cooks cook the same! I ate at the original location once and never went back… ‘Nuff said.
The original cook for this Faro (who is also part of the family) ended up going to a new Faro location which opened in Streamwood. Is this number 5 now? Hmmmm…
Food-​wise, I’m sure everyone will always find a fault with something as there’s nothing unusual about that. However, you don’t have to settle for the one dish you don’t care for cuz they have a TON! And I mean an array of dishes to choose from. Their menu is larger than a Chinese joint, if that’s humanly possible? They offer everything under the sun and moon combined. From the simple taco to complete chicken, beef, pork and seafood entrees.
The place is tiny but quaint. Good luck getting a table on an early Saturday afternoon or for Sunday lunch. That is if you can get a parking spot on their mini lot. On most other occasions you can just walk in and grab any colorful seating and table you wish or suits your party size. You will be greeted with a thick menu and complemented with a bowl of their homemade chips and delicious salsa, pico de gallo and a pickled mix of carrots, cauliflower and jalapeños. If it’s your lucky day, you can secretly ask your server for the ‘once in a blue moon’ stash of extra hot salsa they keep for themselves in the back. Sssshhh…
Every type of dish I’ve tried has been from good to better to best but nothing in the bad department. However, there’s the one magnificent gem that I keep going back for — cArNiTaS! I am a huge fan of pork and where I’m from it is cooked a million ways. But finding a place that makes carnitas like they do here is a constant disappointment for me. They vary depending on the part of Mexico thee owners (or cook) are from. Most places will have the boiled, shredded type like the ones at Chipotle Grill. No thanks.
Here, you will get the real deal, roasted carnitas, baby. That’s right. Roasted & diced up into little cubes of juicy pork heaven. The carnitas torta is superb but if you have a hearty appetite, like me, you will need to bump it up a notch and get a burrito, which is over 2 pounds of artery clogging goodness. I get mine with avocado, which is extra but it is literally to die for… Yum!
On another note, my girlfriend being a vegetarian it’s not easy finding a great variety of things to eat everywhere we go but El Faro has the Veggie Burrito, which she adores. We get it at least once a week because it is so big she can have two meals out of it. Their rice and beans are also vegetarian friendly which makes it a bonus.
As the other reviewers mentioned, they do sell alcohol. This is limited to a small selection of hard liquor behind the counter and a good selection of Mexican beers, with a few domestic. Their horchatas are great and so are their margaritas.
El Faro #4 is definitely not the fancy locale you’d find at places like El Molino, but certainly much better food and easier on the pocket than any of them around. I suppose that if I wanted to look at fancy sombreros, piñatas and folklore pottery art I’d go to a fancier spot but I come here to eat good and save my money for another round…
Tip — If you live close, stop by and take one of their paper menus home to get acquainted with all of their food offerings. When you’re ready to give them a try but want to eat at home, just phone in your order and pick it up in about ten minutes, fast and hassle free. Enjoy!

Some of the best Mexican food in the area can be found at this El Faro. There are a bunch of these places scattered across the suburbs but this one has to be the best. I’ve lived in this area since 2001 and have been to many Mexican restaurants around; El Faro is simply the best around here.
Not only is the food great, but you can eat without breaking the bank. I usually get the Taco Jr special; 6 tacos for 5 bucks. I eat my tacos the traditional way, onion & cilantro w/​a dash of salt and a squirt of lime.
If you start trying to add lettuce and tomato and cheese onto your 6 for 5 special, then you’ll be charged extra.
As soon as you sit down, the wait staff brings out chips, salsa, pico and a bowl of pepper/​carrots at no extra charge. They have cold beer in frosted mugs and great margaritas. I bring my friends there all the time and they end up going back whenever they can, even without me!