El Barrio Restaurant & Lounge

My favorite Mexican place close to home. Family comes here often. We love the staff and food is authentic. Been in Diamond Lake for over 30 years and coupons always online!

30 years ago this was one of the go-​to Mexican restaurants. Unfortunately El Barrio has not kept up with the changes since then. The décor is attractive but the menu is way outdated. The food is okay, but certainly unexceptional. Ah well, such is the modern world…

Consistently good food and really great shaken margaritas. Friendly and attentive service in a cute restaurant that looks like you’re in Mexico.

We come to this authentic old school Mexican spot at least once a month. Yes everything I’ve tried is fresh and delicious, but mostly because El Barrio makes the best MOLÉ sauce ever! Period.

We came for our combined birthday dinners and had a great time! Nice atmosphere, really friendly owners, and great food. Order some margaritas on the rocks and enjoy. Nice to have this little place so nearby.

This isn’t a review about the food or service — we wouldn’t know since the restaurant is not wheelchair accessible. The person in charge didn’t seem to care — he said that since they are a small business they don’t have to comply with ADA. The design of the restaurant would easily allow a simple ramp to be installed. Their attitude seemed to be «too bad». Not the sort of people I would want to give my business to.

Not enough thumbs down…
Chicken and beef tacos were not good. How do you mess those up?
Waffle fries with enchiladas? At least the fries were decent.
Very pricey for the quality of food.
Skip this and move along to the next closest Mexican food restaurant

Wish there were no stars. My husband and son took me to Mother’s Day lunch here. The servers are dressed in authentic skirts so you would assume they would have authentic food and such. They don’t have auga frescas which is weird. They brought out the salsa and chips that had no flavor. With that we left and didn’t order. If you can’t give the salsa flavor we don’t even want to try to rest.

Food was great. Service great. Awesome margaritas. Love that it’s family-​owned. Décor is a bit outdated, but somehow it seems to work.

This was my favorite Mexican place until a few months ago. I think the son is in the picture now and is taking over and it seems like they are cheapening things there now. Not a good move if they continue to do that. Its been successful for a reason you don’t need to fix something that’s not broke. I will give it a few more tries and see what happens. Great friendly service. Strong drinks. Great authentic food! Nice ambience. They need to get a patio that would be a great addition.

I really wanted to like my dinner. That didn’t happen. We have eaten here, intermittently, over the years — so we thought we would try again. I had the cheese enchiladas with rice & beans. 4 enchiladas swimming in way too much special sauce, lackluster rice with a big gob of refried beans sullenly sitting on my plate.
At 7 on a Saturday night the place should have been buzzing but wasn’t. We noticed this but decided to give it a try.
Oh, and the margarita was $ 8.50. Ouch.
Now the good news — the service was great and we had our choice of tables.
Question — is it really that hard to make good Mexican food?

Good food. Good service. Everything was great until we left. As we were walking out I noticed the waiter poured the rest of our salza that we didn’t eat back in the container! I’m not going back there and eating used salza!

Awesome food and service! Family owned! Great family atmosphere!!!
Will go there again and again! Highly recommended!

Great margaritas! Guac, tacos, and enchiladas were also very good. Service was spectacular!

I love this authentic Mexican food restaurant. It is family owned and operated and even my Hispanic friends agree this is a place they would set foot in. That tells me that it is authentic style food. I don’t know what some of the other reviews are ordering or seeing. I’ve taken family and friends here from time to time. I just wish I’d found them sooner than I did. Flavorful food but not so spicy that my tastebuds are going to die and need to drink a gallon of water.
I usually order a combo with rice and beans and some queso for the chips. And they certainly bring me more chips upon request and refills of soda… I’ve had enchiladas and chimichangas and flautas. I really like the queso with some ground beef added.
This is a nice little gem to know of for your authentic Mexican food cravings.

I really wish I could say we liked this place because of how close it is to our place and by the décor… But unfortunately I can’t. I had the skirt steak, wife had a chicken burrito. Te steak was flavorless and really tough. I usually get skirt steaks at Latin restaurants as they know how to flavor them up right and cook them to a perfect soft steak. This was just not very enjoyable. Wife’s burrito was fairly average. Our tab was pretty expensive for what we ate. The décor is Mexican resortish and is a bit dated. Service was a bit slow but nice. Sorry to say we will choose other options in the area.

My husband and I were there for dinner Wed. eve. We have been to this restaurant before a few years ago. This place is family run and the service is excellent. Very friendly and polite. Now for the food. Just awesome! I love the food at this restaurant. My husband and I both ordered the combination plate and it was hot and delicious. I love this place, go ahead give it a try if you like Mexican food.

Though a bit dated in style the Arebalo family has been here for over 25 years and they have a great following and very good Mexican dishes, most brought from the family recipes in San Antonio and they are very good. Though it was busy and they seamed a bit shorthanded, they managed quite well. The Fajita’s and Carna Asada were excellent. Having moved, I have not been here since I came back from Texas in the 80“s and convinced Mr. Arebalo to get the latest hot menu item in Texas, Fajita’s, He proceeded to go back to his family in San Antonio and get this awesome menu item in less then a month and was one of the first in Chicago to have them. If you really like authentic Mexican dishes, you must try this wonderful restaurant. you won’t be disappointed.

The service was good, which is the reason for anything above a one star rating.
We went with a group of ten of us, two being children. El Barrio could easily accommodate the group as we were the only patrons there early on a Saturday evening, so that’s a pretty big red flag.
The chips and salsa were ok. Not bad, nothing to go out of your way to get though. I ordered guacamole as well, and same thing, just ok.
I ordered the beef burrito dinner. It came with 3 burritos, very simple, tortilla, beans, ground beef. That is it. Not bad tasting or anything. My girlfriend ordered the shredded chicken tacos, it came with four, I had one and they were bad. Very plain and dry and not good.
The waitress did keep all our orders straight and bring me multiple refills of diet coke, so the service improves the rating. Overall, I will not be returning to El Barrio.