El Caporal West

El Caporal, especially the location in the Downtown are of our city on Bond St., is a fine establishment with very good Mexican food. I give it four stars due to the service and quality of food, and the consistency of quality product as well. It is not a fancy joint, howevver they are clean and well dressed with excellent employee standards. This is the only Mexican food establishment in town that I trust to be sanitary, which I think says alot about a restraunt. And if in fact they will not provide you with seperate checks and that is your entire reason for not going, than you are missing out. You are also missing the sign that states that they can not always offer seperate checks. Give the servers a break and realize that waiting tables and tending bar, especially in a very popular restraunt, is difficult and often the guests ask for far more than they should. Not that wanting a seperate check is wrong, but a little compassion goes a long way. Furthermore, try the Spinach Enchillada. It has always been my favorite and I have not found one of my frineds who does not fall in love with it when I let them try a bite! And thier Cadillac margaritas aren't bad either! And no, I don't work there. I happened upon this site while seraching for a listing of thier hours because it is Friday at 4:30 pm and I would love to grab an enchillada to go! Pros: lots of seating and great food. very friendly staff Cons: some staff are still challenged by the English language more

On 7/28/08 we visited the El Caporal on the Eastside near Hwy 20 which is associated with the downtown location listed on this complaint (it is a family business with multiple locations). I had a group of friends join me while I was in town. The bartender assumed after a round of beverage and food in the bar that we were done because someone from our group left. We then received a check for our evening. We then stayed and had to ask for further assistance to get service throughout the rest our visit. After finishing our visit of maybe two hours we were served another bill totally seperate from the first bill. Upon actually leaving and taking care of the two checks it was told to us that...""when it is busy we cannot seperate checks and that fortunately at this time we able to calculate individual bills but not total checks."" We were then given attitude to give each person their individual bill and we had to figure out ourselves our own charges for the two main checks. The bartender did help with a calculator to assist the individual amounts due. Each person was using their own debit/credit card to pay for their amount and this really annoyed the bartender. This could have easily been avoided had we had seperate checks to begin with. The bartender/server should have asked for seperate bills for each of us as each person arrived. I loved going to the El Caporal while I was there (and I lived there). I will not attend the establishment in the future nor will I expect anyone else in my group nor the Bend area to do so. I will send this to the El Caporal and the local paper and news outlets. I am a customer and I should not have any server/bartender tell me how to conduct my behavior as a paying customer. We enjoyed our two hours and left after that. However, to make us feel unwanted...you did a bang-up job. We will not attend your establishment again. Thank you for ruining a good thing. I will now...not miss the El Caporal. Pros: Good food Cons: Service sucked...could not seperate checks...seemed inconvenient and annoyed. Not going back. more