After some delay, El Patron Mexican Restaurant has opened on Bowling Green’s Main Street.
The restaurant is located at 1096 N. Main St. and has an all-new look with colorful booths, artwork,
decorations and flooring.
"We re-did everything except the ceiling," said business manager Antonio Ornelas.
Locating to a city which already has Mexican cuisine offerings, Ornelas said the restaurant will focus on
serving a variety of dishes, and customer service.
"We know everybody tries to be the best, but the customers decide," he said.
"One of our rules here is if you don’t like the food, you don’t have to pay for it. Or, you can
exchange it for another dish of equal price."
El Patron has a six-page menu covering everything from appetizers, to soups, steak and seafood offerings,
house specialties, desserts, vegetarian options, and children’s meals.
Chips and salsa are served before each meal.
For an appetizer, Ornelas suggested the queso fundido, which is melted mozzarella cheese with a choice of
chorizo or ground beef.
He also recommended albondigos soup, which is a meatball soup with vegetables. Several other soups are
also available including fideo soup, which has Mexican noodles and chicken and is served in a chicken
tomato broth.
The restaurant offers 17 house specialties, nine types of fajitas, 10 different steak dinners, as well as
seafood and chicken dinners.
One of the restaurant’s signature dishes, Ornelas said, is el molcajete. The dish has grilled strips of
rib-eye, shrimp, mushrooms, onions and bell peppers in a ranchero sauce and topped with mozzarella
cheese. It is served in a hot stone molcajete.
"They can keep the heat for one hour," Ornelas said of the stones.
There is also a seafood offering for the molcajete dish. It has shrimp, tilapia, scallops and crab meat.

The taco loco is another menu highlight, he said. It is a 12-inch tortilla filled with steak and chicken
fajitas and topped with melted cheese, lettuce and sour cream.
For those wanting to try a little of everything, El Patron offers a two-person dinner for $15.99. It
comes with a beef tostada and guacamole salad, chili relleno, beef taco, enchilada, tamale, chicken
burrito, rice and beans.
For dessert, there is fried ice cream, flan, churros, sopapillas and a cheesecake filled chimichanga. The
cheesecake chimichanga is a fried flour tortilla filled with cheesecake and topped with honey and
cinnamon. It it served with vanilla ice cream.
The restaurant has a liquor permit for margaritas and daiquiris.
Prior to opening up the Bowling Green restaurant, Ornelas worked 20 years at a Mexican restaurant in
Columbus and then at a Mexican restaurant in Fremont.
The Bowling Green location was delayed in opening months ago on account of contractual issues and
problems with the kitchen’s ventilation hoods, which are now fixed, Ornelas said.
El Patron is open 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday,
and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. The restaurant’s phone number is (419) 353-1303.
Reservations are available.