El Castillo Grande

Castillo is open. Has a wonderful lakefront patio and deliciously cold margaritas. This is a really neat random castle style building to grab lunch on the shore of Lake Erie.

This was also one of the only bars we found that had an actual view of the lake despite all of the lake front bar advertisements found when searching yelp and the web.

The best thing about this place is eating inside a random castle on the shores of Lake Erie.

I wish I knew the story of this building, but alas, I don't. I will do a little poking around and see what I can find.

In my lifetime it has been a few things, including a Medieval themed restaurant with dinner theater and servers in Ren. garb.

Once I went up to the apartment in the back. I cannot for the life of me remember why, but I think I was picking someone up, or enumerating for the Census. One of the two.

So, the restaurant. This is where I go when I'm home and hungry for Mexican and have my family in tow. Although they do appreciate the authentic Mexican that I love from El Portrillo Taqueria (see my review), this place is bigger, more family friendly, and frankly less authentic, but still good.

One thing I love about this place is the flautas. The chicken that sticks out of the ends is charred in this amazingly tasty and crispy way. It's fantastic. Their chips are also very good. I don't eat seafood, but the fam got various dishes containing shrimp and enjoyed them. I've had so-so service before, but the server on my last trip was great. There was a bit of confusion with my Mom's order, and he was really nice about it (I hate sending food back, but sometimes it has to be done), and brought the new dish back with incredible speed.

This place is affordable, family friendly, a great place to run into people you haven't seen in a while, and a fantastic way to keep your money IN Lorain while still having a nice night out.

I haven't checked out the bar in the basement yet, I'll get to that next time I'm in L-town.

I would prefer 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up.

Nice service. Nice view. Decent food. Fun with large groups. Have not been there in a yr.