Hugo's Mexican Kitchen — Restaurant in Surrey

I REALLY really want to like this place, but I’ve been three separate times and every time it has been subpar. The first time they opened, the food was descent but nothing to write home about. The service on the other hand was great! It was a bit on the pricier side compared to other places.

Went a second time to give it another shot, but this time... it was REALLY bad. 1 - the server took 20 mins to take our orders after seating, 2 - after ordering there was another 30 min wait for the appetizers to arrive. After another 15 minutes, still no main course. 45~ ish minutes after seating our server checked in on us after we tried getting her attention, turns out even after writing down the order and repeating it out loud... the order was never punched in. How does that add up? After another 25 min wait we finally received our main course. Moreover, not only did it take forever but my order ended up being wrong, very disappointing! Tacos didn’t have much flavour, and lacked punch, they were also overpriced for what you get, not even salsa on the side to add some flare to it. My partner order the Taco loco and his tasted way better! Good ratio of meat and carb. The Pina colada drink was darn good though! Though that’s a hard one to mess up. Guava mojito did not have any guava taste at all. Tasted like a water down rum and juice, disappointing.

The third and final visit of mine came with some freebies! Unfortunately the food came in a late again, but this time there were only two other tables seated at the time. Service though, was much better! The complimentary tortilla chips were too salty, felt like they were bottom of the bag, the salsa dips were either too much spice or not enough flavour. Taco locos were just full of carb this time and with barely any meat (we literally dug through the gigantic taco only to finally find morsels of meat on one side), flavours were there but felt over cooked and a bit dry. I don’t understand though..the last time we ordered it, it was so good! This time? It was sad. Finally, complimentary churros had an after taste of baking soda, and honestly didn’t really have any taste at all, the texture was there but it didn’t taste much like a churro, Hugo’s in Richmond make it WAY better!

Honourable mention, queso fundido is soo delish and flavourful! Why doesn’t everything else taste this good...?

Anyway, I’m sad to say I will not be coming back. Service and food is inconsistent. I don’t understand the hype or the reviews and I want Hugo’s to be amazing as their marketing portrays! I understand when they are busy and under staffed but it just doesn’t cut it for me anymore. There are other places that are worth trying and have better service, food and pricing.

I will say, their Instagram marketing is spot on and is the reason for me coming there in the first place. Come once if you have to try it, but I would suggest...

Okay, so chances are very likely that I WILL be going back, because unless the restaurant does the absolute worst, everyone deserves a second chance. Hugo, comes into princess auto and has asked us to come to his restaurant for OVER a year now. A few of us finally are able to go, we all agreed on the time of 11:30. He tells us he's going to call his son ahead of time saying we are coming for that following day as this specific location is his sons restaurant. We arrive the next day at 11:30 and are told we have to wait until 12. Okay sure, that's fine. She says she will wipe down the table so that we can sit down right away, we end up standing around for 10-15 minutes waiting for that to happen. Aside from this, our hostess/waitress is great! The overall atmosphere is okay being on the patio outside, the music was nice and upbeat, but the chairs were uncomfortable. Meh what can you do aside from cushions? And with covid, it's probably less sanitary if you can't clean them between customers. We load the menus on our phones, easy peezy. Its a good menu, not very descriptive of what would precisely be on the items ordered. (Example, one of us ordered a taco and couldn't eat it because the menu did not say it came with feta cheese and they were allergic to it, we could have also mentioned any allergies I suppose) The waitress takes our full order, brings us water and our drinks. I drink some of the water and notice there's a floaty or something in the cup. We get our plates of tacos, the taste is awesome! It looks really great! Getting to my last taco, there was a hair about an inch-inch and a half UNDER a piece of pineapple on the taco. =S we brought up the hair and the feta cheese and they promptly remade those tacos for us. We apologized for not bringing up the feta beforehand, we obviously would not have ordered it, had it was mentioned on the menu in the first place Were all done and good to go, she brings us our bills, we pay and are on our way. Maybe today was just a random day or little things to go not according to plan. We will be back and we will see how our next visit is then. Thanks Hugo! Savvy, Janice, Angelika, and Darren from princess...

Triple check your takeout order before biting into it! I'm extremely disappointed with this place. Few weeks ago on a Friday, we were craving some Mexican food and being new in the area, we decided to give Hugos a try. One of us is a vegan so we ordered some vegan tacos and a burrito for takeout. When I went to pick up the meal, I didn't see "vegan" written on the receipt stapled to the takeout bag so I asked the staff member who was ringing me up if she could confirm that the tacos were vegan. She went as far as to open up the food to check which I was happy that she did that. The issue is that I don't know what she was even looking it. When I came home, we opened up the containers and I could clearly see meat on the tacos. I even tried a bit of one just to check so the vegan person would not have to and it was chicken.

I called the restaurant and they offered to replace them if I came back. Unfortunately, given that it's a 25 minute drive each way for me, I asked if we could just get refund. The manager (I'm guessing that's who it was because the person who picked up gave the phone to someone else once she found out what happened) said that their refund and gift card machine was down but they would deal with the refund as soon as they closed for the night and would take care of it. I didn't get a call back later that night or all weekend long. I even gave them a week and called them a back the following Friday. Once again, the person I spoke to said that they will take my number and name down and have the manager call me back the same day to resolve this. It's been almost a month now and still no one has reached out!

I don't really like leaving bad reviews since I know it's not always a consistent thing but they took money from us for something that we didn't order, one of us didn't get to benefit from having takeout at all that evening, and then they never followed up with us at any point, even when I chased them. It seems like they are just hoping that this will blow over and I'll eventually forget and move on. At this point, I am going to move on but I thought I needed to share...