La Lupita Taco & Mezcal — Restaurant in Baja California Sur

Beware of the scam!

My wife and I booked La Lupita in San Jose for our pre wedding party dinner. We had made an earlier trip in July to try the restaurant out prior to our November wedding in San Jose del Cabo. Our experience there in July was great. We spoke to the manager, where we ironed out the details of renting out the back patio for the wedding party as well as what was provided for the menu. This was followed up with their official proposal, which included the menu to be had and the total estimated cost for a 25 person party. All was great, we wired our deposit and thought all was settled.

Well things went south. Up until hours before our dinner party they claimed we hadn't paid the deposit for the dinner, even though we provided wire receipts with transaction numbers multiple times. About 4 hours prior to dinner, they found on their end that "accounting" had misplaced their transaction history. This obviously showed we had paid our full deposit in August.

Once we arrived we found that instead of booking the full outside patio we were moved to the very front room with our seating being two separate tables. We did have some anticipated guest drop off of the list so we were quite a bit smaller than originally planned, but had planned to stick with the original price agreed upon for the 25people party, being that it was uphold our end of the contract.

Turns out because we no longer needed or wanted an open bar. We were moved to the front room, which apparently in their proposal was "A1" good luck in knowing that "A1" is by the door when we were told it was the patio area. Once we found this out we were pretty upset. The manager was not accommodating at all for the lack of transparency nor the lack of communication. He stated that we no longer had an open bar tab and that's why we were moved. He also stated that instead of full price we would only be paying $40 USD per head plus drinks. The food was bland at best, the wait staff delivered 2 bottles of Codigo 1530 that we did not ask for (we figured they were making up for their incompetence).

Nope at the end of dinner we were charged 21,000 Mx ($1032.00 usd) for the 14 person party... the discrepancy of approx $470.00 usd was explained to be the "open bar" we requested. Which made absolutely no sense since we specifically did not get the patio due to "not having an open bar tab". The ending payment total did not even account for the $340 usd that we had prepaid in August.

They are a severe disappointment, and should refund our money accordingly. But we know that won't happen. Thanks for the scam fellas. I guarantee no one we know will ever set foot in this establishment...

So, here’s the story: Anytime I travel and see a bunch of tourists gathered anywhere, I know we’ve lost the plot. However, I had no choice in attending given the fact that it was my best friend’s REHEARSAL DINNER (keep that in mind while I drag you into this mess). The night before the rehearsal dinner, friends are talking about the last trip to Cabo and how things went. Two start talking about how they got food poisoning from one of the restaurants they ate at and lived in fear of soiling themselves on the plane home and for FOUR DAYS after. As we walk up to the establishment, faces go white… like, Mexican and Filipino faces have lost all color - same restaurant. So now I’m like, “Ok, if I have to live off Pepto and saltines for a few days to make my girlie pop happy, I can do that!” But then we walk into the FOYER and are sat at two separate tables. Excuse me? You have a wedding party sat in what is essentially a mud room and we’re not even seated together?! Obviously, the bride is confused and embarrassed and flushed and distraught so I did what any best friend would do - asked to speak to someone since Sophia, the hostess’s intern because she sure as hell wasn’t an event coordinator, was useless. Listen, I tried to be polite - truly. I kept explaining that at this point we simply wanted the tables pushed together. There were only 14 of us and we were ok sitting a little wonky as long as we could be together. Kirkland brand Shrek kept interrupting, telling me it would “ruin the service.” He couldn’t fathom that the service was literally already in the toilet and the ONLY thing the bride wanted as a means of compensation was to be able to sit with the people she loves. After 20 minutes of straight up arguing, we finally were able to sit down and enjoy a mid meal at best. There was literally nothing special about these tacos. They came out in a mini smoker! Cool. My hair smelled like weed the rest of the night. Super! I make better guacamole oh and did I mention I’ve been CRAPPING MYSELF FOR THE LAST 4 DAYS! This cannot be a coincidence. I truly have zero words for the way this entire event went down but I do have exactly 1 star to hand out. It would be less if I could. Oh, how could I forget… our waiter basically made it seem like they were making up for their awful oversight on our seating location and placement by offering us tequila shots - brought out 2 bottles! Guess what we were charged for at the end of the night?! As if the original amount paid to secure the space that wasn’t even what was agreed upon wasn’t enough. GTFOH! I’d say, if you go here, you’re getting the toilet demons...

Before I say anything I just have to tell you SAVE ROOM FOR DESERT AND GET THE FLAN and the churros.

Do not leave without ordering flan, it’s unlike any we’ve had. So creamy?? Like almost a cheese cake consistency. Just very very good. Also the churros were amazing. I’m never someone that is impressed by a churro… they always seem better in theory than in actual taste but these were so fresh and so good. (Eat them with the flan… )

We ordered a flan, a churros, And a rice pudding and even though we were all full we ended up ordering a second flan. It’s that good.

Ok now onto the tacos.

We were truly blown away. Our waiter gave excellent recommendations and the ambiance was 10/10. (Live music, nice and clean)

We tried quite a few of the taco options between the four of us and the consensus was the cheese crusted Al pastor, the miso fish, and the chipotle shrimp were the best. (I ordered 2 chipotle shrimp tacos and switched the flour tortilla for a cheese crust on one and a blue corn tortilla on the other. the cheese is delicious but very rich and very greasy so I don’t think you can eat more than one cheese crust taco. The blue corn tortillas were truly the yummiest tortillas I’ve ever had)

The mushroom chicharones and the green mole chicken tacos both had a pretty strong anise flavor which isn’t my favorite but others at our table liked it fine.

(The rice pudding also had the anise flavor)

**we didn’t try the corn cake but it was recommended as second to the flan so I bet it’s great. Our waiter really didn’t lead us astray.

The restaurant is in a very charming town and on a beautiful street. People were out and about late but in a mellow way (really different from the downtown cabo vibe) La lupitas is definitely a “don’t miss”. We are genuinely talking about returning...