Los Gringos Locos — Restaurant in Apache Junction

TLDR: a decent American Mexican restaurant similar to an “El Burroto Loco” in Michigan, or an “Abuelo’s” here in AZ, but more American style, in my opinion. This is a favorite place of one of the members of our party, and I would recommend giving it a try.

I started out with an Arnold Palmer, as it’s one of my favorite drinks and I’ll always order if I see it on the menu. Not sure if it was just my drink or if they’re always like this, but it tasted sulphuric, like really hard tap water. I ended up ordering a Michelob Ultra which was as expected and good 🍺.

Our Party ordered: MINI CHIMI PLATTER - 6 House made mini chimis, 2 bean (flour tortilla), 2 chicken (whole wheat tortilla), and 2 shredded beef (chipotle chili tortilla), topped with cheddar cheese, tomatoes and green onions. Served with sour cream and guacamole.- and they substituted out the shredded beef for 2 more bean chimis. They seemed to like their dinner, so I’d say this is a recommended dish.

Salmon taco. I tried to take a picture but it was far away, so the quality of the image is foul, but the taco was good 👍.

SEAFOOD CHIMICHANGA -Our seafood combo wrapped in a flour tortilla and deep fried. Covered in poblano cream sauce and jack cheese. Topped with tomatoes and green onion. Served with sour cream, guacamole, black beans and poblano rice.- 2 members of our party ordered this and they both liked it. Would recommend.

COMBO PLATTER: Green Corn Tamale, cheese enchilada, served with beans and rice - I ordered this and the green corn tamale was FANTASTIC! I’ve never had one before. Where I’m from, the only tamales you can get are generally pork, so to have a vegetarian option was amazing to me. The flavors and textures were perfect. Would definitely recommend.

The service was sort of spotty. As you can from when we left, there was nobody inside, but maybe everyone left before we did? Our server was not as attentive as I would’ve liked, and we asked for hot sauce for the chips and salsa (like spicy hot sauce) 4 times before she eventually brought it, as she kept forgetting about it when she would bring things to the area for other diners. She did apologize each time for forgetting, and said she would be right back with it, but we were waiting for it to eat the chips. Not a HUGE deal, but mildly annoying. I am slightly a Karen 🤣, but I have worked in service, so I understand busy days or just a bad day for the employee (which I assume must’ve been happening because it didn’t seem that busy and I saw multiple other servers working). Anyway, for that reason I’m leaving 4 stars for service, not 5 stars...

My fiance and I have been here several times in the last year and this last time on Saturday evening 3/12, we took friends in town from Alaska. The service was horribly slow, even to get our drinks initially and then we placed our food order and that was a very lengthy wait. I had noticed everyone around us waiting an unreasonable amount of time also. I also observed two tables that arrived after us, placed orders after us (they each had two people at table), however they had received their food a few minutes before us. When our dinners arrived, our guests fajita dinner had raw vegetables, but the steak was cooked, when the waitress came around again they pointed this fact out to her, she agreed and said she'd request another side of vegetables (the peppers/onions/tomatoes) from the cook but to go ahead and eat the steak meat (?eat the fajita meat without the vegies? and then what, eat the vegies by themselves when they came the second time?), that was very odd. The second attempt of vegies came and they were barely cooked, not by any means how they should be cooked properly; so they ate their steak now because it was getting cold, and without any vegies. My chile rellenos meal was barely warm, the cheese inside peppers not melted at all. My fiance's seafood enchiladas dish was pretty good, not hot but edible. We all agreed, we will not be back. The waitress stated the cook got upset when she requested that second dish of vegetables, and she also let us know that there were 3 new cooks in the kitchen. Our previous visits were ok, good food, service, except for the second to last time he and I went with a male friend, service was extremely slow that evening also, but we decided to give it another try unfortunately and ended up completed dissapointed. As we left that evening, we were tempted to tell all the people outside waiting, not to bother! I do not understand how this place is still open with such poor...

As of today, 3/23/24, I am compelled to write this review due the fact I was astonished and upset with my visit @ 3PM. This is my 3rd visit since I quit going there after the new ownership a few years back. Let me start by stating I retired retail consultant working with high profile home centers and their corporations. Trained at a very early age and continued my career for 25 years. But, I was able to complete my education in this field by working in the food service industry. So I understand as a past employee in this industry I have the utmost respect for those people today. Today I went to the bar and wanted something simple to eat. I was ignored for about 10 min. There are only 6 others at the bar. My previous visit I was not acknowledged at all for 30 min. The bar tender thought it was more important to wash the dirty glasses in front of me not once giving eye contact. I almost walked out that day. Today after 20 min I had to ask the bartender to please check on my soup. Another 10 min later she shows up with my soup and says my tortillas will be right out. When I finished my soup, she had to go back and get the tortillas. She read me right, I was frustrated. I asked for my check and she returned and said she took 10 percent off. As an owner and a bartender, not understanding the math in this situation, effects the individual and the bottom line. So, as I had mentioned, I was in this industry going thru school and I generally leave a 20-30 per cent tip. Zero today and a grade F. Not even a I am sorry. Now being a year around resident and visiting once a week for the last 3 weeks, doing the math and me not returning, how much is the loss if you had 10 incidents like the last 2 I have described. Negative $$$. I will not be returning. The lesson here is do not profile or underestimate...