Oscar’s Taco Shop — Restaurant in Athens

I've been around Athens recently and as such I've been trying out a few of the local restaurants. Oscar's wound up being my choice for the day a few weeks ago. I thought the menu looked good before going, but sadly, I didn't have a positive experience with the food.

This restaurant is pretty new and is located in a small strip mall. I understand it to be a small chain, with most locations in Tennessee. It was a little hard to get to the parking lot (had to go behind the Starbucks) but there was decent parking. They have advertised specials like deals during lunch, on certain days of the week, etc.

Upon entering, you're funneled into a line up to the counter where you may place your order. The inside is slightly modern and looked very clean, including the women's restroom. The woman taking orders was pleasant albeit a little direct (mind you, though, I'm quite sensitive lmao).

Their menu is pretty big but I eventually wound up with a burrito bowl as that's one of my go-tos. You can choose your protein (chicken for me) and it comes with rice, beans, lettuce, pico, guacamole, sour cream, and shredded cheese. I asked for no guac and they obliged. I also ordered a medium drink and a personal sized cup of queso with chips. They have a small salsa bar where you can get your own salsa and try many flavors. I don't remember the exact total price of my meal, but I do remember being aghast at it -- pretty expensive for what I got, or so I felt.

I remember liking the salsa I got from the salsa bar and the queso, while unremarkable, was still enjoyable. The chips were fine.

But that burrito bowl...blech. It had the strangest taste permeating the entire dish, an extremely unpleasant medicinal/chemical flavor. The chicken was gray and unappetizing. The rice was a little undercooked, though that was pretty much the only thing I ate because it was the least affected item from the nasty taste. And there was so much lettuce I was a bit confused thinking I'd maybe received a taco salad by mistake. I wanted a little lettuce, but this was piles and piles of it, cold and soggy next to steaming hot food. I ate a few bites of rice, one piece of chicken, and a bite of beans and decided I could do no more. One of the worst entrees I've had in a long time, sadly.

2 stars for a clean restaurant, pleasant staff, and serviceable chips and dip. -3 stars for the taste of my...

I'm so happy Oscar's opened in North Alabama! I've been to a couple of Oscar's in Murfreesboro, and I don't know why but this one seems better, maybe because I only drove 25 minutes vs 2 hours to get to it. Been here 3 times since they opened so I must really like it!

I always get rolled tacos when I go to Oscar's because I can't find them anywhere else in North Alabama. Rolled tacos are deep fried corn tortillas rolled with shredded beef and then covered in guacamole, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. We usually do take out and drive out from Madison, but my rolled tacos stay crunchy and delicious by the time I get home. If you get the 12 rolled tacos, I recommend you ask them to separate them into 2 boxes. The last time we got 12 the top layer was great and crunchy but the bottom layer was soggy.

They offer breakfast burritos, which I know a lot of people are in search of in this area. They have our favorite breakfast burrito, chorizo and egg. And it's just like how we remembered with red grease dripping out of the burritos. yum yum!

My boys get CA burritos, and they love it. It is a carne asada burrito with french fries inside. My daughter got 3 Carne Asada tacos, we didn't really know that these are not street taco sized, but huge tacos. Lol! She probably could have only ordered 1 because she couldn't finish. She really wanted to though because she said it was so good.

I haven't tried the fish tacos at this location yet, but this is something else that we just can't find in the area a good fish taco. I've had one in other locations and it's the closest thing I've gotten to a baja fish taco, so I'm excited to try it out here.

I can't wait for them to make a location in Madison! I swear they said that would open one in Madison on Facebook somewhere, I'm holding them...

PARENTS with YOUNG children/babies. Don’t expect to be able to dine in easily. They do not have any high chairs!

Bad experience from the get go. Walked in, cashier was rushing us to order (no one was behind us). My husband had never been to an Oscar’s so he wanted to look at the menu however we were rushed by the cashier. Ordered and planned to dine in only to find out they don’t have any high chairs! I looked and never saw any, so I thought surely I’m over looking them. So I asked a cashier, nope- they didn’t have them. So we had to have our food packaged to go. Ended up tossing all the food because fajitas aren’t really a car friendly food and we had errands to run and couldn’t just go back home. Loved the Oscars in Murfreesboro, and was really excited for this location. However, as a mom with a young child and a baby on the way- we won’t be back until they have high chairs.

Oh and we did at least look at the food, and we didn’t even get everything we ordered. Which I guess didn’t matter since took a loss by having to toss it anyways. But Very disappointing all...