Casa Chapala — Restaurant in Austin

Lets start off with the overwhelming positive about this restaurant. They have the best homemade spicy salsa out of any Tex-mex restaurants that I've ever been to. They will bring a cart to your table and make fresh salsa right in front of you. If you enjoy a spicy food like me, I highly recommend you ask them to make it spicy. The flavors are incredible! Not only do they give you complimentary salsa, but they also give you complimentary bean dip as well!

The first time I went here we tried the "Queso Flameado", which appeared to be one of their specialty appetizers. They bring you a bowl of queso on fire. It was cool to look at, but unfortunately the cheese was extremely thick and was impossible to scoop up without breaking the chips. However the "Shrimp and Mango Ceviche" appetizer was fantastic!

I had the beef fajitas and they hook you up with food. I really enjoyed the beef fajitas! My other favorites are the Camarones A La Diablo, and the Caldo Siete Mares. My most recent trip I tried their "El Original Molcajetes" and while it wasn’t as amazing as the above referenced dishes, I still liked it a lot!

Their specialty margarita is a avocado margarita. I love margaritas, and I like avocados (but only in my food!) My friends loves their avocado margaritas though!

The restaurant is quite large and accommodating and the Chapala staff are both attentive/friendly. The only real glaring weakness of this place is it is extremely loud both inside or outside on the patio! The restaurant has a mariachi band that walks around the restaurant and plays music. It is quite loud. My friends and I found ourselves having to yell at each other to communicate at every time we have been here. I've gone here four times and there was little to no wait even at peak dinner hours. I strongly believe that Chapala's food is more authentic than many other Tex-mex restaurants in the Austin area. Highly...

We came by to try this spot and check out their margaritas on a Saturday around 1130am. As far as the bartender, (Israel) he was attentive and all was on point. Drinks were delicious and refreshing. We ordered the food and that's pretty much what ruined the experience. The guacamole was sub-par ok. Couldn't really tell if in fact it was fresh. It was decent at best and the chicharrón tastes as if it came from a bag. The molcajate original was horrid. We ordered it along with a side order of rice, beans, and nopales. The nopales never came through. We found the cardboard bottle cap in the salsa used, in the molcajate. At that point it was game over for us. We told the bartender about it and he immediately took it to the kitchen. About 10 minutes later, Socorro, one of the managers approached me about the situation. I was told that he was sorry and that the molcajate would be compensated. (This was obvious.) I did ask how he expected to make it better (twice). His response on both instances was that he didnt understand the question. He offered free queso for the next time I come back. I politely declined and told him at this point it would be difficult to bring me back. The expectation was for him to offer something more than comping molcajate or at least the effort. I planned on paying for everything either way since we had good drinks and service from the bartender. In total honesty, the action in "trying" to make it better right there and then, would have spoken volumes. I've been in customer service and this situation could have easily taken a different turn and more than likely prompting me to come back. To add salt to the injury, a cockroach was found on the bar. Israel was immediately notified. I hope managemennt looks at the cameras and see for themselves the validity of this statement. 119-121pm 7/26

I will definitely not be...

To start off i really had high hopes for this restaurant i’ve heard some good things about it so my family and i had dinner there. Walking in we were greeted very nicely from the lady at the front and she sat us down at a table. After that our waitress came and it seemed like we were going to have a decent customer service experience, but as we were deciding what to order suddenly her act suddenly switched up and started being a subtle type of rude. After she took our order she picked up all the menu’s and shook her head walking off. Not only did she start showing her true colors but the food took more than an hour to get to our table and by then we all have finished our drinks and were on our second round of drinks and once we got our food she would just drop our food right in front of us with some attitude. After we finished eating we asked if we could pay for our bill and in total it was almost 200$ but this is were it gets even worse on top of the bill the waitress gave HERSELF a 33$ tip!! She even made up some fake excuse saying it was the machine and since my family is nice they left an additional 10$. For the long wait and terrible service she definitely didn’t deserve that tip and we for sure will definitely never be coming back. I completely understand having a bad day at work specially in a customer service job since i’ve worked at multiple, but there’s no reason to give your customers any attitude unless it’s our fault for just trying to sit down and enjoy a family dinner at a restaurant. If it wasn’t for the decent food and really nice lady greeting us i would give this place a 1 star. I would only recommend if your ordering takeout or want terrible customer service and wait time. This happened on June 02 at 2-3pm 2022 i didint get the name of the waitress but this was just our experience which we definitely...