Juan Colorado Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Beaverton

2.5 Stars This used to be one of our favorite places. Since 2011, we’ve enjoyed the location, food and service. Recently, they seem to have lost their lustre. Unfortunately, they’ve fallen for a common business practice of inflating their prices and nickel and diming customers. The service has suffered greatly as all of the original staff has been replaced.

I will give you an example of how the restaurant now nickel and dimes it’s customers, who have supported the business during these difficult times. Yesterday I ordered nachos. I usually get the Carne Asada but because it’s now a $20 meal I ordered nachos instead. With my nachos I ordered an extra side of jalapeños. Now, to be clear, I’m well aware that the extra side of nachos is going to cost an extra amount of money.., that’s fine. But what they did is they sent out a side of jalapeños for which I was charged $1.50 but then they didn’t put any jalapeños on the nachos. So I wasn’t getting the extra side that I paid for. I was just getting them on the side and being charged $1.50 for that. So I sent the dish back because I didn’t like what they have done. I wasn’t rude I just said if it wasn’t too much trouble I would like to have a nachos the way that I ordered them. I sat and waited for about eight minutes while my lunch partner slowly worked on her lunch so it wouldn’t get cold. I finally got my nachos wasn’t a big deal but then when we got the bill.... I was a little horrified to see that they were charging five dollars for a small glass of draft Coors Lite.

In addition to my jalapeño example, my lunch mate was up-sold on a full order of guacamole, without her consent, because she asked for no sour cream. Usually they just add a little extra guacamole at no cost. This has never been an issue.

We’re not the type to ever examine the bill. We usually throw down a couple of cards and split it without looking. Yesterday we happened to look. Her burrito had gone up from $10 to $14. I don’t like doing business where I feel that they have to be babysat. Especially with money.

And when did it become so difficult to make nachos with an extra side of peppers? Do they not value their customers time or loyalty?

I think when you add up the fact that it’s very difficult to find parking in that shopping center to the fact that the service has fallen short and the fact that it cost more to eat food that is not better, It doesn’t make sense to spend anymore money there. We tried to be supportive of this business but I really don’t feel that that support is appreciated and there are lots of other options to eat in that same shopping center.

As we sat outside, we realized that there was sushi and delicious pizzicato and barbecue and a chipotle right next-door and Hawaiian grill a couple more doors down and we just came to the conclusion that there were other places that we could have lunch from now on. So I think that the romance with this particular restaurant has definitely...

Should have ordered the flautas, I guess.

I just had the weirdest taco salad of my life here. I had never been to Juan Colorado's before and was looking for something tasty and simple. Tasty, I got. Simple, no. What I got was at first glance an ocean of shredded iceberg lettuce on a lava-hot plate. Since this was a really shallow dish, excavating for items other than lettuce created a bit of a mess. I was eventually able to unearth two large flat pieces of flour tortilla acting as a heat shield between the Great Lettuce Mound and the congealed mass of shredded beef and cheese. Consuming the beef and cheese portion required hacking it into something vaguely bite-sized with a butter knife as the cheese had glued the meat into one enormous glob. Forget mixing with the lettuce or the guacamole and sour cream - the flat plate and huge quantity of lettuce made that basically impossible. It was so WEIRD - almost like a deconstructed version of what most people would think of as a taco salad.

In the end, the food tasted fine if a little bland, but if you're looking for an American-style taco salad (seriously, taco salads are not authentic and Juan Colorado is absolutely an American restaurant) this is not it. The appearance was not particularly appetizing and it was hard to eat without making a mess.

Guava Margarita was pretty good, though. I'll award some points for that. For the salad...two stars. Taco salad is typically served with the tortilla on the bottom, beans at the next layer, shredded lettuce/tomato/whatever, then meat, then a sprinkling of cheese, and finally guac and/or sour cream. Hot plates are not encouraged. Discouraged, even. It's a salad, it doesn't need to be hot.

I probably...

My wife and I ate dinner here last night and I just have to write this. Although the food was excellent and the service was friendly, my ordering experience was extremely misleading. First, I ordered a margarita The waitress asked me if I wanted a small or large. I ordered a large. Thinking a small margarita can be very small, so a large must be about double. With no warning at all, they bring the largest glass I have ever seen in my life and plop it down on the table. This thing wasn’t a large margarita, it was an aquarium. I was also not prepared for the sticker shock of a $25 drink and probably the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life as this was not exactly high-quality tequila…but a lot of it.

Next, I see the menu stated a Carne Asada burrito for $8.95 I ordered that and two side tacos which advertised for $3.95 each.

I was charged $21.95 for the $8.95 burrito and $11.90 for the two side tacos.

Again, the food was excellent and the service was friendly and the atmosphere was clean. However, I believe there needs to be a heads up before serving me a half a gallon of tequila that large means…. This will be expensive and you’re gonna get drunk.

Not sure what went wrong with the other food prices. I don’t think will be returning because I honestly didn’t expect to spend $100 on dinner and go home plastered. I think I’m gonna stick with restaurants that are cut and dry on the menu pricing and a bit of a heads up on ridiculous amounts of alcohol. I feel like I just lost a game of gotcha.

I did tip 20% but I don’t think...