California Tacos and Fresh Juices — Restaurant in Bellingham

Incredibly uncomfortable experience today. Longtime customer and I will never go back.

If some people are like me with punch cards, I forget them in the car all the time and start a new one. Eventually you remember and grab them all and combine them. I tried to finally do that today. And we were basically told she had never seen that punch before and rejected our cards and showed us by using a different punch. Thereby essentially telling us we were liars. There is no type of person I dislike more than liars so this really got to me. We changed our order to to go and left ASAP. She acted like nothing was wrong and just kept asking about our burritos. We would not even have qualified for a free one yet! We'd have needed some more punches before even getting a free one! Like if someone had come in and had a bunch of free ones wit punches you did not remember, that would be one thing. She clearly forgot the old heart punch (because we did not eat there in person for a while, so they likely were from late 2019 and 2020 but still). They were her cards. And I thought she recognized me. Let alone all the times I forgot to get them punched and would have gotten some free ones by now but no biggie I forgot and just wanted to combine them since we were starting to eat out in person more again.

I used to order their breakfast burritos multiple times a week back when I worked at my office. They were my favorite and I loved supporting a woman owned business. This left me quite sad and uncomfortable and so I had to write this.

This is quite frankly completely unprofessional. If you have customers come in when cards, you need to honor them. Again they didn't even add up to a free one yet. We would have needed to come back and give you more business to even qualify for a free one yet. How does this make any sense? Idk if something else was going on or what but this really put a damper on my years ordering from her. Hopefully if other customers come in who have not been able to afford to eat out as much since the pandemic and bring their older cards with the heart punch she realizes her mistake and honors the cards...

Update 4/5/25: Picked up my order that I had called in for 4 burritos. On 1 burrito we had requested guacamole which we were told was a $2 charge. The other three burritos had chile verde. Upon arriving, my wife asked the person at the register to confirm that guacamole had been put on the burrito as requested and we were told that it was. When we got home, my wife checked her burrito and it had 1 teaspoon of guacamole at the bottom of the burrito. She attempted to spread it around to the rest of the burrito but there wasn't enough to spread. My chile verde burrito tasted good, but it only had 3 pieces of chile verde on it.

My wife did call and they offered to give us more guacamole, but the cost of gas driving there and back would not be recovered by a couple scoops of guacamole.

Not sure what's going on at California Tacos. Ironically, the tacos, at California Tacos, have always been bad, but at least the burritos and other menu items were good. However, slowly over the last year or so, the food has just been getting worse and worse. Today, we just happened to give them another shot because it was on the way home from where we happened to be. This is the last time we'll be going here. Good Mexican food is so hard to come by in Bellingham.

Original Review: California Tacos is a delightful surprise in the Mexican food desert of Bellingham. While the tacos themselves are not the best, the burritos are fantastic! I have not had bad burrito yet and I have visited many times. There have been a few confusing experiences about their prices, so pay attention to the menu and ask questions if you're not sure. Give this place a try, you...

I always loved going here, but I was sold nearly $70.00 worth of rubbery cold tacos after ordering the taco platter. I understand mistakes happen but to pay that much to get food that’s clearly been sitting out💀and not fresh was disappointing. Not only that, there was absolutely no seasoning whatsoever. That’s not typical of my experiences here which was a shock… I really don’t feel comfortable to spend money here again. Especially with the knowledge that that meat was without a doubt sitting out. There’s not a question about it. Food does not cool that fast. Meat was impossible to chew… I’ve never chewed on something THAT rubbery. Idk if it was just an off night…. New staff…. I’m not sure… I’m a very kind, gracious, & reasonable person and understand mistakes happen but I was well within the establishments hours of operation, it wasn’t a situation where I came at closing, So in good conscience, you cannot become lazy and sell food that’s been sitting out to make a quick buck and keep the line moving. I would have been willing to wait for something fresh I was in no hurry. I was told: “only 7 minutes, ok?” That should’ve been my initial warning because to assemble a whole tray that quickly… that’s just not right. Too much money was spent on the quality. I felt confident purchasing the platter because we’ve done it before and loved it so I’m not too sure...