La Pachangas Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Bonne Terre

Dismissive manager.

Some of the better carne asada I've had in a long time. Whenever I travel somewhere or go camping I always try a local Mexican restaurant, and always get a carne asada dish. I find the variations and flavor very interesting from place to place. This restaurant's carne asada dish had delicious carne asada but it was only wrapped in flour tortillas with beans and rice. I asked for a side of enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes to put on the dish and it greatly increased the flavor. I asked the server if it was a local locally owned restaurant or a chain (because I was unfamiliar with the name), she said there was only a couple locations. So I made the suggestion to her that she may want to let the whoever's in charge of the menu, they may want to add those things to this dish to liven it up a little bit. She said I probably need to let the person that is seating everyone know, because he was in charge. When I went to pay my check I just let him know that I made a suggestion to the server (because this was 6:30 p.m. on a Friday and there were people waiting to come in to be seated). When I let him know he did not acknowledge anything I said, no thank you, not even a head nod. He just bent over, grabbed some silverware and ask the people coming in to follow him. I do not make it a habit of suggesting menu changes to restaurants (probably only the second time in my life), but I thought it was needed in this case and for the manager to just dismiss me without even acknowledging my statement left the very bad taste of my mouth. Everything...

FAR from the best shrimp chimichanga I've ever had.😕 I had one from a different restaurant last week for about the same price. It was loaded with shrimp, had a lot more flavor, the sides were tastier, & it was served hot. This one...didn't have much in it, only had a few shrimp, bland, & a little watery from the lettuce being too wet. I ordered just lettuce & tomato instead of pico de gallo...I only got lettuce. Thankfully we had ordered a side of queso because our entrees had very little on them. Both the rice & beans were both barely warm & very bland. I've ate at the Lapachanga in Festus & Herculaneum many, many times over the years & rarely had any complaints. It's been quite a few years since I've been to either so I'm unsure if the quality has went down at either ? Unfortunately the food I'm used to Lapachanga serving isn't what we got at the Bonne Terre location. I've heard MANY negative things about the Arnold location & they have poor reviews online so I don't feel there's any reason to see for myself at this point. Maybe they should have stuck to just having 2 locations?!? I really hope they were just having a bad night the night we ate there. We will give them one more try. I hope for the best, but if that meal is anything similar to this one we...

UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST: After talking now stop about this place, my husband went with me for a return visit. His first time and my second. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the hype the second time around. The food was just..okay. Not bad, but no where as good as the first time. I must have just been starving then cause the 2nd time was not really good. I don't know what changed.

My family and I moved into the area just 5 months ago and have been searching for a good Mexican restaurant. I was really impressed with their food. I had a steak burrito, my granddaughter had a burger and fries, and my daughter had the chicken nachos. The steak in my burrito was both very tender and flavorful, absolutely the best steak I've ever had from a Mexican restaurant. My daughter loved her nachos and even my granddaughter's burger looked amazing.

We've eaten in some of the best Mexican restaurants in St. Louis, and I have to admit, that La Pachanga is now my...