El Arbol Taqueria — Restaurant in Brighton

This place is visually stunning, inside and out!

If you ever went to this space when it was the former establishment, your mind will be blown! It's so open and flows incredibly well. It's rather astounding, considering that the bar area is so large downstairs. Yes. Downstairs. It's two stories oh, and the upstairs, two is decorated beautifully and doesn't feel the least bit cramped or crowded.

Both the hostess and server we're incredibly polite and personable. Having been in the service industry for so long, I always value a great wait staff. And this place has it!

The food was delicious! My daughter and I split the trio dip sampler. It came with salsa, guacamole, both of which were amazing and quite authentic to the taste. It also came with queso. The queso was the only entree / appetizer item that I wasn't totally crazy about. It tasted quite a lot like a Velveeta dip. Still tasty, but not as unique or authentic as I would have hoped.

My daughter, age 7, ordered the beef taco, which came with rice. She thought the taco is one of the best she has ever had! She wasn't crazy about the rice, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it's just not quite the kind of thing that most little kids would be crazy about.

Since we had ordered the trio, I only ordered one taco. The chicken taco. And it was fan-freaking-tastic! Loved it! I'm not honestly sure how I was supposed to eat it? It came open face with a fork and no knife. So I assumed I did right by picking it up? LOL! A little bit messy, but so tasty! And, since I had the salsa, guacamole, and queso, I was able to mix up every bite, as well as incorporate the tortilla chips.

Following our meal, we ordered the churros. They came with a chocolate sauce that, again, my seven-year-old wasn't too fond of. Probably because it is not too sweet. Which is fine with me! However, neither of us liked the churros themselves. They had the taste of ordinary, low-quality cake donuts with cinnamon sugar. Granted, they were warm, which is always a bonus! But, overall, I cannot recommend them.

Being a Friday, I made sure to go directly after school. We arrived about 4:30 pm and were promptly seated. When we left about 50 minutes later, there was already a wait. Just a heads up for anyone thinking they might drop in for a quick bite during dinner hours.

The prices are about what one would expect. Maybe a little bit higher. Most of the tacos are $4- $6 each, and of the rest of the menu main items looked to be anywhere between $4 & $10, with some variation. However, you get what you pay for it as far as quality!

One of the most unique offerings is the walkup Taco window. Weather permitting, there is a limited menu that can be ordered at a walk-up take out window. I'm pretty sure that all of their tacos are offered, as well as bottled water and chips and salsa. If you are familiar with the Brighton area, you will recognize the value of this convenience. I can't wait to...

My love language is Mexican food so I can realistically go anywhere and eat anything. Today we went to downtown Brighton. There is parking everywhere but Brighton is packed so finding availability to park is a different story. We parked about Two blocks away. We walked up to this restaurant and our options were to either order food from the exterior window to go and take it to the water front and eat, go inside and go upstairs or downstairs, or our choice eat at the first come first serve outside parking lot/margarita garden. We chose to sit outside. The seating area was gated surrounded by plant boxes with thyme and basil plants so I liked that. We sat a table for two. The table was metal and the seat was very uncomfortable. I was wearing a sun dress so the metal slates of the seat sut into my legs. I did not enjoy that so much. There is a QR code to scan for the drink and food menu. The waitress was prompt and very polite. I had a margarita on the rocks, Dad had a coke. They do not serve Pepsi products. We ordered the chips and queso. The queso was beefed up. It had meat, onions, cheese, and cilantro with chips so it was almost a meal in itself. Dad did not think there were many options to choose from. We ordered tacos. When the food came it was only one taco each. We assumed for the price it would have been three tacos at least. So it was comical to sit there and eat our one taco each. The total was around $40.00. we paid with a card at the table with the waitresses hand held device. Overall a beautiful evening to eat outside. As long as you don't mind the traffic and random people looking at your food...

First time at El Arbol with my husband and my friend. I love Mexican food knowing most resturants have minimal selections with NO cilantro. I can usually shake it off the salsa and pick it out of the guac. If you don't like cilantro, you probably really DON'T like cilantro. I ordered the enchilada which according to the menu, had no cilantro. I told the server, please don't have any cilantro on my dish. My dish arrived covered in cilantro! I think he must have heard "extra cilantro." Now, keep reading because this IS positive review. Cody, the manager delivered our food and saw my face when he put the plate down. I cannot even stand the smell of cilantro. Cody took it back and said he would have them make another enchilada without cilantro....only to come back to tell me the enchilada sauce has cilantro in it. He had the server come back with a menu for me to order something else. Thr choices for a cilantro free meal were very limited. I asked if they could just make a quesadilla with chicken, cheese and tomato. The server said that would not be possible. So, I decided to not order anything. My husband and friend were just about done their meals by now. Cody did a great job coming back to our table, determined to get me some food. I told him the server said it was not possible to make something off menu. God bless Cody....he went back to the kitchen and delivered me a cilantro free quesadilla with Llettuce and sour cream sides. Delicious! Thank you Cody! We...