Taco-Quila Mexican Kitchen and Cantina — Restaurant in Clearwater

My first experience with Taco-Quila was when they catered food for the Happy Hour at the Threshers stadium a few Wednesday’s ago. The tacos and rumors of a margarita flight were enough to lure me in on a Taco Tuesday with a friend of mine. First impression was excellent - bright and clean, colorful, and tons of personality! You’d never know this location had turns as an ihop and a seafood place. Quite a few of the tables were occupied and while there, we saw a few birthday celebrations occur, which I’m pleased to say that Taco-Quila does a bit differently than most places.

Sizeable menu, offering your typical Mexican restaurant fare - tacos, fajitas, burritos, nachos, etc. There are also a few salads, seafood, and vegetarian offerings. A google search shows different iterations of their menu, but it seems like the majority of the food stays the same. They also offer a decent lunch menu, which are smaller portions of their dinners. There’s a separate margarita/drinks menu. You can order several different margs in 16, 24, or 36 oz sizes. There’s also a fun margarita flight, made up of 4 choices of flavors, but do not encompass smaller sizes of their specialty offerings.

I stuck with the Taco Tuesday deal of 3 regular sized tacos for $5 with choice of shredded beef, shredded chicken, or ground beef. I opted for the chicken. You can also choose hard or soft shells. There’s no mix and match meats or shells, according to my server. Tacos came from the back immediately - meat was warm, tortilla wasn’t (but they were soft and did warm up with the meat), and there was a small amount of lettuce, tomato, and cheese on top. They were good, but nothing to write home about. I think I’d rather have had one of the beef options, as the chicken reminded me of something you can make at home. Which is fine, but if you’re paying for it, you’d like something a bit more.

Having said that, my ONLY complaint was concerning the guacamole. My friend ordered the guacamole dip first, thinking she was getting the guacamole pictured. It tasted good, well-seasoned and had good flavor. We ate it. So she ordered the “Tableside Guac,” which our server clarified was pictured on the menu (which had pico de gallo-style chopped tomatoes, onions, and jalapeños with the avocado). When the server came back a few minutes later with a big molcajete-type bowl, it was filled with an iteration of guacamole that looked exactly like what we’d already been given. It wasn’t prepared tableside, as the name suggests, and with the exception of large pieces of cilantro and the addition of lime juice, it was no different than the dip. Again, tasted fine, but didn’t quite live up to what we thought we were ordering. Would I order it again? No, probably not, considering the dip was a cheaper option by half. Weirdly, the “Tableside Guac” doesn’t seem to be in any of the other menu iterations online, but it was definitely on the menu that’s currently in restaurant.

Don’t get me wrong - I’ll definitely visit Taco-quila again and enjoy myself. I hope this place lasts longer than any of the other places...

I honestly don’t get the glaring reviews for this place. Maybe it’s because Clearwater, in general, is so devoid of good dining selections that even mediocre places seem awesome against the sea of truly terrible eating disasters out there. Don’t get me wrong, the place isn’t garbage, but let’s be honest: it’s average at best.

The good: Atmosphere was fast-paced, high-energy, and vibrant. We came on Cinco de Mayo and the dining room was packed. They were having a festival in the front parking lot (which made parking a challenge if you tried to enter from Frontage Road - that side was blocked off and we had to drive down to Drew and loop back to enter from Old Coachman). They had free unlimited chips and salsa and the beer was modestly priced.

The Bad: The food was just okay. We got fajitas, chips and queso, and tacos. Nothing was above average. The service was okay but the waitress wasn’t too friendly and did a poor job communicating about several menu questions.

The Ugly: Prices were insane! Two adults and two kids (one of which shared with mom) couldn’t walk out the door for under 100 big ones. This was lunch hour mind you! There wasn’t a single meal on the menu for under 20 bucks per plate except for street tacos at 16.99 which were small and limited to only one type of taco. This means you couldn’t sample the different taco selections they had available. I screwed up and ordered the al pastor which contained way too much pineapple and was overly-sweet. But I had to power through 3 of them becasue you can’t mix like you can at most places. You could only order chicken and beef tacos a la carte so that wasn’t a route to taco variety either.

Next, the drinks came out in plastic cups. Granted the menu had a “due to high-demand, all drinks will be served in plastic containers” sign so we were properly warned, but it ruined the ambience and I felt like I was at a college house party rather than a 4.6 star Mexican joint. When you eschew giant long-neck glasses and frozen mugs and start carting out drinks in disposables, you’ve maybe let your popularity go to your head a bit. The beer was okay, if not warm, but the margarita was no bueno. Obviously made from a mix, tasted flat and overly-sweet.

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Again, don’t get me wrong: the place was okay. But at this price point, I would have expected to be blown away. When I can get 3 tacos for under 10 at Taco Bus on Taco Tuesday, I’ll wait to satisfy my taco cravings until I’m over in Tampa. If you really need a taco and don’t mind having zero ambience, try one of the taco holes-in-the-wall on Drew street. Much tastier and you won’t have to sell one of your kids to...

We found this place because we met a nice man in the aisles of Walmart and he invited us to his restaurant for Taco Tuesday. We are not from Clearwater, so without this invite we would never know the place. It was AMAZING!! How can you beat the prices of Taco Tuesday and Happy Hour combined? We had both types of margaritas (frozen and on the rocks) and they were the best I’ve ever had. We had the shredded chicken and shredded beef tacos and they were fresh and delicious. We also got a sizzling bubbling platter of queso fundido Al pastor, which was an absolute delight. Even the tortillas and salsa that they bring to the table are incredibly tasty, and not too spicy for me. They brought a spicy salsa for my husband and we didn’t even ask for that. They just anticipated that he might like it.

We loved the restaurant so much that we came back on Sunday night because the owner told us that there were mariachis. The mariachis were joyous and talented and made the evening very special. We ordered queso fundido with chorizo this time, which was also incredible. Then we ordered the seafood molcajete and our daughter ordered carnitas. We all loved our meal. There was so much food that we did not have to make dinner the next night and it was great reheated.

There was an entire fish on top of our molcajetes which shocked me a bit a first but it really was delicious. Then underneath the fish there was octopus and shrimp and scallops and nopales and roasted jalapeño and onions and cheese….it was sensory overload. My photos don’t show the whole amount of food because we already ate a lot of it by the time I took the photos! There were side platters of rice and beans and salad and guacamole. So so so so much amazing food. I cannot tell you how much we all love this restaurant and the owner is super nice and the waitress and bartender were very sweet and kind. We just made some family memories at this lovely place that we will never forget. So grateful.

We have come again many times since this review and every time the food is incredible.

We have ordered Camarones Al mojo di ajo and tacos al pastor and tower de Mariscos and pulpo asado and Pina del mar. Sebastian was our server and he was amazing! Super friendly and attentive to our needs. The mariachis were unbelievable. Just stop reading this review and make a...