Jose Muldoon's — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

I'm torn about this review. To summarize, chain quality food, chain quality prices, but exceptional service. Eating here tonight reminded me why I don't frequent this establishment, but again fantastic service and fantastic people.

REVIEW--

The service was pretty good. James is a great server. Very attentive and the staff in general was great. The atmosphere is overall okay. This is what you would expect from a chain restaurant. Food, just okay. Definitely nothing to write home about. That's one of the reasons I almost didn't write this review.

The restaurant bills themselves as having a modern Tex-Mex menu. I think they're more concerned with appearances than they are with quality and taste. Everything looks pretty, but again, flavors and taste are nothing spectacular. Chain restaurant flavors.

Margaritas were good, but when you consider how much a drink can add to the tab, most of the time drinks are not worth the cost due to the size. The happy hour prices eased the sting.

Most salsa served in restaurants are not spectacular at all. Most are so watery and so heavy on the cilantro that 90% of store-bought salsas tend to be better than most restaurants salsas. Thankfully, the consistency of their salsa was good. Flavor was okay. Could it be improved, absolutely. But again, you can't expect much from a chain restaurant. The chips were decent , but I think we got the batch near the bottom because I would say 25% of the chips were smaller than the size of a thumb.

The guacamole was good. Don't know why they decided to stick a big chip in the center but whatever.

The queso was typical of queso. Nothing spectacular. Taste is very similar to the stuff you get out of the can at the store.

We had three entrees.

Vegan enchiladas, shrimp enchiladas, and carne asada plate. When you look at the plates, the food was plated well.

Guest 1' s said her vegan enchiladas were good. The tortillas used in the enchiladas were not worth eating and she discarded them. The vegan green chili that topped the enchiladas is average.

Guest 2 said his shrimp enchiladas were decent. Visually, this plate was by far the most appealing. He said the food's taste was decent.

My entree was the carne asada plate. The steak was cooked well. And overall the taste of the food was good. Not a fan of the rice with cilantro. The chimichurri sauce was okay. I don't understand why most Mexican restaurants put cilantro in everything. The most disappointing thing about this meal was the fact that the carne asada did not have any green chili over the top of it. If I wanted steak, I would go to Texas Roadhouse or some other chain restaurant. So why would a Mexican restaurant serve steak, or carne asada, which is nothing but chopped up steak, like fajitas, without a green chili sauce over it? Needless to say, I ordered a side of their vegan green chili to put over my carne asada. The vegan green chili was very average in taste, but more disappointing was its visual appearance. I've never seen green chili with the visual consistency that this place serves it. Store-bought flour tortillas. Need I say more?

Growing up in a Hispanic household, we never ever had cilantro in any dish. My parents grew up in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico, so yes, we know what Mexican food is supposed to look and taste like. Then again, this might be what you get in Tex Mex.

Overall, the food is average. I doubt you will ever get amazing food out of a restaurant like Jose Muldoons. Anyone who thinks otherwise has never enjoyed authentic, homemade Mexican food. Either that or they've had one too many margaritas. I would never, ever, even consider taking my parents to this place. And that to me, tells me everything I need to know about a restaurant that serves "Mexican" food.

However, if you want great service coupled with Mexican food that is consistent for your palate, kind of like what McDonald's did for hamburgers, then this is the...

Well normally this place is pretty good well the Powers and Carefree Jose's is good I have never been to the downtown Jose's on Tejon and now probably never will and I will probably stop referring it to my riders as well.

I am and have been an Uber/Lyft driver for the last three (3) years here in the Springs and I have suggested this place to a lot of my fares and I have dropped off a lot of my fares here.

That is more than likely to change after tonight.

Here is the deal and this just happens to be a huge let peeve of mine.

Monday night March 9th at 10:27 pm I call them to place a to go order since I had just googled them and pulled up their info on the website which says more than one place they are open until 11:00 pm the Powers location closes at 10:00pm according to their website but the Tejon location the website says open till 11:00pm so I was surprised to here Evan or Ivan or something like that tells me they have been closed for awhile and I said your website says you close at 11:00 and he tells me that is wrong so I told him that if that's the case he should pass it on to his manager that they should really have that changed to. 10:00 he told me he would get someone on that for sure.

The only thing on the door at the Tejon local is it says "Dinner starts nightly at 4pm" no closing time anywhere for any day of the week.

Now, if you really close at 10pm then change the website so it's accurate so people like myself that happen to be craving some Jose's don't get in their car and drive from the Powers and Constitution area of town all the way downtown thinking your open when your not and wasting my time and gas for nothing, not cool at all. I was even being really nice and I called while I was headed that way to go ahead and place my order so it would be ready when I got there and so they could get out of there at 11pm. I am not one of those people that show up 2 minutes before you close and order a big meal and then sit there eating it an hour past your closing time so have the same courtesy and make sure you correct hours are listed where a person would go to see what your hours are.

Now the reason I am going on about this is because I have had the same issue with other businesses closing five or ten minutes early and I'm sorry but not sorry if it says your open until whatever then your open until that time and not a minute early period!!!

I pull up to the store and head up to the door at ten minutes tell and the guy behind the glass door says oh we're closed man and I said no your not you have ten minutes before you close all because they can't stand their job so much that they take it upon themselves to just close up when they feel like it and that is just BS.

So if you can't tell I didn't and still don't believe Evan, Ivan or Ian or whatever his name is I think he lied right to my face over the phone because he didn't want to have to stay past closing which with me calling ahead that wouldn't have been the case or at least not from me.

Now if I am wrong and someone from the GM, regional manager or up can confirm that their website is not correct and they really do close at 10 pm on Mondays then I will be more than happy to remove this rating all together.

But if I was lied to and you really do close at 11pm like your website says then an apology would be a good start face to face with the guy...

Update:I WANT to love Jose muldoons, especially as a native to Colorado but unfortunately, especially after my last visit I just can't. Their food is absolutely horrible. The Bloody Mary alone is a joke. The flavors in the food, like where does this "authentication" come from? I get better Mexican food at the fast food Mexican drive thru restaurants. Unfortunately true but serious.

Such a staple, and I can no longer understand why!

Waitstaff is mediocre. When asked about the "veggies" in the Bloody Mary and if they are served with such the reply was "not usually. No. " I asked which "NO, or not usually?!" She then offered to bring some olives without actually answering. Is this representative of laziness of staff, lack of directive/ consistency?

Lesson one. Don't go here for the drinks. Not even the 1/2 price margaritas are worth it. You get a better embellished Bloody Mary from the casinos in Cripple Creek. And by better when a Bloody Mary served with zero garnish even a single olive will top it.

Lesson two: the food is not worth it either. They're 50 years in the making and a staple here in Colorado Springs but do not deserve that IMO. You want better Mexican food, check out my other reviews. Save yourself the time and money. Sure at this point all you're paying for is the location. Not a single thing more.

If you're looking for the worst Mexican restaurant and drinks, here you have it folks.

Wanna change my mind...change your menu, be on point and put effort into the drinks and food. Refine your idea of authentic. In the meantime I'll be at an establishment that can add those little splendors to a drink, yet alone the food.

2years ago: Very unimpressed with the food. Service was not that great either. And if you LOVE an extremely overpowering lime flavor in your rice you will love theirs, I personally do not. The enchilada sauce taste like it’s out of a can, and not good. The grilled chicken used seemed like it’s the pre cooked, frozen chicken fajitas you buy in a bag at the store. I do not feel their is any authenticity in there dishes, except for the rice which was overboard with the amount of lime in it. And the chili rellano was another disappointment.

What was good? The $2 beef taco and the beans.

The service was not good either. Although we were sat immediately (made a reservation) it was a while before our waiter came over for drinks. I had to even ask if he was our waiter because of the lack of introduction and the time it took, I thought maybe he was helping out waiter out. Nope. He was the waiter.

Other menu items sounds very tasty but I don’t think I’d return to...