Santanas Mexican Grill — Restaurant in El Cajon

Hands down, my favorite fast food Mexican restaurant. Some of these reviews are very critical, but I love the food here. They invented the California burrito (someone said they were small--they're a full pound of meat, cheese, fries, and pico de gallo. Only fat unappreciative Americans could think a 1 lb. burrito is small). Their carne asada is outstanding. I recommend the very large "Tecate Carne Asada Quesadilla" (ask for it with the sour cream and guacamole inside--it's bigger than the California burrito). Just fantastic.

I'd drive 50 miles to get this food (and sometimes do, as it's not available in Orange County). I noticed some of the Santana's locations have changed their names to Fresh MXN Food. Should be the same food inside as Santana's. Their prices have gone up in the last 14 years since I first discovered them in '99, but it's still very tasty and very worth the price (Cal burritos used to be like $3.85, now I think they're upwards of $5). But the prices are comparable to Chipotle, which...

Update: beans have been terrible lately, the cheese tastes like fabuloso. I don’t know if that’s what you guys are cleaning with, but you need to cover the food when you’re cleaning because I should not be tasting chemicals in my food!

Old review: I come here so often, the beans can be a hit or miss which is lame because I usually like to get a bean and cheese burrito. But occasionally I’ll get carne asada burrito which is good 90% of the time. Sometimes I’ll get the carne asada nachos or fries which are also delicious, can’t go wrong with their chorizo burritos either, and the rolled tacos are consistently good. The prices have gone up a lot over the years, but for the most part the flavor and quality of the food stays the same and that’s what’s important. I do thing the credit card surge charge is pretty crazy, the food is already more expensive than ever, why charge that credit...

A serious improvement for a location.

This place had a reputation as terrible years ago. Now a clean location, fresh ingredients, and better staff it was totally worth my time.

Location: great location, ample parking and drive through 24/7

Food: food was decent and the freshness of the ingredients was something of note. The hot sauce was pretty weak though. Portion size was ok/average.

Service: employee was nice and service was fast considering 1 guy for both drive through and dine in and cooking.

Ambiance: whoa that's alot of tables. The removed all inside tables and lined all the walls with booths. This leaves a wide open. Space in the middle, for dancing? Plus tons of outside dining. The look is much nicer amd clean but so much unused space makes it feel awkward.

The salsa bar looks nice. Some great grilled chillies but the sauces were weak and no...