Mercado Juarez Cafe — Restaurant in Fort Worth

My Girlfriend & I went to this place out of curiosity on our anniversary. This place was disgusting & disappointing from the very moment we walked in.

First the waitress that lets you know if a table was ready or not. Looked dead inside and clearly wasn’t in the best of moods. Kinda rude. We waited for like ten minutes waiting on a table when there was clean, small empty tables ready. Then the waitress that walked us to our table was in a grumpy mood as well and literally slammed our menus down!

May I remind you that we arrived two hours before the restaurant closes. So there wasn’t really a lot of excuses to experience what we experienced.

Now on to the food. It was disgusting and by far the worst thing about the night. Our salsa was warm. Like they purposely warmed up the salsa in the microwave. This my first time getting served warm salsa. Maybe I’m uncultured. Someone please let me know if I’m uncultured and If warm salsa is common. Next My sprite was horrible. It tasted like tap water. My drink somehow someway just like the food needed more salt. More on the food. It was disgusting and tasteless. Salt is your best friend yet your worst enemy. Because salt somehow someway made the food taste even worse! And I wasn’t a salt fiend tonight. I straight up salt babed my food. Sprinkling the perfect amount of salt.

My Appetizer was made better by lunch ladies while I was in school. The Nachos tasted like they had velveeta Kraft cheese smothered on top. Literally the worst cheese I’ve had. I asked for Fajita nachos and I was brought ground meat nachos. That didn’t taste like ground meat. I’m pretty sure Jeffery dahmer was in that kitchen mixing up human organs in that meat. Although I imagine that Jeffery was out of seasoning because my White girlfriend seasons her ground beef better! The nachos were greasy and tasteless. If you look in the pictures Included you can literally see the ocean of grease.

Next I had sour cream enchiladas as my main course. No exaggeration. No jokes. Literally the worst enchiladas I’ve had period. Pre made frozen enchiladas are better. I was super disappointed at my enchiladas because I love enchiladas. It’s what I always order at Mexican restaurants. My enchiladas were dry and flavorless inside and out. The enchiladas got worse as I ate them. I couldn’t finish my food. I only took a couple bites out of my food.

My Girlfriend had a Chile Relleno or whatever it’s called. Her food was again not good and flavorfuless according to her. It’s was so greasy. She says that the breading became soggy after a minute. She also said that the outer breading was too thick. Just look at the pictures you’ll see. I had to stop by home to let her throw up before going somewhere else to eat.

The overall restaurant was very unclean. The staff were all mad and you could tell. Do not spend your money here. I don’t write reviews very often but I just had to write this review because words cannot describe how upset I was spending $49 for badly made food, so bad that we had to leave the restaurant hungry and go somewhere else. My girlfriend throwing up on our anniversary was not what I had in mind to celebrate our milestone. Don’t let this restaurant ruin your...

What Happened To Mercardo Juarez ? We use to visit this restaurant a couple of times a month when Don Bowden was the owner. We were loyal patrons from 1983 to 2014 when we moved from the D/FW area. We knew that he had sold each location to his management teams after a family tragedy. The restaurants always seemed to keep the same standards for quality and service after they were sold. We recently moved back to the D/FW area and decided it was time to go have a great meal at Mercardo Juarez Fort Worth. When we pulled up at 12:45 PM and there was not a line out the door, we thought "rut roh". There was always an hour-long waiting list on a Sunday after noon. We walked in and there were about 20 tables full of people and no wait. Although it took 8-10 minutes for the host to see that we were waiting. He finally seated us. Our server wandered by after about 5-6 minutes. She asked for our drink order. My wife inquired about a flavored Margarita. She said all we have is frozen or on the rocks. Like are you stupid or what. We passed. We placed out orders starting with a cup of tortilla soup and a cup of queso. We went ahead and placed our meal order. My wife requested Chicken Fajitas with double rice, no beans and a side of sour cream. I ordered my old favorite Carne Asada. We finally received the chips and salsa after about another 5 minutes. Good thing we got the chips and salsa when we did. We never received our appetizers or meals for the next 25 to 30 minutes. They brought out or Tortilla soup and queso with the meal (ice cold). My wife did not get her double rice, no beans and sour cream. We brought it to the server's (Raquel) attention. She said "oh" and then ignored us. My order was not even what I ordered. I refused it and told the server "Never mind". I ate the cold tortilla soup and queso that was brought with the meal. We never got a beverage or salsa refill. We had to stop the person handing out chips and salsa to the new patrons or we wouldn't have gotten it. What is with these little tiny salsa containers ? We waited and waited for the server to bring the corrections for my wife's order. She finally went ahead and ate one fajita. When the server never showed up with the corrections we decided to give up and leave. We finally flagged down the server and asked for a to go box and our check. She came back with the to go box, but no check. After flagging her down again 6-7 minutes later she finally got our check. This was absolutely the worst $60.00 we have ever spent on a meal. Once we were back in our car, we Googled the reviews for Mercardo Juarez. We never thought of doing it before we arrived. It has always been GREAT for so many years. This is when we found out that Marcos Paslay had recently purchased the restaurants. If this is how they do business, we will never be back. What a shame. This place is a dive now with terrible...

I’ve been eating at this location for over 30 years. Went in last night. Was told it would take 30 minutes to be seated, so we waited outside for about 10 minutes before heading back in. They had already called us, but went ahead and seated us next.

3 of us, we wait about 10 minutes before the waitress brings menus and takes drink order (2 Dr Pepper, 1 beer). Returns a few minutes later with 1 beer, 1 Dr Pepper, takes our order including an appetizer and says she’ll be right back with the other Dr Pepper. 30 minutes go by and I have finished my Dr Pepper, the beer is almost done, and our other person still has no drink.

I find a manager and they eventually bring out 1 Dr Pepper and at that point I say “I need a refill too and the beer drinker wants another as well. Oh, and I hope the appetizer comes out soon, BEFORE dinner.”

We’ve now been there an hour, we got a partial round of drinks, followed by the completion of that. Still no refills, still no appetizer and now our food comes out.

2 orders were fajitas, one with NO GUACAMOLE as I am allergic. They set it on the table, and there is guacamole on my plate. I tell them they need to take it back, bring a new plate without guacamole and I’d like sour cream as well. She runs off. And then we notice we have no tortillas for our fajitas. And then the manager (who I had spoken with multiple times at this point) brings our appetizer out. I tell him that’s not cool, and our fajitas are now getting cold waiting on tortillas and a plate with no guacamole but with the cheese and pico.

He then takes our food back to be heated up again, which means it’s now been cooked twice. Not ideal. After all the problems we had, after having to pester them for every little thing, he then comes over and says he’s coming the appetizer.

That was insulting. Worst service I’ve ever received at that restaurant. They were under staffed yet 3 managers stood around up front, literally doing nothing and talking amongst themselves for the better part of the 2 hours we were seated waiting on food and eating. The food was over cooked and the service was terrible. It’s gonna be a LONG time before I consider eating there again.

Tl;dr:

Waited almost 2 hours to eat, our meal and appetizer were brought out a piece at a time, out of order and ordering anything to drink took over 30 minutes each time to get a refill. Terrible service,...