Condado Tacos — Restaurant in Huntsville

I was hoping for a good experience here because I was excited about this place -- anywhere that's open later than 10 in Huntsville is welcome.

Unfortunately, my first visit was pretty frustrating.

I arrived late on a Friday at 10 PM looking to pick something up for dinner. I was greeted by a fun, open-air space with wacky decor. I think the scene is supposed to be like a D&D scenario brought to life -- I spied a D20, some goblins, and a dragon painted on the walls. The nerdiness factor is well-suited for Huntsville. The space was clean, too, except for a few tables that hadn't been bussed yet. But the bartender was sweeping as I walked in, so that's good.

The ambiance is fun (if you like loud and whimsical) and the attitude/demeanor of the waitstaff was lovely. A host directed me to the bar to place my to-go order. He was friendly and personable, as was the bartender. The bartender worked to explain the menu to me and was very accommodating to my requests. She also was very helpful to the other guests that I observed while I waited.

But oh yeah...about the wait.

The restaurant wasn't half full when I walked in so they weren't crazy busy.

I placed my order, per the ticket, at 10:20 PM. Two tacos and a side order of cheese dip. Not that complicated, but it wasn't in my hands until 11 PM. 40 minutes felt insane for a pretty small order, at a relatively non-crazy time, especially when the bartender told me it'd only be about a 10 minute wait. She apologized to me for said wait multiple times and also offered to make me a drink while I waited, but I didn't want a drink ($$ and I was planning on driving home as soon as I got my food) so there was nothing to do but play on my phone for 3/4 of an hour.

When I did finally get my order, the bartender said she didn't think they'd remembered my order of cheese dip and so she went back and got me a cup in like 2 minutes flat. Which I certainly appreciated her attention to detail (imagine how mad I would've been to get home without my cheese dip, lol), but if it took her such a short time to get the dip, then the 40 minute wait time was literally just for two tacos. Oof.

Anyway, when I got home I found that there was actually a cheese dip in my to-go box in addition to the cheese dip the bartender got for me, so I wound up with two. I'm honestly not sure which size dip i was "supposed" to get. Judging by what I paid, the larger one that the bartender got me was the correct one (meaning the kitchen did give me some dip but it was too small), but I'm not familiar enough with the menu/ordering process to say for sure. I chose to interpret it as a sort of recompense for my wait.

The food was sadly...meh. I got the Lucy's Fire taco and the Southwest Midwest taco. They were both chicken tacos and to my palette wound up tasting pretty similarly, which could be my bad. I liked the Lucy's Fire better -- it had more flavor, mostly due to the firecracker (dorito) shell. The southwest midwest was super bland and also the salsa for that one got particularly soggy on the ride home. These are the large tacos that have two shells (one soft, one hard) so the taco itself didn't get too crazy soggy, but there were certainly some over-wet bites. I will say the chicken inside both tacos, while low on flavor, at least had a pleasant texture and appeared to be reasonably high quality chicken.

But bland was honestly a running theme. Outside the few jalapeños and sprinkle of paprika on top, the cheese dip was bland and congealed quickly.

Blaaah. Just a frustrating experience overall. My true sentiment is more along the lines of a 2.5/5, but the wait was so egregious that I'm leaving it at a 2. I would maybe be willing to try again if a friend wanted to go for drinks or something, but I'd definitely want to eat in so I could get a better feel for what the food is like fresh. Hopefully, if and when that time comes around, they'll be able to support a food turnaround faster than they did on my first visit....

Hello, Mike and Lacey. I unfortunately ate at your location earlier today. First off, the food was extremely inconsistent with temperature. It’s as if you took part of my steak and shrimp off at different intervals. Mike was made aware and he promptly took the bowl off.

It could’ve been salvaged if the waitress, Lacey, knew how to do her job. Here is a description for the job of a waitress.

“Waiters or Waitresses are responsible for taking orders and serving food and beverages to guests. They play an important role in guest satisfaction as they are also responsible for checking on customers to ensure that they are enjoying their meals and take action to correct any problems.“

Not only did you not check on us after the bowl was taken off, you deliberately ignored me. I was sitting with a drink menu in my hand and she would just walk by/ignore me.

When she brought the check I asked if it was customary for waitresses at the establishment to ignore customers with menus in their hand?

She asked if I did anything to get her attention.

I told her I did not work there. It was not my responsibility to flag her down to do her job. She got highly offended when I told her “YOU work here. I do not.” - she went and cried to Mike.

Mike also was talked to by another customer about the incident. The only thing wrong he could tell me was “you could’ve used different wording when you asked if it was customary to ignore customers with menus in their hands?”

I told him that I may could have worded it differently, but shes still a horrible waitress and doesn’t know her job. He said he's known he a long time personally. That is a RED FLAG. You already take her side before finding out what actually happened.

Lacey, if you want a tip from everyone..Do your job for everyone. You do not get to be a baby once you receive no tip when you wanted me to snap my fingers for you to appear. Learn how to do your job. You’re sensitive and soft. Grow thicker skin if being reminded YOU work there and not the customers sets you off in such a tizzy.

Do you think you’re owed a tip just for existing? You have a face for the radio. Don’t try acting cute with people.

Also, Mike, learn how to look another man in the eyes when speaking. You were side eyeing me like a pigeon. You know you’re in the wrong because even YOU said I shouldn’t have to snap my fingers for her to come. That waving down a waitress only should happen when it’s busy. 4 tables is DEAD for a restaurant.

What size helmet would Lacey fit in and is she...

Took my family here after looking for a place close to Big Spring International Park downtown. We wanted to grab a bite to eat and then explore the park. My wife, who isn't a big fan of Mexican food picked the place -- and I am so glad she did!

We arrived in time or lunch and were promptly seated. There were quite a few open tables when we arrived that progressively filled up while we are - a testament to how popular the place is with patrons. The ambiance is great -- walls of windows that let in a bunch of natural light and make the place feel airy with nice views of the lake and downtown park area. The interior decor definitely caters to college age kids and older nerds - you'll find sword and board fantasy, dungeons and dragons dice and other fantasy figures adorning the walls. The music selection is electric and not too loud and overall it's a good place to hang out and drink a few beers and eat a few tacos. Service was fine, not super attentive but not bad by any means, definitely used to college kids hanging out a while and eating vs trying to flip tables at the cyclic rate.

Price seems a little steep at first glance -- tacos range in price from $4.45 to $6.10 per taco with no sides, while a lot of street taco places charge $4~ per taco. But these tacos are much bigger than street tacos so they're a decent value all said. I ate 3 tacos with some chips and was extremely full afterward. Some things are expensive ($4.50 for a half bowl of Mexican Street corn, $1 for a togo sized container of sour cream etc) but overall I felt the price was fair for the quality of food received.

I ordered three tacos: Purple Haze (a sweet Korean pork taco), the Heater (a steak taco with tequila lime marinade and pickled jalapeno) and Braised and Confused (a braised beef taco with jicama and pickled red onions) in order to try out multiple types of meat. Spoiler alert: they were all DELICIOUS, even the Korean taco I was iffy about. I also tried the queso and chips, Mexican Street corn and an Orange Glazed Chicken Taco (honestly the worst of the ones I tried) as well as the kids chicken quesidilla (different than the usual half hearted attempt, actually pretty decent.

Without hesitation, definitely a place to try if you're in the area. I'll definitely return and hopefully pick up some cheaper beers during their happy hour specials -- great...