Paco's Tacos Cantina — Restaurant in Kauai

I hate writing this review. My family and I met the owners son Francisco and he was very nice, after a conversation with him, I asked where the best place on the island was for fish tacos. He admitted the financial interest, but insisted that their recipe was fantastic. I compared reviews between Fillos and Pacos and we decided to try Fillos out instead.

Fillos food and service was amazing. After dining in, I asked the host the same question I asked Francisco and he also said Pacos Tacos. Now I felt stupid. Two days later, my wife and I get family to watch our two year old son so that we can experience Pacos Tacos together, albeit with our 5 week old son in arm.

We arrive at this location at 8:45pm, 15 minutes before they close, and walk in to find all the chairs on the tables and one woman sweeping the floor and 3-4 people buzzing around behind her. I hesitantly walk in and ask if we can order and she says 'sorry were closing early tonight,' End of conversation. Cool, I guess? It was a Sunday, I can understand wanting to get home early on a sunday night if its been a slow day maybe or particularly stressful, though if it were me, Id serve until closing and be ashamed of myself unless it were something absolutely important. 'Well try and get the family to watch the kids again before we have to leave' I said to my wife.

The next day, we are very lucky, brother in law wants to watch the infant, mother in law wants to watch the toddler, as long as we do a grocery run for the family first, theyll give us the opportunity to have a date night to ourselves. We walk in on a monday night, 8:30pm, plenty of time left to eat 🤬🤬🤬 tacos, and what are we again greeted with? All the chairs on tables, and the hostess taking the order of a couple outside on the patio. Different woman this time. I wait for her as she takes their order and as she finishes, she spots us. I ask, 'can we please get a table, Ive met the owners son and he assured us that you serve the best tacos on the island.' 'Ohh' she said, 'Sorry, were closing early tonight, theres only two of us, but we can do take out.' Well that doesnt 🤬🤬🤬 help us sit down together as husband and wife and enjoy your 🤬🤬🤬 food, does it? Im sorry, Im still heated over this whole thing, you try so hard to make something happen that you truly want, and these incompetent people just dont care at all. I planned on paying and tipping large with cash, but instead chose credit with minimum tip.

After another woman walks up, offers to take our order, and takes a phone call order in the middle of our order, the original hostess sees were just standing there and takes the order from us. I ask her, since she refuses to host our date, if theres a place nearby that would serve as a good place to eat outside. She tells us of a beach not far away that 'might be good, idk'

Ten minutes later the tacos show up, I ordered shrimp, grilled fish, and baja fish and they were good but I would never in my life choose to come here again, perhaps another location? And I disagree with the host from Fillos, Fillos fish tacos are better. At least better than this place. Also the beach she told us to goto in the dark was filthy and swarming with homeless all around us as we tried to eat our tacos in the darkness.

Francisco, my friend, idk if good help is hard to find on the island but you need to make some serious changes at this location with your wait staff. Or dont, idk. Maybe just change your closing time to 8:30 since 9 is apparently too...

This is going to be a long review due to the negative experience we had. Our family came here for Dinner, we had someone walk down in person to get placed on a waiting list, they told us it would be about 30 minutes and they would call us when ready. After waiting an hour we decided to walk back down and see why it was taking so long. We waited another 15 minutes before we were seated.

We were seated at our table for 10 people, they only had 2 bowls of salsa and 2 baskets of chips for that many people. They told us each refill is $4 for more chips and salsa. ( I have never been to a Mexican Restaurant where they charge for refills)

My fiancé and I ordered two blended margaritas as well as my brother, and my sister’s fiancé ordered a Mai Tai. These drinks took about 30 minutes for us to get them and they hardly had any alcohol to them. His Mai Tai didn’t have any alcohol in it after 4 of us trying it to see if we could taste any, no one could.

When it came to food, we all ordered food and it took them about an hour and a half for them to finally bring out our food and when they did they left out 2 people and they didn’t get their food until everyone had already ate. While we were waiting 3 tables were able to sit down, order and get their food, eat and pay before we were able to.

I ordered the 3 Carne asada tacos, these were good, but not the best I’ve had and they were super over priced. My fiancé ordered the Fajitas they were good, but also over priced. When we went to pay the bill was $84 for the two of us! For just food and one drink.

There was a huge bug dead on the floor by our table, and after 3 employees seeing it the 3rd person just kicked it underneath the other table. And lastly I sliced my toe open on their table and when asked if they had a bandaid they said they didn’t have a...

Should have went to Taco Bell instead...

Ordered nachos and a seafood burrito along with churros. Just a side note, they charge you more in the restaurant than it says on the menu, but you know what, that’s fine. This review is regarding the food.

The nachos did not seem fresh as the cheese was rock solid when we received it.

The burrito looked much promising and the bread was really good, but we found small pieces of steak in our seafood burrito (which should consist of shrimp and fish only). This isn’t reassuring at all because it means that they aren’t careful when making the food, especially for people who avoid certain meats.

Lastly, the churros. Apparently they had ran out of churros and offered us a slice of flan instead. We agreed and the cashier took a tiny piece of flan out of the fridge. When we got home, we realized that the Tupperware was labeled with a date that said 02-25. Meaning it was made in February! We ordered this food on May 30, which is over 3 months later. Regardless, we tried the flan, and it was super bitter (rotten I’m assuming), so we threw it away.

Seeing that they served us a 3 month old rotten piece of flan and the presence of steak in our seafood burrito and the glue like cheese in the nachos makes me question the “freshness” and “cleanliness “ of this restaurant. Save yourself the disappointment and...