Jefe | Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Lake Oswego

My Husband and I had high hopes when we went to Jefe for the first time for my birthday in December. The atmosphere is trendy, warm and inviting, reminiscent of Matador in NW and the menu seems well thought out. This is where the bliss ends for me. Although the night was not a total bust, the food (when it finally arrived) was bland in flavor and lacking a certain something. My husbands tacos came out wrong and we never got our salsa for our chips that we ordered. (On a side note- having to pay $2.95+- for a small bowl of chips and salsa at a Mexican restaurant seems avaricious). The margaritas were flavorless and although they boasted about their great tequila selections, they were out of the first few brands we asked for. None of what we experienced was either great nor terrible, just simple and unremarkable.

That being said, we knew that they hadn't been open for long, just over a year I believe and we decided that we would not give up on them quite yet since there seemed to be so much potential. I'm sorry to say but after our second visit this past weekend, I think we may have been wrong. We arrived during happy hour, about 4:30 in the afternoon on Saturday. They were relatively slow and there was plenty of open seating. Despite the lack of a crowd, our server seemed flustered and rushed. We ordered drinks first and when she came back she brought us napkins and asked again what we would like to drink. We let her know politely that we would just like the margaritas and the two shots of tequila we had already ordered and she said, "oh yeah!!" and rushed away without further comment. About ten minutes later, we were served the worst margaritas I think we have ever tasted. When we asked about the tequila shots that were still missing, she said, "oh you wanted shots? I just poured extra tequila in the one margarita!"

We considered it a mild bump in the road but no biggie, right? So we moved on, and ordered happy hour. After an uncomfortably long amount of time, our order finally came out but was delivered to the wrong group initially. Again, the salsa for our chips that we ordered never came. The calamari was just so-so and the house made arbol "hot" sauce is anything but. The ceviche tastes like they boiled everything and dumped pico de gallo on top. The Barbacoa tacos were the only part that either one of us enjoyed and my husbands drink remained empty throughout the entire meal even though he had requested a beer several times. We finally received it just before we were about to leave.

When we were ready to go, I had to flag down another server since ours was flitting around in a panic elsewhere. I handed them my card before the check was ever delivered just so we could get on and going. Our server let us know when she dropped off the tab to sign that she had removed the charge for the messed up margarita, which I appreciated. Although it was still a less than ideal experience, we talked about maybe waiting a few more months and giving it a final 3rd try just to see if any improvement had been made. This notion was quickly dismissed however, when we checked our bank account later only to find an extraneous charge of almost $70 from Jefe in addition to the separate charge for our meal.

Sadly, I think we have to be done with this place. Too many mistakes, less than attentive service and mediocre food. I hope that they figure it out for themselves because it really seems to have so much potential at first glance. Good luck if you go, hopefully your experience is better than both of...

I can only give this restaurant 2 stars based on the ambiance of the restaurant, everything else fell short. We were there to celebrate our mom's birthday and had a reservation for 12 people. We were seated quickly and the waitress came right over to get our drink orders, but that was about the only time we saw her the entire 2 hours we were there. The drinks took forever once we ordered, the chips (which they charge $4 for) came out cold and the basket was barely full. Once we did order that also took a long time and at least half of us had cold food. The black beans were cold, the filling inside the chili relleno was cold. We were never offered refills on any of our drinks including water. We eventually flagged someone down and she said she would get our waitress - never happened. We had brought a cake in for our mom's birthday and were charged a $15 fee - all they did were bring us plates, the cake was already cut. Then to top all this off, we received one bill (we knew going in that parties over 6 were put on one bill), however, we were informed by our waitress that we must decipher who had what and put our initials next to each item and then we had to add up the total. This took an extremely long time to do with such a large party and by the time we were done we were ready to leave and not come back.

Long story short, this is a restaurant in Lake Oswego that attempts to be pretentious with over priced food for what they call "authentic Mexican food." There is nothing authentic about the food and it is certainly not worth the price point they are charging. I have had better food for 1/2 the price at food trucks. Save your money and go somewhere with actual authentic Mexican food, better service and food...

This was a beautiful place and location. Service was bare minimum. Our waitress Michele was hanging out, talking to some friend in her salon days. Two servers twice had to take our drink and food order before getting Michele attention. I asked about the owner to see what inspired this American infused Mexican diner, it appears his name is Clay and was unavailable to give his vision. Food was 6 out of 10. Starting with the food. The long strips of what they call asada looks like brisket and is not easy to eat as you would normal diced tacos de asada, so the 3-4 strips of stake that you are getting in your tacos can go all in one bite leaving you with half a tortilla hanging. The flautas as an appetizer are the huge pictured flour tortillas balls.. this is why I call it American infused because typically flautas are corn rolled into taquito form than deep fried. The flautas were not to my taste, very bland and if it weren’t for the guacamole I probably wouldn’t sent this plate back. The salsa is NOT at all spicy, I talked to a cook and he said because that’s what the owners want.. OWNERS.. but me as a customer.. going to a MEXICAN restaurant, I am going to want spice. The drinks were very plain. They advertise beautiful drinks but maybe i was the one customer they didn’t want to impress 🤷🏻‍♀️. Clay, if you are reading this, amazing location and beautiful inside of a restaurant you have, the food was unfortunately not what we expected or what instagram has for what you offer. I am...