Tacos El Norte — Restaurant in Lake Zurich

Used to enjoy this place for years, convenient to visit too being just few minutes away from my residence. Over the past 3-4 years or so the quality has gone down in this place significantly needless to say a price increase across the board- I do understand the price increase, there needs to be an adjustment for inflation however when you put that in conjunction to quality degradation that is when things turn the wrong direction. As a result I have become less of a frequent customer comparing to almost twice a week visits, I went down to maybe once a month. In hopes the place has made some adjustments, I keep returning periodically to be disappointed yet again. For Example: Ordered Pappi Burrito- the biggest one they got, never had an issues say few years ago, it was always tightly wrapped where I could actually hold it in my hand and it won't fall apart, ingredients in it were also proportional not just a sloppy mess. What you get now and this has happened three times in a row is sloppy wrapping, can't even hold a damn thing in your hand, considering the size and weight of this huge burrito, quality wrapping is of the essence, ingredients seem like just carelessly slapped inside and disproportional, seems 90% is just meet which is a shame to what it used to be and to top it all of, I have now twice requested to add shrimp to burrito, of course willing to pay for extra ingredient, each time I was advised no problem, they do have shrimp that they use on their other plates , both times ended up unwrapping at home with no shrimp to be found inside. Not only that is poor quality ,but its going down to poor service as well. Place went from Great to good, from good to average, now I consider it below average. Competition near by will probably make it even worse, Taco Chido just opened up. Step up or you will...

Friendly waitresses but a little slow. To be fair they were busy in the front with pickup orders. Chips and salsa were fairly typical although the salsa had a little kick which was nice. They advertised "queso fundido" as the special. This was quite literally cheese (I suspect something like Velveeta) melted in the microwave. Had no spice/flavor; salsa verde would at least be an attempt at adding flavor. I ordered fajitas and it was brought out on a plate along with the rice, beans, and lettuce (with a dollop of sour cream). Again the fajita meat/veggie mixture was on the plate with everything else, not brought out sizzling on cast iron. It's possible that the cast iron is "Americanized" Mexican food (I really don't know) but I would've liked the fajita mixture to be spiced better to make up for the lack of presentation. It was bland. Not bad, just bland. The beans and rice were very good. Again the wait staff was very friendly, a little slow, and the food was mediocre and on the bland side. Restaurant appeared clean. Rating for this restaurant is a little high. A solid 3 stars. Up the rating by improving your queso recipe and use more spices in your fajita meat. I was told by a friend they found the food here...

We chose Tacos El Norte to cater our sons 4th birthday party. We ordered 50 steak tacos, 50 chicken tacos, 50 cheese enchiladas, rice, beans, guacamole, chips/salsa, and all the toppings. A few days before our event I wanted to add some veggies. Vedra was kind and accommodating, something we greatly appreciated seeing as the event was only a few days out.

When my husband picked up the food it was in a large warming container. We were told it would lose 1 degree an hour; since we picked up at 3:30, we figured it would lose 2-3 degrees by the time we served at 5:30-6:30. When I say the food was piping hot at 6:00 I mean it! We even had to use oven mitts to pull everything out. The whole house was filled with the aroma and guests began to dive in immediately.

They were incredibly generous with their portions and not one person left the event hungry. Our entire party was blown away by the quality and quantity of the food. Working with Vedra was wonderful and we couldn’t be more thankful for everything their catering provided.

We will definitely chose Tacos El Norte to...