Salas Urban Cantina — Restaurant in Lawton

We visited the restaurant on a Saturday around 3:30 p.m., drawn in by the appealing atmosphere and unique building design. The large windows and elevated bar area gave the place a cool "urban cantina" or dockside vibe. The potential for a great experience was definitely there.

Unfortunately, the poor management and service completely overshadowed the inviting atmosphere. The issues began from the moment we sat down.

We decided to have a seat at the bar, it quickly became clear that the bartender was not an experienced waitress. We waited an unusually long time for everything, including basics like chips, salsa, silverware, and napkins, which arrived long after our drinks. (They weren't busy at all. No one else was seated in the bar area and the rest of the restaurant maybe had 4 tables)

My margarita, "Perfect Margarita", was not made as described on the menu, very disappointing. Also, the glass was too large, resulting in a drink that was mostly sugary mixer with very little liquor. I couldn't even finish it. NOT THE PERFECT MARGARITA!

The food was even worse. My "Shrimp Vera Cruz" (menu description and photos of what was served below) was a COMPLETE FAILURE! Inatead of being topped with the advertised cheese sauce, it was buried under a thick, greasy layer of melted cheddar cheese. The cheese was melted for so long that it cooked the rice underneath, making it crunchy. And the grease cooked out of the cheese and flooded the rice beneath. The shrimp was inedibly salty, covered in a heavy, overly salty seasoning that had no flavor. Don't let the green garnish fool you, I ADDED THAT! It helped the appearance, but no amount of garnish can help with the amount of salt and grease!

My friend ordered the steak street taco's. Why wouldn't we? The place has the SELF PROCLAIMED * WORLD'S BEST TACO'S* HOWEVER, They were in fact the WORST street taco's either of us had ever had. Onions and cilantro weren't diced finely enough. Meat was grissely, greasy and tough. Tortillas were over sized vs. the meat/veg portions. Tortillas were thick and cold, not steamed or grilled at all. Even Salas's own provided picture of tacos when you Google them shows what I'm talking about with the tortillas. AND WHAT'S WITH THE VINEGAR??? Good tacos don't need vinegar!! Smh!

The free queso had a strange, gelatinous texture and the chips were too thin to handle a dip without breaking.

While our waitress was polite and did try to take care of us, the service was disorganized and the quality of the food was unacceptable.

This restaurant has a fantastic location and building (though in ill repair, has potential), but it's clear there are significant issues with management, food quality, and service. Without serious changes, I don't see how they...

Update 01 APR 2021:

So decided to give salas another chance. Unfortunately they didn't fail to let us down again. Wide ordered 15 dollar fajitas; 3 pieces of shrimp, and 3 "bites" of steak (see photo of to go box). Really...? My puffy tacos were nothing special, and, to the advice of the manager who responded to my first review over a year ago, we tried the queso blanco on the menu. Well, it wasn't worth paying for; and my statement on no mexican places in lawton are worth visiting still stands. JUST GO TO LAS MARGERITAS. Then tell me I'm wrong. You'll understand.

Finally, to top it all off, they didn't give us the chips we ordered so we had to eat the queso blanco (which I would describe as gelatinous cream of chicken soup texture with chorizo on it) with our own chips at home. Our friend ordered take out and had missing items as well.

Original Review:

If you're looking for real Mexican food go to Las margaritas in Elgin. 'nough said.

Let me start this out by saying don't get your hopes up for authentic Mexican food here. They have both Mexican and American items (labeled that way) but they are all American feeling. The "queso" is just like every other Mexican place in Lawton -- trash. I don't understand why there is an entire city of competing "Mexican" restaurants and not one of them can make actual queso dip. They serve what I can only describe as canned yellow cheese product watered down with some bland vegetable stock resulting in a yellow, watery, bland, waste of space on the table. Seriously people. There's something wrong with this town (ok there's a lot wrong with it but still) if one place can't get it even close. As far as the rest of the food goes, it was ok. Some of the people at my table ordered Mexican but I ordered shrimp and grits and...

This place was terrible! I wish I could give it no stars. Everything seems to be premade and makes it impossible to change anything as simple as fajita chicken instead of shredded chicken in a chimichanga. Then it's just thrown in a deep fryer when ordered and then onto a plate with nothing else, no sauce or anything. Everything was grossly bland and smothered in way too much cheese to the point that my enchilada turned to mush from the cheese grease, so much that I didn't even know what was on my plate. The chili rellano didn't look like any I've ever seen. It looked like a mozzarella stick from a box and was mushy cause it only had greasy cheese in it and was thrown on top of my beans. You can tell the beans come from a can and the tortillas straight from a mission package. The prices were way too high for such terrible food and my husband was seriously disappointed with the beer selection, they were out of everything he wanted and when he finally found one they had, his 8 dollar beer was just given to him in the can. They couldn't even put it in a glass... I know first world problems but we've been to plenty of Mexican resuraunts and they have never ever just handed a can of beer to its customer. All in all this place seems to buy everything from Walmart and make it the day before then charge an absurd amount for it. I never leave reviews on places cause it's not all that serious but we both wanted to try this place for awhile an we're so disappointed. I seriously don't know how this place is always busy with such high reviews and my standards are low when it comes to Mexican food, I mean I'll eat tacos off a truck and from the stripes on Gore for goodness sake. I'll stick to Teds and Los Tres Amigos when in The mood...