Evelyn’s Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Live Oak

I was in the area and decided to try out Evelyn's MexicanRestaurant, a new mexican restaurant that I had noticed was located in this little business strip center before.

I will make a comment that parking can be difficult, if the little business trip center is busy. In this case, we arrived early for lunch and there was plenty of parking.

We entered, looked around, and found a booth and seated ourselves close to a window. I noticed that there are tables for large parties and the tables for 2. So, there is ample dining space in this restaurant for large groups of people.

A young lady came over to bring us chips and salsa, brought us menus, and take our drink orders. She was very professional, courteous and customer service-oriented. I later found out it was the owner, Evelyn herself, who waited upon us. I thought this was a nice touch and a great way to get in touch with any customers and understand their needs.

Of the 2 sauces brought to the table. I asked, which one was hotter? I prefer a spicier, salsa. Evelyn indicated the red one was the hotter one and the green one was not. I tried both on a chips. The red one took a little bit of time to heat up, but it definitely was warmer than the green sauce. I did not feel either sauce was so hot that you couldn't enjoy the sauce on any food.

Evelyn returned with our teas and took our meal orders. One in my party ordered a Mexican plate, which came with 2 enchiladas, a taco, rice and beans, and I ordered 2 beef enchiladas plate. The beef enchiladas were made with hamburger meat versus beef fajita meat. Note, there is a menu item for the same item with fajita meat.

The menu definitely has ample amount of selection for breakfast, lunch and dinner.Airline specials also as well as dinner specials.

Our food arrived in a timely manner. There wasn't really an extended weight or anything like that. The food was really good, especially for the price point that is put on the amount of food you get.

I am looking forward to returning and trying breakfast.

I will finish by noting that, this is a family run business, and it's been open approximately 2 years. Evelyn is doing a wonderful job, trying to keep her small business alive and growing. This is what's great about living in America, because you get to see new entrepreneurs, start their business and hopefully make it successful one day.

I hope your experience, should you decide to visit this restaurant, is as good or...

Updated review from 4 to 5 stars.

Ate here for the 2nd time February 18th early morning fresh out of work. Service was great. Ordered the barbacoa, carne guisada and cheese. My Tacos were fresh and hot. The flavor was on point . The mop water smell wasn't there any more. This is now my go to spot for tacos. Definitely recommend eating here.

First time eating here was yesterday Feb 5th 2025.

Environment - As soon as I walked in it smelled like old mop water or wet laundry that had been sitting and forgotten in the washer. I did notice in the back they seem to be mopping up a lot of water. So either there was a water leak or they had a mop bucket that needed to be emptied. The restaurant look clean but there was some tables that appeared to be crooked with the tables and benches moved at an angle that took away from the tidiness. The menu on the walls a bit confusing it's hard to read it's written in a marker on a black dry erase board.

Staff- the woman at the cash register was very friendly and helpful. She took my order with no issues and was kind.

The food - Wifey and I ordered six tacos we ordered two bean and cheese tacos, we ordered country sausage potato and egg taco, we ordered potato egg and bacon taco, and we also ordered two chorizo and bean tacos. The flavor on the tacos was really good. The tortilla was soft and thin which is exactly how I prefer my tacos to be. My only complaint regarding the tacos was that they were not hot as they should have been. My wife and I only live 3 minutes away from the restaurant and by the time we got home and ate them which was about 5 minutes from buying them, the tacos were barely warm. I would recommend to the owner to make sure that their tacos are served fresh hot. If my tacos would have been fresh and hot, this would be 5/5 stars even with the mop water smell. These were definitely the most flavorful tacos I've had in Universal City and live oak. I intend to return to this restaurant for my breakfast tacos but I do hope that the owner takes my advice and heats their tacos up better. Adding more moisture to their refried beans would keep them fresher (hotter) longer. Same with any version of their tacos just a little bit of Grease or moisture would keep the tacos hotter much longer.

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My mom was in town from out of state and this place was highly recommended. Unfortunately I was severely underwhelmed. I got the #7 House Specialty and my mom got the Chili Relleno. The rice and beans were room temperature/cold and just so-so in flavor. Maybe they taste better when they are hot or even warm. The flour tortillas were overcooked (on the verge of being burned) and they were very dry, tasted flavorless like cardboard. As for the meat, it was also fairly flavorless and barely warm. I was not impressed at all. I felt like I had wasted my money. On top of that, their high chairs were brand new so they hadn’t attached the straps yet although they had been open for business for a couple of weeks already. My 18 month old had a blast trying to jump out of it every 2 minutes. Very frustrating. On a positive note, I LOVE the coloring page they have for kiddos. It’s large and sticks to the table.

Our server almost seemed uncomfortable serving or just didn’t want to be there. I’m not sure. Not a single smile and did as little as possible. She was nowhere to be found when we were ready to pay so we had to wait a while until she showed up again.

Honestly, I’m not a very picky person and I’m pretty relaxed when it comes to restaurants, but the combination of everything really turned me off to ever coming back. Maybe the breakfast tacos are good. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Maybe the cooks were trying to clean up & had everything out of the warmers so they could get out early? We went around 1:30 in the afternoon. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I won’t...