Hacienda Cocula Restaurant — Restaurant in Lyons Township

Y'all, its the end of an era. My husband and I started going here in 2010, we loved it! Cadillac margaritas that made you smile, made with your choice of tequila, excellent food, excellent service, ALWAYS staff was in the process of cleaning some surface, some doorway, or window in the place. Benito was the manager, life was good.

Fast forward to 2019, Benito is long gone, new management, not bad, but the prices are going up, then COVID hits. We go less, because dinner for two is more expensive.

June 21, 2025, i'm craving a Cocula Margarita. I say honey lets get appetizers (our favorite carne asada nachos) and drinks. He says no, we don't go there often anymore, lets go for the whole enchilada! Dinner, drinks and apps. (see what i did there?)

The appetizer comes: chewy azz steak, some gristle bits, rubber cheese, I'm not feeling it, but happy with that Cadillac margarita (ONE SOLID STAR for that margarita). I'm hopeful, because I order something you can't "F" up, Quesa Birria.

My Quesa Birria comes, the first bite is a f'kn mouthful of disgusting FAT! I motion to the waiter, show him the horrible group of wiggly things I almost ingested.

He tells me, "PEOPLE LIKE THAT! If you send it back, it will come back the same way. That's how we serve it. But I will take it away." So I'm curious, who are you people that love FAT in your quesa birria, cuz I need to know. I'm so effin grossed out, my stomach is churning and I don't even MIND that he doesn't offer me a new meal.

Me: "Say no effin more"! If that's the way you make it, BYE, Felicia! Truly the end of an era. We will never, after 15 years ever step foot in this place again. That lady in RED today, the cashier, manager whoever she is....rude, wouldn't speak to her customers when we came in. TWICE we said hello and she just walked past us.,

Despite the fact that my stomach was churning from having just had the displeasure of having a wad of fat in my mouth, the waiter didn't apologize or ask me if I would like anything else. Additionally, my husband was nauseous after his meal of enchiladas carne asada.

To say the quality and customer service has gone downhill since the days of Benito, and sweet Maria the waitress, is an understatement. Benito would have said, "Can I offer you something else, we specialize in this. Or, your drink is on the house tonight, so sorry". Something!

When customers support your small businesses you show your appreciation, not your disdain! SORRY you have to work for a living and are having a bad day.

Thanks for showing your TRUE colors, Cocula. Serve your next $94 FAT DINNER (with tax/tip..yeah we tipped the bendejo) to someone else. (2 margaritas, nachos, ONE entree) GTFOH with your tacky service, subpar...

In town for a meeting just for the day and decided to grab food from here based off of Google reviews. Me and my mom ordered the quesabirra tacos and a large guacamole as an appetizer. Though the we really enjoyed the tacos we did not enjoy the guacamole, not to mention that it came out after the entree. The guacamole tasted like there was 2 whole large red onions in it and lacked flavor overall. We attempted to add lime and salt to dilute the onion and give it more flavor but overall we weren’t able to eat it at all. Since our waitress (Isabelle) never came to check on us once after bringing our food, we weren’t able to tell her right away that we didn’t like the guacamole and wanted it remade without all of the onions. By time that we did get ahold of her (by asking another server if they could get her for us) to tell her about the guacamole we were just about done with our meal and just asked if they could remove it from the bill.

She informed us that they weren’t able to do that nor could they remake it for us without the onion and that she also asked her manager if so. Since we were tired and didn’t want to put extra energy into talking to the manager, we decided to just take a loss and pay for the barely touched, uneaten guacamole. After this we finished the rest of our food and patiently waited for Isabel to come back with the check. After 15 mins Isabel never came back and we had to flag down the hostess. She came over and asked if we wanted to go boxes for the tacos and guacamole. Once we said no to the box for the guacamole and explained why we didn’t eat it and what was communicated to us about neither remaking it or taking it off the bill she made a face that clearly showed those statements weren’t true. She offered to go get the manager for us to speak about it.

Once the manager came we were basically accused and profiled of “always asking for something off the bill”. she then explained that the recipe is always the same , where we then asked how could we possibly know that, this was our very first time ever coming here due to us traveling and just being in the area. She then proceeded to say “we see you two in here all the time”, baffled I immediately showed her my ID and asked how could we be here all the time if we’re from Texas. After that, she took it off our bill but no apology.

Very unfortunate because we were excited to try their food just based off reviews and pictures. (I will attach a picture of the guacamole which I took after the first bill was...

Let me start off by saying that my family and I have been loyal customers for the past 25 years not just at this location but also the location in Cicero. With that being said, I was extremely disappointed and dissatisfied with the food. It was Mother’s Day and we always go to the restaurant on Mother’s Day because it’s my mother’s favorite. We know what the dishes are like: they are pretty hefty plates and we know this because we go there very frequently. So, given the circumstances of the pandemic, we ordered takeout for the first time since there is no dine in at the moment. I didn’t think of checking when I picked up the food, but when I arrived home I noticed that the plates were very skimpy. They didn’t include salad in the plates (Mar y Tierra and Camarones a la plancha) that we ordered which they always do. And I know this because we always dine-in and order these dishes. And to make matters worse, when I picked up the food, they weren’t going to give me any salsas. I had to ask for it. It was very disappointing because if we are going to pay the same amount that we paid for these dishes when we dine in the restaurant then we should expect the same quality. Also I am wondering if they ran out of ingredients to make the salad because we also ordered a half dozen of oysters and when we arrived to pick up the food they said that they couldn’t fulfill that item because they ran out of oysters. So I wonder if they ran out of lettuce tomato avocado and all the other vegetables to put in the salad. Also I ordered the Caldo Siete Mares and there was beans in my soup. BEANS DO NOT BELONG IN A SEAFOOD SOUP. Also the food was very salty. I’m so disappointed because I wasted my money on this sad establishment. I understand the quarantine is affecting us all negatively and extremely on businesses but if they’re not going to provide the same quality of dishes as when we dine in, then they should reduce their prices. My family and I won’t be back. I’m sorry to say that Hacienda Cocula has lost a loyal client. I’m attaching a photo of the sad Mar y Tierra dish that contained a tiny piece of burnt steak and NO salad....