Friaco's Mexican Restaurant Cantina & Hola Amor — Restaurant in Naperville

I attended the Coraline Sip and Paint event here on October 25, 2025, with my significant other. The event cost about $70 for both of us, and the entire experience was an absolute letdown.

When we arrived, we sat in the middle of the restaurant and waited over 30 minutes for anyone to even acknowledge us. Multiple servers walked around us repeatedly without stopping and we never received any water. I eventually had to flag someone down just to ask for help and when I did, she immediately asked if we were ready to order. How could we have been ready when we never even received menus? It was unbelievable.

After finally getting menus, we were told we had to order two items per person, which was fine, but then waited another 15 minutes just to place our drink order. Throughout the entire event, no one checked on us, and the staff didn’t even provide clean water for the paintbrushes.

When the food finally came, it was terrible. My tacos were cold, the rice was awful, and my partner’s steak quesadilla was filled with onions to the point it was inedible. He only ate one piece. I ate my tacos just because I was hungry, not because they were good.

The worst part came when we received the bill, there was a 20% “large group” service charge automatically added. It was just two of us, so I asked about it. Our server shrugged and said she didn’t know, clearly not caring. When I spoke with the manager, she claimed the charge was because of the event, even though nothing about that was stated anywhere on the tickets or event page. She then tried to excuse the poor service by saying our server “didn’t speak good English,” which made no sense since the server had communicated perfectly fine until I questioned the bill.

Overall, this was a waste of $150. The service, food, and overall experience were extremely disappointing. The event felt disorganized and careless from start to finish. I would never return and do not recommend this place to anyone, especially for...

Sigh... This review pains me because it's clear by the repetitive reviews about poor service that management and ownership don't take it seriously in the slightest. That's literally my only issue with this restaurant, but I'll delve into things a bit further.

The food was fantastic. I mean truly good. If you're looking for a Mexican restaurant to dump 3lb. of food in front of you then look elsewhere. This restaurant is more about quality than quantity. The food preparation, delivery, taste, look, and feel were all exceptional. Fantastic balance and proper portions for a restaurant that is focused on food that delivers on taste. I had the mahi mahi tacos and the fish was cooked great. Typically I'd scoff at the idea of battered and fried mahi mahi, but because of the chipotle sauce, it really works well together and let me tell you that sauce is spectacular. The rice and beans were good. Chips and salsa were ok as well.

So now to the crux of the issue that is obvious, and embarrassing for ownership, to not have been corrected by now. The service is horrendous. It took 8 minutes for someone to finally come over to get our drink order, getting refills was borderline impossible, and we were literally never checked up on. It genuinely felt like we were an inconvenience.

Service is such a a substantial part of the dining experience and this was just flat out bad. We're generally great tippers but we actually had a conversation about justifying how much to tip given how bad it was, and to be honest, we still tipped too much. The only highlight was the extremely polite guy, Michael, who happened to come to the table towards the end of our visit. All he did was get us some drinks because of course our server was somewhere else doing who knows what, but he was exactly what you expect when you think of great service. He's exactly who you need serving customers.

If they don't get the service fixed, this restaurant, like many others, will...

Friaco's Naperville review! Its horrible! Their should be a law or ordinance that makes restaurants responsible for the food they produce instead of passing the buck to delivery companies after all they don't cook or prepare they deliver! I ordered through Uber Eats, when I ordered tres amigos tampequena and corn. This order must have been cooked by someone who didnt care about quality! Maybe because it's an Uber eats order they don't have to care! Tres amigos: I ordered tostada chulupa and a taco, I got three tacos, everything was cold and in dissaray! It looked like the slopped it together! The tampequena was cold no noplales, and it was slopped together like the cook had to go to the john and was in a hurry to get the order out the door! We didnt get any salsa or utensils as requested. We spent lots of money with their ridiculous fees and we get this! To make things worse the manager who had a rehearst explanation said "we don't give refunds and we have to go through uber" there should be a law or ordinance that makes restaurants responsible for their food they prepare for delivery services because they dont care about delivery food like if you ate their! This is completely unacceptable I paid almost 80 dollars for food that I didn't order and was not consumable! If this is the slop that Friaco's puts out no thank you! This is not Mexican I know good Mexican and this is far from it. The only reason was because my girlfriend was in the mood and I didn't feel like going out after a long day of work....