Calexico — Restaurant in New York

I've been wanting to try this place for a while and I had really high hopes when we got take out from there yesterday. I don't know why anyone would give this place a good review. I've eaten street tacos in Mexico, I've had great Cal-Mex food in L.A....Calexico did not deliver on either of those promises. The pork in the taco was mealy, overly mushy and had a terrible mouth-feel. What's worse is: it just didn't taste great. The Baja fish taco was spicy and fresh, yet still managed to be underwhelming. The chicken taco was the best, but even at that, it was just ok, definitely nothing special. The biggest disappointment was the carne fries. I didn't realize "cheese sauce" meant actual velveeta (or an approximation thereof). The brisket was uninspired, at best. I was expecting really deep, delicious, grilled flavors from the meats and bright, fresh pops of tasty goodness from the beans and sauces, but there was none of that. I wouldn't go back for anything I had from there. If you're going to call a menu item "crack sauce", it should not only be addictive, at the very least, it should inspire a return visit. Sadly, nothing I ate yesterday did more than inspire an urgent visit to the bathroom. No joke, I was sick all night. Next time I'm craving authentic Mexican tacos, I'll walk further up 5th avenue into sunset park and hit the taco truck. It never disappoints. Calexico brothers should try the same.

And please, do yourselves a favor: if you feel the need to reply to this (or any) review, don't comment on how "strange" it is that someone didn't like your food and imply that their experience of your restaurant couldn't possibly be valid. Your condescending attitude only makes you sound obnoxious and that's not the way to respond to bad reviews if you care about your customers. Just make...

adding to my original review Calexico did not ask me to edit my review. I really appreciate great customer service and the Calexico team provided just that! We were invited to give them a second chance so my friend and I revisited today. We were met with a sincere apology for our prior experience as well as provided stellar service. It’s not everyday that a business goes out of their way to show care to their customers in the way Calexico has! Food wise, the churros were amazing and the barbacoa (tacos and burrito) delicious.

original experience My pregnant friend and I ordered the burrito lunch special today. We asked to substitute the beer with something else as my friend is pregnant and I’m breastfeeding and had my infant with us. The waitress informed us that we could not substitute the beer that comes with the burrito special for an alternate drink so we accepted it and went without a drink for our meal. When the bill came, we were surprised to find that we were charged with the full price of the burrito alone when we had specified ordering the special. The waitress did not tell us ahead of time that we couldn’t order the special without ordering a beer. We explained our situation and why we couldn’t drink the beer to the manager and she was quite rude saying we saw the price of the burrito on the menu when we ordered as well as the special being there to help their beer sales. We even asked if we could give the beer that came with our meal to someone else in the restaurant and she said no. We were very confused and surprised of this treatment considering the family friendly neighborhood and medically not being able to drink for the safety...

I would love to give them ZERO stars . Not for the food but for their customer service (or rather lack thereof). Currently...I’m on the phone with the Ubereats driver who’s there to pick up an order at 10:00pm. It was placed at 7:49pm. I see a message saying that my order was delayed. The driver let’s them know she’s there to pick up the order and then asks if it’s ready. The worker gives her a sharp NO and then no additional info. Two seconds later I get a msg in the Uber Eats app saying that my order is canceled because it couldn’t be delivered. OH REALLY CALEXICO? How come it couldn’t be delivered when the driver was standing right there.

Listen it’s a pandemic and I get it. There are bigger things happening on this planet. But we could all use a little comfort right now. And after yet another long day of mothering, cleaning, and remote learning on repeat I just looked forward to this one little piece of comfort to go along with my taco Tuesday homemade margarita. So screw you Calexico for not even being decent enough to be honest and just say “sorry we f’d this one up”. It wasn’t a delivery problem. It was a YOU problem. PERIODT!

UPDATE: Oh... and I just got notification that my card was...