Sancho's Tacos — Restaurant in Newport Beach

I have no clue how this place has positive reviews regarding the food. The decor is gothic and well done I suppose, but the food is categorically sub-par and bare minimum...as if it came from the supermarket freezer section. If you know how to cook somewhat, you will not like this place. If you have had Mexican food in mexico, you will not like this place. If you like taco bell, you will not like this place. If you don't know much about food, just don't care, or just want something cheap and edible then this place may be alright for you. Just as an example, the nachos are chips are COVERED in tons of cheese which may sound like a good thing, but it is actually american "cheese" that doesn't really melt, it just turns to rubber immediately. The chicken is perfectly cubed and dry as sawdust; presumably out of a can, then microwaved by the looks and taste of it. Then there are few whole pinto beans sprinkled about. Lastly there are a few leaves of cilantro on top. The beans, chicken, and cilantro are so sparse, they really are only useful for decoration. "Cheese" is the only thing on the chips and it is $8-- for a cheese frisbee with chips underneath. This is just one dish, but everything on the menu I have had follows suit. It only reminds me of the food I used to make in my college dorm room with nonperishable grocery supplies. One bright point for this place is the new coke fountain machine that has all the flavor options. However, I cannot recommend this place with so many other outstanding mexican restaurants in the area, namely, Taco Mesa. The two places aren't even comparable. I would suggest if you want mexican, go visit one of the many other places that care and put a lot of effort...

Good news: Their food is delicious. They knock it out of the park.

Bad news: Outside the pandemic, I've never had a positive customer service experience (any that's at a variety of locations.) Tonight's experience was infuriating and ultimately heartbreaking. Came in for a takeout order and saw all but one staff member was wearing a mask.

They initially tried to give me my food to eat there, but when I asked for it to be boxed up as requested, I saw the unmasked staff member handling my chips. I said that I didn't want food from an unmasked staff member and could I please have fresh chips handled by a masked staff member.

The unmasked staff member rolled her eyes at me. I told her about the indoor mask mandate in OC and she said, "It's none of your business."

Let me say for context that my family and I are visiting California so that my daughter can have medical treatment. She is very medically vulnerable. We have multiple people in our family who are medically vulnerable. The doctor who is treating my daughter only agreed to do so during this pandemic if we completely isolate while we're here because he has medically vulnerable people in his family.

The issue tonight it that the health privilege is so thick for this staff member that they cannot see how for so many Americans who live with chronic illness, we have so much to lose right now. I get that she doesn't, but at the minimum, it's her job to make sure the food my family eats is safe. On a human level it's disappointing that she can't see past herself to live with kindness and empathy for those vulnerable around her in this world.

As a result, our family will take our business elsewhere. Wish we had done...

We are loyals to Sanchos Tacos HB. This Saturday night we were in the Newport area and decided to grab some yummy Sancho's Tacos. This spot was not as nice, the tables were dirty, we had to clear one for ourselves yet it was busy. The employees were hanging out talking, apparently the cashier and one of the kitchen staff were flirting and chatting back and forth. We placed our order and we said dine in. We got our food, pretty quick so that was good but it was bagged for carry out. We let the staff know and she simply said well she market it for carry out and handed us the bag. Great customer service there! lol. We sat down and ate our food, GROSS, it was disgustingly salty...we took a couple of bites of our fish tacos, one was first bite and 2nd to make sure we didn't get a bad bite, It was terrible....never coming back here again. We reached out to Sancho's Tacos but never heard back, clearly they don't care about their customers. Maybe Donny should pay attention to whats going on at his Sancho locations. Never again here at Newport will we...