Frida’s Taqueria Oceanside — Restaurant in Oceanside

My first experience at Fridas Taqueria was OK the service wait time was average, and the food quality was great to my first taste of the food, I ordered 8 tacos 4 Carne Asada & 4 Al Pastor and they were great I said to myself this place had found itself a regular customer ie: ME.

My second experience at Fridas was below average the service wait time was slower that before, this time I ordered an Adovada Fries and what I received was not what I expected, the fries were way over cooked and hard to chew and the adovada looked like red painted meat, I know that adovada is seasoned pork meat but the adovada was way to red it almost looked like raw sliced meat. I now started to get dissappointed in the food quality. I thought to myself maybe it was just a normal hiccup but…..

My third and maybe last experience at Fridas was the worst ever, to make a long story short, it was a Sunday night and I had taken my parents to dinner there, and it was extremely busy the waiting line to place your order was long but the waiting line to get your order went all the way outside. The cashiers also didn’t seem to be paying attention to what the customers ask for, I ordered 2 Aguas Frescas with NO ICE and as she was serving them again I reminded her that I wanted No Ice, thinking she would follow my request I waited in line to receive my food, this had to be the slowest line for food I had ever waited on, I waited a total of 45 minutes to get my order made and an additional 10 minutes for the taquero to make my food, the taqueros were way too slow I personally have worked in customer service and speed is critical in that field of work. There were only 2 taqueros serving customers there were also 2 other employees who were running back & forth doing various tasks and 1 guy who was only warming up tortillas, the productivity needs to be heavily improved especially when there are lots of hungry customers waiting to get their food. After I finally had gotten my food and was ready to eat I found out that the cashier had disobeyed my request and they added ice to my aguas frescas which I specifically asked to not add ice. I didn’t want complain because that meant getting back in line. The quality of the meat was below average the adovada was again very red it looked like it was dyed red and very greasy, the birria was not seasoned properly it didn’t even taste like birria.

In summary, There needs to be some definite changes in the operation of this restaurant, many businesses have been at that location in the past and all have failed, I dont wish anything bad upon this business but I do suggest that the employees need to be quicker when there’s a lot of people waiting. Or they could suffer the same fate of previous restaurants who occupied...

My experience at this restaurant ended on a bad note, which may have skewed this review, but nonetheless...here goes.

We were greeted by a friendly young person, who took our order. My wife & I both, ordered the identical order-1 Birria Taco, 1 Carne Asada Taco & 1 Carnitas Taco, because we wanted to try a sampling of their fabled tacos. My wife ordered a Watermelon Agua Fresca, to drink.

I was disappointed I couldn't get a cold beer here, to wash my tacos down with, as only bottled water, several sodas, & their assortment of Agua Frescas were on the menu, to drink. No beer sold here, nor could I get a glass of iced tea, which is also one of my favorite beverages.

They give you a ticket, with your order on it, which you'll then pass to the person assembling tacos, up front, behind a plexiglass panel.

When your order is ready, they'll call you, to collect it. While you await your food, I suggest gathering some of their homemade salsa, from the self-service Salsa Bar, & you can also get sliced cucumbers, radishes & limes here.

There are plenty of tables, within this rather sizable restaurant, so only in extremely busy times, will there be no place to sit & eat, inside Frida's. They have a roll of paper towels on each table, & you'll definitely need these, when you start devouring their small, overstuffed & extremely tasty tacos. Inevitably while eating, some parts or juice from the tacos, will leap out & run down your chin, or do the full jump, down to the table.

My biggest problem here, was somewhere in the meat of the first taco I ate, was a bit of bone, or something hard & unyielding, & while chewing my food, it chipped one of my bottom teeth. This was kind of a buzz kill to my overall dining experience, & although the food tasted good, I probably won't be back,...

Rotten food, Rotten salsa, Cashier with bad attitude, Slow Slow Service..

So I just want to say when this place first opened It was really good and it has gone downhill from there. Today Tuesday July 9th I went in to get some tacos with my wife and my friend and the cashier had an attitude when I asked her which agua fresca the "yellow" one was. She said "look at the sign" I said.. Thank you but what flavor is the yellow one I can't tell off of the sign.. and with an attitude she replied Oh it's pineapple.. They have a cashier for hire sign no wonder.. I guess a cashiers have attitudes..

Now the food.. The salsa bar was horrible.. those cucumbers (picture attached) had to have been there for days and days maybe even a week.. cucumbers don't get like that in 24 hours or 48 hours.. Even the limes looked so dry and brown. I know people are always trying to save money but I believe that they need somebody to check the freshness of the food before they put it out. Like come on look at those cucumbers they look horrible.

The tacos.. The taco meat tasted like beef jerky was so dry This is probably taco meat from the day before.

Rotten salsa that was on the tacos tasted rancid and spoiled It had a tangy beer taste to it That's how you know the tomatoes have gone bad.

We took one bite from the tacos and I was like no maybe it's all in my head I took another bite and I was like nope and then everybody in my party took bite to their tacos and they're like yeah these tacos are not good.

The servers were so slow it took us 45 minutes to get our tacos. And there was only like 12 people inline.

This place used to be good when they first opened up but now it's not.

I will definitely not be coming back...