Mickey's Kitchen Mexican Cuisine — Restaurant in Palm Springs

We’ve been coming to Palm Springs to vacation for decades, which also means we’ve been eating in Palm Springs restaurants for decades. I’m establishing this baseline simple because I want to make sure the significance of the next sentence is fully understood: The meal we had at Mickey’s Kitchen on 14 March 2025 was the worst meal we’ve ever been served at a Palm Springs restaurant. It’s in the top five of worst meals we’ve been served at any restaurant anywhere. You may think this is hyperbole. I assure you it is not.

We ordered three items, so this should be quick.

The chips were stale. How in the world does a Mexican restaurant serve stale chips? Of all things, shouldn’t chips be the item that turns over the quickest?

The beef tacos were flavorless and the meat undercooked. Or something. The Spanish rice had no flavor whatsoever.

The vegetarian taco salad had three ingredients: rice, beans and shredded lettuce. No tomatoes, no jalapeños, no cheese, black olives, green onions, cilantro, guacamole, avocado, corn or anything else you might consider adding to a taco salad. The portion was minuscule.

I had a few bites of my taco salad before the implication of what I was eating set in. My wife had about half of one taco before abandoning it. Her second taco went untouched as did the Spanish rice following a small sample. In her words, it was inedible.

At that point we decided to abandon our meal and seek out a second dinner elsewhere, which ended up being one of the best decisions we’ve ever made is our 37 year relationship.

It’s confusing to us that this restaurant has positive reviews on Yelp and Google. Was it just an off night, an off meal? That seems impossible - it was just that terrible.

There are tons of Mexican restaurants in Palm Springs. Almost certainly they are all better than Mickey’s Kitchen. Take heed and go...

This place is such a hidden gem! I came here with my boyfriend around 7pm on a Saturday night, and it was just us two in the whole restaurant, I was surprised there wasn't more people, the ambience is so lovely, comfy and homey. I also so pleasantly surprised by the food, it was soooo good! You could literally taste the freshness of it! I didn't feel bloated at all after the food, it was actually really light and refreshing, leaving you wanting to come back for more! I've been to a lot of Mexican restaurants downtown, and this place by far is one of the best Mexican restaurants downtown Palm Springs has to offer. The prices are reasonable and after our meal even the owners came up to us and introduced themselves. They are a family owned business opened 10 months, with a power wife (Mickey) and husband (José) duo, that do everything. They're open pretty much everyday from 10am-10pm, I can't imagine how much work they do everyday, running a newly formed restaurant business with just the two of them. Please support this family owned business, the food is amazing, the owners are sweet and hardworking and this place deserves more customers!! I...

First time for me at a restaurant where you go to pay, they ring you up and each item was $1 higher than what the menu says. When I inquired they point to a sign that says “customers, our prices are now higher😊”. They need to take the time to update the prices on their menu so people know what they are ordering. And pretty sure there are laws they need to follow that they can’t just ring you up different prices.

Not a good place to feed kids. The kid’s quesadilla $7 and TINY. My son ordered a $8 kids bean and cheese burrito and got eggs and ham burrito instead. My son doesn’t eat eggs but they never made it right when I asked them to. Also the menu shows a side of fries with the kids burrito, which we didn’t get. The burrito was also tiny. We ended up having to order an additional side, and feed our kids a lot of our food. We all left somewhat hungry.

The food we got was enjoyed but really the prices were unreasonable (we live in an expensive city, these prices were truly unreasonable). Seems like they’re just gouging tourists, and maybe their business model is to do that and get 1x...