Alejandro's Cafe Pharr — Restaurant in Pharr

I've been trying to get to this place for 3 weeks straight, but I have run into one issue or another. This brings me to my first note. The parking here is TERRIBLE. Located in old Pharr, it shares parking with a lot of other small businesses, and I'm almost positive that a lot of spaces are taken by employees. I'm not complaining about them since they don't really have a choice, just the situation. However, we finally got in.

It was a Friday, so my mother ordered the Seafood Buffet for $15.99. While it says 'Seafood Buffet', there is actually quite a bit more. Cheese enchiladas, mole with chicken, carne guisada, rice, beans, soups, and veggies. The price is pretty steep, IMO, for a buffet of that size. Golden Corral is similarly priced for 3xs the options, but for a local business, I understand. I myself started with my old reliable 'Chips and Queso' for $6. It was a decent sized portion that was thick, smooth, and not very spicy. For my main course, I had the chicken fried steak breakfast since they serve breakfast all day, in my never-ending quest to find the next great CFS. At 14 bucks, it was also a bit steep, but the plate of food was quite generous. Aside from the steak, it came with 2 eggs, your style, a BIG griddled biscuit, or toast and hasbrowns. Though I am not a fan of stringy hashbrowns, I asked if I could have diced potatoes instead, and they happily complied. Eggs were fine, cooked how I like, over-medium. Potatoes were also fine, with not a burnt piece to be found. Biscuit, as I said, was huge. Again, not really a fan of toasted or griddled biscuits. I prefer the soft, fluffy variety, but it was tasty. As for the chicken fried steak, yeah, no, my quest continues. The steak, like the rest of the food, was a generous portion and was fairly tender. The problem, for me, is the breading. While it did adhere to the meat well, it was not crispy whatsoever and was more soft and thick than anything. Gravy was good. In fact, compared to the last place I got a CFS, the gravy was darn near gourmet.

The service was good for the most part. One even helped my mother back to the table with her buffet plate, so that should be praised. The ladies were attentive, but there were a couple of issues. First, we didn't actually know who our server was, as no less than 3 servers were constantly rotating coming to our table. Next, though a minor thing, at one point, I asked for extra napkins that never came.

Not much to say about the interior. It looks like every other taqueria style restaurant with a big version of the menu on the wall and TV to the back. It is a little cramped, though. Towards the end of our meal, a large party came in, and we were honestly lost on how we were going to get out. Luckily, they didn't like the table they were at and moved further down.

So for our meal for 2, with an appetizer, the buffet, my meal, and one drink, I always order water, and it came out to a whopping 42 dollars. Note I paid with a debit card and received a dollar+ charge for doing so. I'm a little torn on this. I do think it's a nice place with good people working it, and the food, with a couple of exceptions, was genuinely good. I'm just not sure it's worth over 40 dollars for 2 people. For now, I give it a mild recommendation. There are a couple other menu items I'd like to try, so I'll probably be back, but will have to do a better job at budgeting and...

The servers here are very attentive and fantastic, they have an Amazing team here.

The breakfast here was good, i ordered the huevos rancheros for $8 you get 2 eggs, refried beans, potatoes, fried tortilla thin ham (the bacon was $3 extra).

The eggs were almost perfectly cooked over medium, the salsa for the eggs was delicious and just enough spicy to give it a delicious flavor, the refried beans tasted good i think they had lard in them, the potatoes were bland slightly soggy, the fried tortilla was good, the ham was simple thin ham. The chicharrón plate was very disappointing as it looked like they just tossed the pork rinds( not the best quality of pork rinds I've eaten) into the salsa and slightly mix.

They serve you flour tortilla chips and salsa while you wait, the coffee here was very delicious and hot.

Overall my first visit here was 5 stars as prices were lower, quality of food was better & they gave us courtesy butter biscuits, but now I'd say it's a 3.5 star restaurant, the staff is...

Service was wonderful. I actually got there when they were closing. I did not know that. They sat me at a table and still served me. Everything was absolutely amazing. The thickness of the chips. The taste and texture of the home style salsa. Which also came with soup. I ordered a sweet tea and carne asada. Absolutely great taste and texture. The tortillas were amazing. Not Store-Bought. I'm talking like tortillas your grandma used to make. Even the tea was great had a hent of mint in it which made it more refreshing. I highly recommend eating here. Not only was the food phenomenal and the restaurant was extremely clean, which is very rare. Nowadays. The service was wonderful and the overall price was absolutely fantastic. I got all that service and all that food for $11 $3 for the drink. I definitely tipped very well more than the meal was. I cannot wait to go back...