Julio G's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Phoenix

Summary: Either lying or severely misinformed staff gave me bad information over the phone regarding ingredients and my food allergies. I’m now sick.

Details: I have wheat and soy allergies and any time I get invited out to eat I call ahead to make sure there is something I can have. Called up Julio G’s and gave my quick “hey I got invited to your restaurant and have food allergies. Can I ask y’all a couple questions about ingredients?” The gentleman on the phone said of course. So I let him know I have wheat and soy allergies and ask about cooking oil and fryer oil. He says he’s not sure so he’s gonna put me on hold and ask. All cool. I love that he didn’t just guess. Comes back in a minute and says canola oil for the fryer and butter for the cook top. Hell ya. All good. I ask about corn tortillas available in hard and soft shell, subbing out the tortillas in entrees, and those are all affirmative. Last questions were is there any soybean oil in the spanish rice and if there was any flour used as a thickener in the beans. He said he was gonna go back and check again. Brief hold and then came back with same oil (canola) for rice and no flour in the beans.

Sweet. I’m stoked. This is gonna be my spot because it avoids all of the lesser known ways that wheat and soy can appear in food. I’m excited.

I get to the restaurant with my family, enjoy some chips and salsa, order drinks, and order a combo plate with corn hard shell tacos and a chicken enchilada. I let the server know my allergies and that I called ahead, but forgot to ask about if flour is used in the enchilada sauce. He goes back and checks for me and it turns out that almost everything I heard on the phone was a lie or really bad information. The fryers are using soybean oil so no hard shell tacos, there is soybean oil used on the rice on the cook top, there is flour used as a base in the beans (for all their beans except ranchero), and the enchilada sauce does indeed have flour. He informed me that most of their sauces are flour based except for the spinach con queso.

Thank god our server Nathan was on it because the gentleman over the phone (no name given) apparently didn’t care, lied, or is severely misinformed. So I modified the hell out of the combo plate so that I wouldn’t get sick, but as we found out it was already too late. The chips and salsa I had been eating since I arrived had been fried in soybean oil.

Nothing Nathan nor I could do about it at that point. Can’t tell you how grateful I am that I don’t have an anaphylactic reaction to these foods. Unfortunately though, I’m sick and have to call out of work tomorrow.

I gave the place 2 stars because Nathan was awesome. The food was delicious even with the heavy modifications. This place had all the makings to be my go-to spot. But man getting bad info over the phone when I got placed on hold twice to “go check” ingredients is unfathomable. I don’t even get how that could happen if he’s actually going back to...

Context is key. This is not the fanciest, nor necessarily the best Mexican food, but in terms of bang for your buck this place is the rodillas de las abejas.

Here's why. You go in at lunchtime and it's full of gray haired folks. You go in between 5 and 6:30 and it's full of gray haired folks... why? Well because they've learned a thing or two about good value for your dollar. The food is good and a couple of dishes are really good. Such as the Carne asada fajitas or the ground beef taco/cheese enchilada combo. Those dishes run about $16 and $10 respectively. Great value for the money. The lunch specials are basically all under $10 or thereabouts and offer plenty of food with rice and beans. Dinner is slightly pricier, more along the $15 to $20 range, but still good value. The food is well spiced/flavored.

The chips are typically great. Usually hot, then you splash a little salt on them and you get two salsa options. White cup is pico mild, black cup is a peppery hotter non-chunky salsa. The way to go is to take a little of the hotter stuff and mix with the pico style and that seems to be just right for me at least, but nice to have options.

Add some iced tea which is decent or a sharp diet soda and it makes for a regular day date lunch spot or an early dinner place. It shuts at 8 right now.

Also, rumor is it was bought and things might tweak a bit as to the menu and likely pricing. Let's hope they don't wreck a good thing, place is usually packed but waits tend to be under 10 minutes even during busy times and it's a fairly large space.

As for the staff, we'll they've always been attentive and polite, sometimes talkative but in a good way. Eventually they start knowing your order or at least drinks and get them to you straight away after a quick ask. All good stuff at very fair prices.

A few things are just okay, the chicken can be a little overdone here and there and the taco salad can be a bit too much of the toppings in terms of ratios, but probably works for some folks.

I do crave the chips and salsa, so it hits cravability factors which are important. The atmosphere is a bit kitschy but kind of true to form with bright pastel type colors, a dash of pink neon and some interesting wall paper photo montages. Nothing spectacular but also nothing overdone. Go, you'll get great service, great chips and good food for a very reasonable price. Let's hope the new owners who apparently have some experience with a Mexican joint out of Flagstaff tweak things just right and don't jack up the...

I came to your restaurant on Saturday June 10th at about 8:20 in the evening for my birthday dinner. I had actually spent the day surfing the web I'm looking at different Mexican restaurants and menus to decide where I wanted to spend my birthday I ended up Julio G's because I've eaten there before and I like their food. When we arrived we were seated right away and within seconds a waitress came to our table and got our drinks very quickly. She was a talller thin long hair girl. She gave us a few minutes to look at the menu and it took us a few minutes to decide we ordered our food and within 5 minutes our food was at the table I was very impressed. Then it all started she delivered our food and I said that was fast she said were closing in 30 minutes ma'am. I thought to myself I guess we better hurry she's looking to get out of here. While we were sitting there eating our dinner several other tables were seated she stormed back and forth in the restaurant upset the people were being seated still. it made me feel very uncomfortable. We tried to race to eat our food so that we could get out and they could close but at the same time all the people that came in within 20 minutes of us being there we're still going to be there after 9 to enjoy their meal. After the check was brought to us and we paid our bill we got up and started heading towards the door we could see another family coming in mother father and children. We could hear the waitress standing in the middle of the restaurant mumbling and was quite upset that somebody else was coming in I guess she really really wanted to go home. Being that it was my birthday and it wasn't a very happy day for me anyway because I have a child who is dying of cancer I decided I would just let it go and say oh well it was just another birthday I'm not going to let her ruin it. We were parked directly in front of the restaurant we could see in the window as the family with the children were walking in she was waving her arms and talking like crazy we knew she was very upset unfortunately I find this to be very unprofessional these people are tipping you and are coming in to enjoy a meal. I just thought I would let you know that even though the food was delicious what little time I got to spend outside of my home not watching over my son was not worth it.... I will learn next time that if we want to go out to eat we better be there at least an hour prior to closing so that the workers do not...