Esmeralda's — Restaurant in Ripon

Lots of people even on a rainy day. Inside was nice, the front area needs some paint on one side and some fixing of ceiling tiles.

The Host was very nice and quick to seat us. She brought us some beans and salsa for the chips which were great. The chips were both corn and flour tortillas which was different and delicious. We had the enchilada plate with taco and a burrito. The enchiladas were ok. Rice was overcooked. The burrito was weird. The tortilla was not wrapped around like a burrito but it was meat, rice and beans with a flour tortilla on top and then covered with green salsa. I lifted tortilla up to verify and it was not on the bottom just kinda shaped onto the top of the food. It tasted ok.

I ordered coffee and it took a long time to get a cup and waitress never came back to refill or check after she dropped off the coffee and the food.

The waitress never came back so the Host was the one that gave us our check. It was very busy.

Overall we thought the food was average ( the best part being the beans and chips at start and the crunchy taco) and prices were good, the atmosphere was nice because so many families and people, so it was good energy and music was great, the service was lacking, though we appreciate the host stepping up. We will not come back but glad we...

This was our favorite Mexican place in Ripon but sadly it’s gone downhill:( We visited this last Sunday and had the worst experience. First walked in the door and customer service was awful. No one acknowledged us for 5 minutes while a couple sat in chairs freaking out that we would get seated before them because i am sure staff forgot about them. Once we got seated the chips and salsa came out. The salsa had a straight from the can taste- very metallic tomato taste with preservative flavor. It was NOT original salsa they served a couple of months back. Our waitress took the order and I had to keep reminding her to bring out my Horchata . Once our food came out so did the flies. We must have had 5 buzzing around while trying to eat- mind you this is an indoor restaurant with no open area or windows so i have no idea how they got in. While I tried to enjoy my food as i am swatting away flies i realize that it’s only mediocre. The once flavorful food is salty and stale. My husband’s child reyeno looked and tasted as if it was dug out of an old tupperware container in the back. Terrible experience. This once enjoyable gem has made us never want to go there again. Terrible staff, terrible atmosphere, and terrible food. Save your money. There’s better...

The food is amazing as always. The service used to be amazing too but since the curbside is an option for the pandemic, the restaurant has had a detriment in its customer service. We normally ask the same food: cheese enchiladas and "la compuesta", but I like to customize "la compuesta" and I want rice instead the shell and on the side rice, beans, sour cream and guacamole. HOW DIFFICULT COULD BE THAT!!!!!! Well, looks like in Esmeralda this is impossible to do. They always fail in something. Besides this, today was another issue. Today took my order Brenda and she was so wonderful, kind, nice and friendly as always but a guy with black hair and glasses had us waiting for our bag 15 minutes when I saw he brought our food to the door and never handle to us. I had to called and asked for Brenda so she gave us our food. When I talked to this guy his arrogant attitude did not let him to apologize to have us waiting with no reason. After almost an hour we got our cold food. This has been the last straw. I wish I could talk to the owner, but I am sure they don't care because our 30 or 50 dollars less weekly...