Catrina's Cantina — Restaurant in Rocklin

First and last time coming to this spot.

I do not recommend this place at all. Always drove past it, wanted to give a local business a shot, boy what a disappointment. Barely 2 stars I'd say, more like 1.5 but I'll round up.

Pluses:

No line, was sat down right away with no waiting. Decor is outstanding. They have all sorts of cool statues and figurines decorating every square inch of the restaurant, which itself is a pretty large space.

Now the negatives: The food left a lot to be desired. For context, I came in about 24 fasted, and still I found the food to be very very bland, and in some cases actually off. I think they're using canned ingredients for basically everything. I know because I cook a lot of Mexican food at home too, so I'm familiar with for example the taste of chile in adobo that comes in cans. I bought the $31 wet burrito with "steak" and shrimp, and it looked like they used a stale mission tortilla to wrap it with. The steak inside was flavorless and extremely tough. The "steak" fajitas, which is over $30 also, had a sad looking bed of fajita veggies that looked like they were boiled/steamed rather than charred and seared on a proper hot skillet. Not only that, the side refried pinto beans honestly tasted like it was going bad. It tasted sour and rancid. Lastly the "steak" tacos were terrible as well. The meat was supposed to be steak but it looked like ground beef, so I asked the waiter to double check and he assured me that it was their steak tacos.

During our entire time there dining, about 45 minutes, there were only 4 tables with people and not a single new customer came in during the time.

Chevy's actually has much fresher and more delicious tasting food than this place. In fact, the taco spot across the street (near Starbucks) actually has good food they are proud of.

This spot is trying to basically sell atrocious food and probably only makes $ on their drinks. I'm surprised they are open.

Do not...

DONT STOP HERE, go somewhere else!!!!!!!! No WOnDER the PARKING lot is EMPTY!!!!! Walked in to a pretty empty restaurant, only a bar tender and a young girl working. Bar tender one of those shouldn't look so old but rough life old rubber look.. anyways, I should have read the reviews first and paid attention. First off service is horrible, waitress was rude to my elderly mother in law who asked for a napkin, she acted as if she was the customer. Then it took like 15 to get water after chips and salsa. We ordered the bean dip, was OK, my daughter said it tasted like feet, but honestly was ok, like rosarita beans, a lil sour cream with cilantro, onion and jalepenos. We waited and waited, watched as a table coming in after us got food and we had not ordered. We finally ordered, we are 35 minutes in now, no combo plates, no option to get side orders, packaged tortillas, yes packaged not homemade, 3.00 for 2, and homemade are typically 1.00 each. We finally decided enough was enough when the waitress gave one too many dirty looks and rude comments after ordering and no refills on water. Bye girl, we checked out to come up the road to Lucilles....don't judge books by their cover honey, most folks with money are not trying to impress people, we value the dollar, so when my daughter and I wanna share a plate because we wanted a small portion and we don't need to take 2 boxes of never again to be touched left overs home, you thought you were sly saying, since you are sharing....I hope the young waitress is just there for a minute, you obviously have been there as long as the tile in the bathrooms....it's time to retire the attitude and try being hospitable since you are working in that line of business....we won't be back, this was the second time we tried it In 4 years, and we were reminded why we never come here. Review is completely fair. So I will assume you are the waitress/bar...

Was really hoping this place would be good. The decorations on the outside and inside of the restaurant is what pulls you in but after eating there I’ve come to realize they focus much more on the look of the place rather than the food, drinks, and service. I’ve been to hundreds of Cantinas and just regular authentic Mexican restaurants and unfortunately this place is at the very bottom of the list. We waited 15 minutes just for drinks and we were the only table there with a few people at the bar. Needless to say it was definitely slow so not sure why the poor service. I ordered a Michilada and didn’t even drink it because it was so salty. My wife ordered Horchata and it tasted like a synthetic syrup with tons of sugar in it. These two drinks are staples in Mexican restaurants and they were awful. Food was extremely plain, no flavor on literally anything. No flavor on the rice and beans and the chicken had no seasoning or anything. Their tacos were a huge let down. Served on a plain non cooked corn tortilla, plain chicken with lettuce that’s it. Not once did anyone come check on us until we asked for the bill. Just a very very poor experience. Unfortunately we will not be coming back. We ended up leaving and going to Buffalo Wild Wings down the street to finish our night with drinks because even they have better Michiladas (drinks in general) and that’s just a regular sports bar but the service is much better so that should tell you enough how bad this place was. Definitely...