Chevys — Restaurant in Sacramento

I met up with fellow co-workers here for dinner on a Wednesday (3/13) night for dinner. Made reservations a few days prior for 10 using OpenTable. Parking is limited and can be challenging. The restaurant is located by the river which during the warmer season, is a fabulous place to dine at especially on the patio out back facing the river. I’ve been here before but haven’t written a review yet. Interior decor is colorful and fun, very fitting for a typical Chevys Mexican outfit. It’s clean and very welcoming. A solid 5/5. Our server was great. Didn’t get his name but he took care of us. His service is a solid 5/5. We got our food within 15 minutes after placing our order fresh and hot from the kitchen. Our ordered dishes that include the Chicken Enchilada, Fajitas, Vegetarian Fajitas, BBQ chicken drumsticks, and Chicken Quesadillas. All the food turned out mostly good. Mostly because my Chicken Enchiladas fell short of expectations. It just wasn’t as tasty compared to other Enchiladas I’ve had elsewhere. The rice was dry and hard to eat. Beans were fine however. I’d give my dish a 3/5. Other folks in the party really liked their food. The chicken drumsticks were excellent! Highly recommend.

For drinks, we ordered two pitchers of Margaritas. One spicy and one regular. Both turned out very good tastewise although it lacked the punch that I would expect from a good balanced Margarita. I think it got watered down by the ice. Some of us did get their spicy Tanteo Habanero Margarita and that turned out very good including the Skinny Margarita. Overall, drinks were probably a 4/5. We didn’t get dessert but between the drinks and our meals, came to be about $46 per person. Value to price ratio is about a 4.5/5. Overall experience is about a 4.5/5.

Chevys By the River is a fun place to dine at. Service is great. Food is actually very good (just stay away from the Chicken Enchiladas). Do get an order of the Chicken drumsticks and go for the vegetarian or chicken/beef fajitas. Folks in my group said they were excellent! Be sure to make your reservation ahead of time using OpenTable. It can get crowded but for a Wednesday evening, wasn’t bad at all. You’ll leave satisfied for overall experience. Like usual, the company you’re with is half the experience. Just make sure you’re with good company!

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My daughter wanted to have her birthday dinner here so we went as a family. We were seated outside and there were only two other occupied tables out there. We ordered our drinks and went they came, the cups were scratched up and didn’t look very clean. My daughter held up her lemonade and there were chunks of food all stuck inside the cup like it had been run through a dirty dishwasher. Now, we understand stuff like this happens with high volume kitchens. However, when we asked for a new glass, our waiter delivered another glass with chunks of food. We showed the waiter the cup and he took it back for the second time. Now, you would think when you’re delivering a drink for the third time, you would make sure it’s clean. Nope. The third one delivered had brown and black chunks FLOATING all over her lemonade. Not even stuck this time. It was disgusting to say the least. We finally just sent it back and asked to be refunded. The other cups didn’t look super clean either but the pieces of food we could see were on the outside of the cup so we just let it go. I was wishing I had brought a water bottle in with me. We ordered a sampler for an appetizer. It was delivered with no plates, so we all struggled eating the foods, dropping pieces on the table and having to eat over our napkins. When our dinner came, the rice was crunchy and undercooked. The worst part about our experience was that my daughter, the birthday girl- accidentally left her purse under the table when we left. When we called, we were told it was not found and that they didn’t have it. It was not a high traffic area so I don’t feel like it would have been seen by a customer as it was also up against a wall underneath. It would be more visible by someone cleaning up the table. I went in the next day and asked if there were cameras and was told no. They did take my number but weren’t super helpful in allowing me to look for it or making me feel like they really cared to find it. I understand it’s her fault for leaving it but I’m disappointed in the way it was handled. We will not be going back. Very...

Good food, good happy hour prices. Not so good service.

Got here at 4:45, took almost 30 min to get a table. Apparently they are just way understaffed so they can’t seat people despite only being at 50% capacity? That’s a sign. Front of house weren’t very friendly. Despite four staff at the front kiosk, none really made an effort to engage with incoming customers. The very tall gentleman could seem to care less and couldn’t even smile.

Had a couple drinks while we waited. The margaritas are watered down and the mix they use is evident. They don’t use fresh limes for the mixer and it’s clear. That being said, the prices make sense for the happy hour deals. For beer, their selection is pretty weak but for $4 for Lagunitas is good in these days (for happy hour).

When we got seated the service was really slow, our waitress barely checked on us. We asked for more tortillas and they never came.

On the plus side, the food was really good. Chips and salsa were bomb. Fajitas were absolutely on point. The rice was really really salty. The charro beans were good. Tacos were also good. The happy hour prices are really good so we will come back and check out some other options like the birria tacos (which looked good).

My suggestion to management is to do a renovation to use extra space to expand the bar. Double the seats at least. What the point of the upstairs seating? So why not expand the bar? You have like open 40 tables, yet can’t seat people due to lack of wait staff ? This was communicated to us. It isn’t a good look that you need to space out seating for 30 minutes because you don’t have enough service to handle it. Hire a competent floor manager and ditch the 4 people sitting at the front doing nothing. You only need one really good host or hostess to...