Lisa's Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in San Antonio

A drive back to my old neighborhood usually gets me three things, a head full of nostalgia, great childhood memories and Mexican food. I will continue on with information about the last item as the former two might tend to bore the bejesus out of you dear readers and incriminate myself in the process.

Still a favorite of families, area locals and those in the know, Lisa's does not rely on its worn out strip center location or even its updated facade to attract customers. Rather, it's a feeling the place seems to exude as you enter the front door. The large dimly lit dining room, the staff member that smiles and offers a friendly greeting as you are seated, and all the patrons that are laughing between bites of nachos and mouthfuls of Tex-Mex morsels; all seemed to be having a great time. It's an ineffable blue aura of comfort and satisfaction that one seems to absorb like the mist on your skin from a nearby waterfall or the sudden relief when you board the plane for a long needed vacation and realize that you are actually on your way. Or that feeling could just have been a growling tummy as I was ravenously hungry. .

Some of that dining room euphoria might have originated from behind the "OZ" curtain that separates the even darker long bar at the entrance from the rest of the restaurant; a beaded metal curtain that looked like a throwback to some "Laugh-In" skit from the 60s. Shots, beers and cocktails were emanating from this cloistered booze cave with low key regularity. The whole vibe and experience could easily have found me across the border enjoying a junket with friends to Laredo and a visit to La Posada or the Cadillac Bar.

The barely visible menu in the ambient light highlighted the usual Tex-Mex plates which was not without the confusion of plentiful variety. Of course they had the anticipated plates of enchiladas, tacos, etc. which is what we had come here for anyway. An order of bean and cheese nachos and a couple of Lisa's specials, plates that simply cannot be served without rice and beans (a ancient canon of Mexican culinary origin ) with beef enchiladas and puffy taco completed our request

The nachos were average, but suffered from a measly cheese malady. And by that I mean both lacking in quantity and of spotted appearance in distribution. In short, the waitress inquired after our satisfaction . . . we replied truthfully. The fix : . . they offered a redo . . .we didn't want to wait. With a "Hot Plate" warning our entree orders appeared forthwith. Two plates of food which looked marvelous, but were not what we had ordered. With amazing brevity and the speed of a Usain Bolt, the waitress returned with our correct orders which were delivered only a couple of minutes later. I wished that I could make a plate of Mexican food that fast!!

The beef enchiladas (a hefty tariff of a $2.25 premium over the cheese) were delicious in the red earth colored gravy. The chicken puffy was the spotlight star, however. Savory, tender chicken cradled in a folded pillow of masa that crunched with the thinnest and lightest of exterior crispiness while having a soft, yet perfectly done with no hint or raw masa interior as it should. That alone was worth the trip. Next time, the Puffy Taco plate..

Further investigation of the "Mosaic Bar" at the entrance was tempting as we made our way to the exit and back to the light. The goings on behind that beaded curtain certainly sounded lively.and happy hour had just begun. Alas, short of a bulimic episode, our surfeit and associated satiety commanded our steps directly back to the car. Nexium and eructation preventatives consumed, the margs would have to wait...

I never ever write negative reviews (as you can plainly see from my eighty previous four and five star reviews), but man, this place was such a disappointment - so here I am, writing my historic first bad review.

So, I took my girlfriend to Lisa’s specifically because I found out they offered a few vegan plates, and she’s vegan, and there’s not a ton of Mexican restaurants in San Antonio that offer vegan-friendly menu items. So she orders the vegan gordita plate, and she’s pretty excited about it. It arrives, the gorditas are covered in cheese. Cheese ain’t vegan. So after like ten minutes, we’re able to call the woman who brought the plate back to our table (since our waiter had disappeared), show her the cheese-covered gorditas, which she takes back to the kitchen (without a word), then maybe five minutes later she brings back a new plate. Actually, it’s the SAME plate, turns out they just scraped the cheese off the tacos (and a sloppy cheese-scraping job at that, I mean, there’s still cheese mixed in with the lettuce and beans, as you can see in the picture below - did they think we wouldn’t look inside the tacos?). So after like another ten minutes (oh yeah, also, by now my food is cold since I’ve spent the last twenty minutes trying to find someone to help remedy the cheese-on-the-vegan-gordita problem), I’m finally able to get our waiter back, we let him know what’s going on with the gorditas, then tell him we’d just like the check at this point, he says he’ll take the gorditas off our bill, but since she ate the beans and rice, we’ll have to pay for those. Which is fine, whatever, usually the whole plate is comped, but - I dunno, I guess I just expected more, like maybe an apology from the owner or a manager, or some sort of voucher for free chips and queso or whatever, just something that would acknowledge they screwed up, and at least tried to make amends of some sort.

But nope, nothing - so yeah, my girlfriend ended up with a $7.00 plate of rice and beans, and I ended up eating half a plate of cold enchiladas in-between trying to find a waiter or server to help us. Not a great experience. Needless to say, I wouldn’t recommend this place if you’re vegan or have food allergies of any kind, I mean, if they’re this sloppy and careless with the preparation of their vegan fare, and so lazy that they just scoop cheese off the vegan items they screw up, who knows what else might be hiding in those supposed-vegan plates that might not be 100% vegan, you know what I mean? So yeah, this place was a huge bummer - and hopefully this will be the first and last bad review I’ll...

I was on my way to another Taco place that was being advertised, when I saw Lisa's restaurant. I hadn't been to the westside of town in years. My husband and I had traveled all over with the military in the 80's & 90's and always said remember that restaurant on Commerce Street in San Antonio it was so awesome; their tortillas were the best and they made the best enchiladas and Taco's! The restaurant back then was just a small little place with great service making us return every weekend. Eventually we met Lisa in different settings while stationed in S.A. we seemed to run in similar circles. Lisa was always friendly and nice, and treated you like family, which you can see that same niceness in her customer service today in her restaurant. Lisa's has added more than Taco's to her menu since the 1990's. It's obvious Lisa's has survived and thrived because of her great customer service, awesome food, and consistent taste. We retired here recently in S.A. with two kids and I was so happy I was able to share a visit back to the past with my daughter and share the memories of Lisa's earlier success! My daughter wants to be a Chef someday and is in her 2nd year of college. I believe it was in God's plan to take this path today so that my daughter could see Lisa's success and this inspired my daughter to dream big. Thank you Lisa for your inspiration, your success story, and your great restaurant service! This restaurant has 5 stars because it has great food, great atmosphere, and great, service! PS- the cheese enchiladas are still the same and the tortillas...