Old Town Mexican Cafe — Restaurant in San Diego

Let me start by stating that I lived in San Diego (Pacific Beach) for a number of years. I've been frequenting this restaurant for over 30 years. Old Town Mexican Cafe was always the go-to for authentic food and excellent service. I have only frequented a handful of times in the recent years as I have noticed a steady decline in both quality and service. In fact this last visit was so bad, and so enlightening that I am sadly going to have to make it the last. The legacy is gone and now its a revolving door for tourists, complete with a microphone and loud speaker (poorly placed i might add) system to herd the masses through. Had a wonderful day at the beach, decided to take my family to dinner at Old Town. The service and food I remembered from past visits left a lasting impression, and I had high hopes that after my most recent visits that things had gotten better. Regretfully, it wasn't the case. We were seated in a very reasonable amount of time (party of 6), as compared to a party of 4 whom was seated right next to us in the waiting area. They must have waited 30 minutes and they were there before us. So my my complaint there would be fairness. Our waiter "James" haphazardly took our drink order right away. James returned with drinks for everyone but our youngest of 4 years old. We placed our food order at that time and reminded James of the lemonade for the 4 year old. We didn't see James again until the food arrived, again we reminded him of the drink for our 4 year old whom was surprisingly understanding considering his siblings had their drinks (win!). Food was absolutely terrible!! The 2 carnitas plates were the worst, so dry that I couldn't even eat it. The meat was so overcooked that it was hard on the outside and a soft spot in the very middle. Pasole had zero flavor, and the other two entrees were just okay. As seen in the pictures, the drinks are empty, I was served ONE beer the duration of my visit. That's it for the food, lets talk about the service aforementioned, or lack thereof. James is in need of some guidance regarding service. I had to get up and walk to the waiter station to get straws that I had asked for 10 minutes previously. I had to get up and find a other on the waiting staff to get some water, I was so thirsty by that point. The only thing that came in a reasonable amount of time was the check of course, complete with plenty of small bills to leave a good tip. Lastly I'd like to discuss probably the SINGLE most annoying issue with our "visit". Youll notice in the photos I posted a red arrow pointing to a speaker. Don't let the size of this speaker fool you... it is super loud. And what's better than loud? Frequency! About every 30 seconds this speaker came to life with " _ _ _ _ _ , party of _ _ your table is ready!". Very little conversation at the table on this visit unfortunately. This is what we came for, good service, good food, and enjoying the company of one another. Unfortunately we got rushed in, served disgusting food with no hospitality, and stuck with a three digit bill to compensate the establishment for such a fine evening. Sad to see such an iconic place fall so far short of what they used to be. If you're on the fence between this restaurant and another, I'd definitely take this review into consideration. It's now a tourist trap and like my daughter says.. "its...

We looked forward to trying the Cafe after reading some of the reviews. Sadly we were very disappointed.

From the hiring sign out front, it is possible they are short staffed, but the server we had seemed like she would rather be anywhere but waiting on our table. Her responses were short and hurried.

We ordered drinks to start off and the beer was standard size served in a pint glass. The margarita was VERY small for the $10 price they charged. I would be surprised if it is more than 10 ounces. I will say that the margarita was blended thoroughly and had good strawberry flavor, but little alcohol and not worth $10. I would not purchase again after knowing the price.

The chips tasted as though they were homemade and the salsa was flavorful with just enough spice.

The two cheese enchilada combination plate was a good portion size. The beans were delicious and the red sauce they used on the enchiladas was flavorful. The rice was okay, not very flavorful.

Sadly that combination was the only food we liked.

The chicken fajitas came out on the plate, not on cast iron like many other places. There were very little vegetables and the chicken was bland with no seasoning. It was served with guacamole and two flour tortillas. For the price, the portion size was too small and my husband walked away still hungry.

The order of street tacos were also quite disappointing. We ordered the carne asada. Again, the meat was bland with no flavor and nearly overdone. The tortilla was extremely greasy. There was supposed to be cilantro and onions, but the only cilantro was a few flecks. The onions were green in color, so maybe they dice it up and mix it together. Regardless, couldn't taste the cilantro. It was served with a salsa, but did not provide enough flavor to make the tacos edible. Only one was eaten.

I don't think we will come back to the Old Town Mexican Cafe, there was just too much that wasn't good. We felt that the $80 we spent for two dinners, 2 ala carte tacos and drinks could be better spent elsewhere...

Meh. That about describes it.

I came here on a Reddit recommendation along the lines of "best sit-down Mexican in Old Town." I was going to be in Old Town anyway for touristy things, it was open at the right time for an early dinner (the other places I was considering opened at 5) and it's right across the street from the Whaley House.

Service was fast, and our waiter was friendly enough. He made a couple weird jokes and he seemed like he was maybe on the newer side, but he was quick and inoffensive. Water was tasty, the cocktails were fine. Chips in the chips and salsa seemed pretty stale, which made sense because it looked like they had boxes full of them. I think they just pulled them out of a box rather than making them fresh. Salsa was below grocery store quality, but not disgusting or anything.

The tortillas on everything were fresh-made and quite good. The main issue I think we ran into was that the meat in the tacos, enchiladas, etc., was unseasoned. Not bad, just... no spices on any of it. The chicken tacos tasted like rotisserie chicken; that's fine, I like rotisserie chicken, but good Mexican food has seasoned meat. Pork and beef were similarly just flavored like... pork and beef. The a la carte cheese enchilada on the menu was marked as spicy, which worried my partner, but I can only conclude the spice was supposed to be in the enchilada sauce? Which was just standard enchilada sauce. Nothing in the meal was spicy in any way, and there wasn't even a bottle of hot sauce on any table we could see.

One of my party really liked his meal. But he and his wife were from somewhere that really doesn't have Mexican food. My partner and I aren't exactly experts, but we're both from Portland, OR, and we were kind of hoping for a revelation about Mexican food down here. We've had some good food on our vacation so far, but this place is just bland. It's clearly a tourist trap.

Not bad if you mostly don't care about what you're eating. Just, you know,...