El Rancho Cantu Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Smithville

I have to admit, I was skeptical when my wife suggested getting Mexican food in this rather small town in rural Tennessee, but my goodness was she spot-on with her choice.

This is not only the best Mexican restaurant around town, but it is also, in my humble opinion, one of, if not THE, best in town across all genres of food.

My wife is and was raised in a Mexican household, so I trust her opinion and she said, and I quote, "THIS IS THE BEST MEXICAN FOOD I HAVE EVER HAD, BESIDES MY GRANDMA"S OF COURSE."

Additionally, the service was fantastic, the atmosphere is relaxed but comfortable, cozy, and very clean. The staff are wonderfully kind, considerate, and fast fast fast!!

I cannot recommend this place enough, and I highly suggest you give the Burrito California a try.... I am planning on grabbing one before we leave town to head back up north tomorrow.

The salsa was incredibly fresh with tiny diced chunks of bright red tomatoes and a wonderfully mild spice that reminded me of fresh ceviche...

If you are anywhere around, I would highly recommend, as does my Mexican wife, going to El Rancho Cantu and bring the kids because it has a family-friendly atmosphere.

Thank you to the servers and kitchen staff for a wonderful mean and authentic Mexican...

We wanted to try El Rancho Cantu since we hadn't been there before, and unfortunately we weren't impressed. The first thing we noticed was that the menus were pretty dirty (old salsa spots dried on them) and they looked like they hadn't been wiped down in forever. My (lukewarm) food was brought to me 10 minutes before my husband's and son's food (at first they only received the side items to go with their fajitas). Their actual fajitas came out about 5 minutes later (by then their rice and beans were already getting cold) and they waited another 5 minutes or so before they got the tortillas to go with their fajitas. My other son waited another 10 minutes after that to receive his food. If the restaurant had been busy, I could understand. However, they weren't busy at all. As for the food itself, it was just ok. I normally don't write negative reviews, but I definitely can't recommend El Rancho...

The food at this restaurant is trash as well as the service. I ordered a meal that was supposed to be A CHICKEN BREAST but came out as a dried up over cooked very very thinly sliced piece of chicken. A piece of lunch meat would’ve been thicker. I only had one bite of this piece of rawhide and refused to pay not to mention an unruly environment. I felt threatened by all the employees saying I have to pay for garbage food I didn’t even eat. I wouldn’t feed my dog or my worst enemy food as disgusting as this place. They should be ashamed to of brought such garbage to a customer’s table. AND TO TRY AND MAKE A CUSTOMER FEEL THREATENED INTO PAYING FOR THEIR DISGUSTING GREED AND TRASHY FOOD. The owner of this place owes me and my wife a personal apology for even having to experience much discomfort and disgusting behavior of its employees and the food. As well as the...