Sazón Tacos & Tequila — Restaurant in Village of Somers

Disappointing First Visit – Style Over Substance

I really wanted to like Sazón in Kenosha, but my experience fell short in too many areas to ignore.

To start with the positives: the shrimp and potato tacos were decent, and the salsa was tasty but only with their more unseasoned chips. That’s about where the praise ends.

The carne asada tacos were a letdown. They advertised avocado but came with avocado salsa instead—definitely not the same thing. The tortillas felt like an afterthought and left a lot to be desired.

The beans that came with the meal weren’t refried, but more cowboy-style—whole beans in a watery broth. Not necessarily bad, but definitely not what I expected, and they lacked any depth of flavor.

One of the biggest red flags? The plate was visibly dirty when it arrived.

The ginger ale I ordered was odd—it tasted nothing like ginger ale, was cloudy like lemonade, and had a spicy aftertaste. I specifically asked if it was a fountain drink and was told yes, but this was just off.

Guacamole was overwhelmed by lime, and the rice? Extremely salty. We mentioned it, and were told they’d already gotten a complaint and were making a new batch. If that’s the case, why didn’t anyone check back with our table or offer fresh rice? They comped the side of rice but not the portion that came with a combo meal, which just felt inconsistent.

Service was… questionable. We saw a waitress/host carrying multiple water glasses by bear-hugging them against her chest instead of using a tray. Not exactly confidence-inspiring from a hygiene standpoint.

And while I understand this might be a soft opening, taste and quality should already be dialed in. A soft launch is for smoothing out service—not test-driving your menu. It wasn’t even busy, which makes me wonder how things would go on a packed night.

The ambiance is lovely, but it feels like that’s where most of the attention went. The paper menus were dirty—if they’re not laminated, they should at least be clean or disposable.

Overall, there’s potential here, but Sazón needs to tighten up on both execution and service. Not sure I’ll be back unless I hear things have...

I had high hopes for this place, and I had tempered expectations knowing they are still on their soft opening phase. We arrived at 6:30 on a Sunday night.

Atmosphere was clean, brightly lit, and decorated nicely.

Service was mediocre. Everything was delivered accurately, but very slow. Drinks took a while to receive after ordering. Watching the bartender (who was also acting as the host) it seems most margaritas are labor intensive, perhaps that’s what takes so long? Or inexperience- can’t say for sure. Time between being served our appetizers and being able to place our actual dinner order was too long. We weren’t checked on during our meal to see how everything was. We also needed to wait too long after we were done for our bill. We had two couples and the waitress asked if we wanted 2 bills or one. We said we would just split it 50/50 between 2 cards. She insisted she could do it for us on the bill. However, when the bills came, we couldn’t figure out how she determined the split. Each couple had mixed drinks and food from the other couple. It was not evenly split like we had wanted in the first place.

Food was subpar overall. Guac was very thick (almost hard) and lacked flavor, missing tomatoes and salt. Queso fundido and tortilla chips were good. Mahi mahi was overcooked, and steak tacos had gristle. Claim to fame is supposedly the homemade tortillas, but they were doughy and split it half, causing all ingredients to spill out. Ordered rice but they didn’t have any. Ordered the vegetarian beans, which were not refried. They were just warm whole Pinto beans served in a small bowl. They lacked flavor entirely, very bland. Definitely would never recommend.

We would maybe come back just for drinks and queso fundido if we had an hour to kill, but wouldn’t consider it a destination...

We were constantly driving by anticipating the opening, we finally went in tonight for my birthday dinner and it was such a let down :( from the moment we walked in, the hostess was awkward. No people skills at all. She sat us a 6+ top and it was only 2 of us. Mind you, plenty of open tables. Was just awkward and uncomfortable. Now to the food, server & other staff. Note: these are my opinions and to each their own. Food was…odd. Definitely not your ordinary Mexican food. How can you go wrong with guacamole. Definitely not your traditional guacamole, something in it is definitely not appealing. Our waitress didn’t know the menu & IT WAS A LIMITED MENU. I simply wanted steak tacos, with only grilled onions. To which our waitress said “sorry we don’t have grilled onions”. You don’t have grilled onions? You cannot take the chopped raw onions and sautee them?! Interesting. If you’re going to have an open kitchen, might want to train your staff on keeping their comments to themselves. I didn’t want any of the extra stuff on my tacos, while still paying the normal menu price, yall save product while still getting the profit. Win win for Sazon, so why is my order being discussed as if it’s this huge inconvenience loud enough that I can hear you?! Again, UNCOMFORTABLE. Next problem, we didn’t take any of our food to go because at the end of it, we didn’t enjoy any of it, which again is totally fine because we paid full price for it all but your staff clearly had an issue with it because they proceeded to say “what a waste”. What is it to your employees that I choose not to eat the food THAT I PAID FOR? Nevertheless, the restaurant is beautiful. Very aesthetically pleasing and Instagram worthily but other than that, I would go to every other local Mexican restaurant before...