The Ranchito#5 waco — Restaurant in Waco

Update 1/25/23-

So we’ve been here a handful of times and we usually love the service and food but tonight was different. We’ve been dieting since the new year but decided to go out to dinner since it was my mother in laws Birthday. She wanted Mexican and we all thought of Ranchito at the same time. This was our first cheat meal in over 3 weeks and it honestly couldn’t have been more disappointing.

Ratings are as below-

The service 2/5: Our waitress had a large table to serve all night along with our table. Understandably she spent more time with her larger group that us with our table of food. She got our orders and drinks and then we didn’t see her again until our food came out. She would just hover and wait around until someone in her larger group needed something. We wanted new chips (the majority of the ones we had left were literally soggy and flimsy due to being drenched in oil), refills, and possibly order some queso but she never showed up. We finally had to ask a different waitress about our chips, salsa, and refills.

The food 1/5: If I could do 0 stars I would for this. First time eating out in 3 weeks and I really wanted some Chicken Flautas. So I ordered those and had high hopes. Then our chips and salsa came out. The chips were stale, soggy, and cooked in old oil (you can taste and smell it when it’s old). So this made me worry my flautas would taste similarly. When they arrived, not only did they taste like that old oil, they were completely over fried, oily, and dry with ZERO flavor. I could only taste the oil. My beans were dry. The rice was dry and old tasting. The best thing I ate was the avocado and sour cream. Everyone else at the table wasn’t too impressed with their food but it was edible.

Cleanliness: 3/5: Not bad but the tables were sticky and gross when we got there. My menu had left over dried up food on it.

Overall the food and service made me had to rate this a 1 tonight. Please do better. We may try y’all again but this hurt your reputation in our eyes and could be hard to recover from. We have a lot of other Mexican food places around that we can go instead of here.

Old review-

This place is awesome for Mexican food. Super friendly staff, cold beer, and really tasty salsa and chips. Their tall beer arrives in a chilled metal mug which helps keep you beer cold. The chips are thicker than most tortilla chips so it dips really well. And the salsa is chunky but not too chunky.

I ordered the chipotle chicken. It was delicious. Fresh avocado, some jalapeños, cheese, a hefty sized chicken breast, and covered with cheese with rice and beans on the side. The chipotle seasoning and sauce was delicious. I wish it were more spicy but I added some extra jalapeños which helped me with that spice craving.

The taco salad was good too. The taco was more like a puffy taco which was pretty cool. Fresh ingredients and a nice gob of cool sour cream.

I recommend this place to get your Mexican food...

leaving 2 stars simply because I normally have had great service here, but after going today and not having our orders taken for over 30 minutes after being seated, and then having our order forgotten while waiting for over an HOUR, then having to leave due to an appointment without ever receiving food, or even an apology? I don’t think I will be returning.

EDIT since the owner promptly responded.. to address your questions: Why didn’t we ask for the manager? Well it was pretty hard to even get someone to our table, and by the time my coworker and I realized they hadn’t even started on our food, not just that the kitchen was backed up, we had to leave to get to our next meeting. Since your servers didn’t give an estimated time or even offer an apology it didn’t seem worth our time. Why did I wait a long time to post the review? I didn’t. We were there around noon, and as I said I had a business meeting shortly after. I posted this review after that, which is today. Were we waiting for someone to make an error? No, we were waiting for food, that we were ready to pay full price for. We just wanted it within the hour that we ordered it, and to not see 3 other tables get sat, served, and leave, before us. As I said, I posted 2 stars because I previously had good service and didn’t want to completely ruin my opinion, but don’t worry.. your response made me change that. Also maybe don’t put the responsibility of finding a solution for bad service on your customers. We shouldn’t have to constantly check on our food or ask for a manager. Maybe your staff could attend to customers or put food orders in on time instead of chatting in the corner or standing around staring at their phones and we wouldn’t have...

I never review places but Im making the exception. I wish negative stars were available. Probably the worst place (service wise, food was cold but had a good flavor) I have ever had the misfortune of eating at. After waiting for an hour for our food to arrive, no refills on chips or drinks, our food finally trickled in with the first meal being delivered a full 20 minutes prior to the last meal. We had to request silverware. I cancelled my youngest son's food because it never arrived after 20 minutes and by that point I gave him mine. All meals were lukewarm at best for the exception of the last one delivered. Flavor was fine. Waitress was new which was fine and I don't blame her for the food taking an inordinate amount of time. I do however hold her responsible for never making sure we had utensils to eat with, drinks to quench thirst or maybe some chips for the hour long wait, after i repeatedly asked with no response to correct the situation. She wandered around aimlessly with no regard for customers. Hope she improves. ...