Tonala Mexican Restaurant — Restaurant in Washington

I wanted to like this place SO BAD! We have been on the search for a great Street Taco for so long. We have been using Tony's Taco truck for the past few years and have always had a great experience with the food there. Wanting to try something new, we decided to give Tonala a try. I was a little shocked when I searched every on line option to find there was no option for placing an on line order. There is a "place online order" on their website which literally just kicks you off the page completely. I called the Tonala directly to ask if there was an option somewhere to place an order on line. The lady that answered didn't understand my question as she didn't speak much English and straight hung up on me. Calling back, she handed the phone off to a man that was able to confirm in fact there was no way to place an online order. After looking back at the menu, I called back to place a pickup order. (From the same lady that hung up on me) She was really nice, but had a hard time understanding my requests.

I ordered 2x Chili Verde meals with no beans just rice and flour tortillas (we got beans and corn tortillas) There was hardly any sauce on the pork and the pork was super dry and so salty with no authentic flavor, we had to make our own Verde sauce to cut the salt and added Mexican spices ourselves.

We also ordered 2x, 6 packs of street tacos. The meat was decent, but the corn tortillas were raw which made each taco split completely in half and these had to be eaten with a fork. Tacos also come with 1 sliver of lime and a huge handful of sliced radishes per order.

We ordered the Chicken Taquito's which were great size and cooked perfectly. Be aware these are filled with dry shredded chicken and have no cheese at all.

I asked if our order would come with chips which we were told "no", so I was charged $5.99 to add chips to my order only to find out the order did in fact already come with chips

Included with our order was literally 1 tiny cup each of hot salsa, med salsa, mild salsa, (total of 3 tiny, 1/2 full cups of salsa) rotten Guacamole (see photo of brown guac) and a tiny cup of sour cream with 1/4 inch of water (see photo). Each of these 1oz cups were less than half full. These are the condiments we received to go with EVERYTHING we ordered. BTW I asked for mild salsa only and asked for extra even if I was to be charged.

EVERYTHING was piled into one bag (besides the $5.99 chips) which squished the bottom meal, causing us to have to spoon the chili Verde in the bottom tray from the bottom of the plastic bag with a spoon.

NONE of this food looked ANYTHING like it does in the photos from their menu.

Overall, we were highly disappointed with our entire experience here. The food was mediocre, the meals seemed thrown together in a hurry, over salted and the quality was as if they were using leftovers from nights prior. If this place isn't going to have an option of placing an order on line, at least update your website by removing the "PLACE ORDER" button and make sure there is someone answering the phone that is able to communicate with others instead of hanging up the phone when not understanding English. Placing an order on line would have solved a lot of these issues and this is the only restaurant I know of that is not on board with this option in 2025. We will continue with the excellent Street Tacos, burritos, and outstanding service with Tony's Tacos where we can easily place our orders on our way to pick up our food, knowing we will get what we pay for. AND, The Guac...

I called in a PICK UP TO GO order this evening of Steak Fajita with flour tortilla -same as k always order from your restaurant, because its always so yummy good. So when i came inside to pay, the place was really busy with customers, as usual at dinner time. So, after. I pick up food, on my drive home i wanted to eat chips & salsa to hold me over until i got home and could eat entree not while driving a car.I reach in the brown paper bag and the chips are stone cold #1 anf also tasted stale, not fresh & hot like the many times ive ordered prior. BUT it gets worse once i get to my dinner table and unbag the containers and i excitedly open the lid and there was pure dissapointment for the 1st time😪🤨😤 #1 the peppers & onions were barely even seared, practically raw & uncooked still, there was a small pile of steak that was short the regukar portion size amd THEN lastly, thrre was litterally only a few sprigs of lettuce -not even enough bht for 1 fajiya worth. I have always enjoyed ordering the fajitas take out from Tonalas Spanaway unitil tonight. I dont know if the cook or wbomever expidtes the orders into the containers tonight -but it appears as they were eother overwhelmed due to being so busy with customers or that they just didnt care about what quality of the food & portions were being served -no pride in the food and customer satisfaction nor the reputation of the restaurant apparently. I am completely unsatisfied with my food/order tonight and feel unvalued as a customerfrom tonights transaction and since i do love the food normally, id like for you to do something to make this right. Why did i pay $25 of my hard earned money to get poor quality food & service...

When we first moved to Spanaway about a year ago, we wanted some Mexican food, and Tonala was rated very well. There is 3 adults and 2 small kids in my party, 1 and 5 at the time. We went in and they were mildly busy. We got sat, and the service was terrible. A larger group of late teen/early 20 year old (same age as us adults by the way) came in and sat next to us. The guests were fine, it was the fact the waiter would visit them every couple minutes to check in, refill waters, take orders, etc. and we had to raise our hands, or ask someone else, to get his attention every time when we needed water, the check, to order, to PAY .... everything. We figured the waiter wasn't comfortable with kids???? We also have never been back, because of the poor service of families with kids. The group next to us whom came in about 5-10 minutes after us had their order taken first, served first, water/drinks first, etc. The guests were kind to us and talked to us and noted as well the weird disparities in service. Chalked up to a fluke maybe, but still, have never been back and don't...