Main Street Tacos — Restaurant in Wauconda

Fantastic. Solid. REAL. If any of that means something to you, visit Main Street Tacos. Here is what you do. You order at the counter, right when you walk in. (You will stop at the counter to pay, when you leave.) Then you find a table. Occupy it. Someone will bring your beverages and meal to you. No one will bring you your bill; it will be waiting for you at the counter when you leave, stuffed to the eyeballs with tacos. It's easy.

It's a true hole-in-the-wall joint. A gem. The food is fantastic, very reasonably priced. The dining room is a step above dining in a room full of picnic tables, as there are actual chairs. This might sound critical, but I hope it never changes. It's a weirdo set up, they use a weirdo order-taking system, but it works for them. And it works for the good people of Wauconda.

Price changes happen via stickers placed over older pricing, and specials are advertised on colorful hand-written signs, mostly in Spanish. "Hay tamales" means "there are tamales," which is a signal that you might want to order some. Do that.

The menu is mostly a la carte, though there are some dinners that come with rice and beans.

I seriously cannot wait to go back. Please support independent! Please support local! Please support family businesses! Please support Main...

Went here for the first time expecting some incredible tacos, and I was not disappointed.

I got the chicken, marinated steak, and tried the beef tongue, all hard shell and authentic style. The chicken blew me away, it was amazing. The marinated steak was okay, they definitely need to add some flavor in, like Tabasco sauce. The beef tongue had little flavor, but it was not bad (I would not get it again, personally). The shells are crispy and tasty with great crunch, like On The Border's chips.

The best part is how they process the meat. It comes as tiny diced cubes, as does the onion, which puts it all above a five stars for me. Tiny, smaller-than-bite-sized cubes of meat makes the entire experience of eating a taco next level, and will be coming back to try some more of their menu options and tacos!

I guess the even better part for some is the incredibly low prices they have for their fresh food. A bottle water is only $1.25, and each taco is around $2.50 each. They also sell Monster energy drinks of all things, which I think would go really well with the...

We used to come here often but, after our last experience, we won't be returning. We had to open our bottles using an ant-infested bottle opener attached to the wall FULL of old bottle tops. We seated ourselves to dine-in the restaurant but had to go up to the counter to order (they no longer come take your order as they used to). They no longer serve chips and salsa when you dine-in - you need you to purchase them separately. What Mexican restaurant doesn't serve chips & salsa?! Their prices are never consistent, we always have to pay a different amount for our "usual" order. Not to mention the prices seem to go up and their food is unreasonably expensive compared to other local Mexican restaurants. The tacos are tiny compared to their prices (this time the prices ranged from $1.65-$2.00). They also got our order wrong - 10 tacos & a sope. So disappointing as this used to be our favorite local joint when...