La Casa Del Pueblo Taqueria — Restaurant in West Chicago Township

SHORT VERSION * Hostile meal experience. Shuts out any desire to come back. (Why would I subject myself to this again?) Food itself is a mixed bag. Certain items are forgettable. Others have a few good elements but at least one significant problem that lowers the quality of the entire dish. Ultimately, mediocre food.

LONG VERSION * The food was a little disappointing. Their sopes are good enough, but the heaps of lettuce attempt to hide the fact that the staff goes light on the filling. The horchata has a nice, full-bodied taste, though it's very filling because it's a bit on the sweet side. The rest of our order was a letdown. The tamales are on the smaller side, and they really skimp out on filling -- each tamal is basically only masa. The chile relleno is made early and then kept on the hot plates behind the sneeze guard, so it's a bit mushy and soggy (the breading, that is) by the time they get to you. The chile relleno also is somewhat bland.

The layout of the restaurant is not conducive to ordering, and the service and staff were extremely cold. It's a cafeteria-style restaurant, which is often very fast-paced and not always warm, but I was taken back by how downright hostile it felt as soon as my order began. The first issue came when even trying to order. There's a big menu on the wall, and you order from it. This menu, however, fails to specify certain conditions (e.g. some plates exempt certain tacos, and tamales are prepackaged in groups of four of the same fillings), so you're asked to figure out what you want to do and to change your order on the spot. The problem with ordering tamales (because they're prepackaged even though you don't know that until the person tells you you CAN'T order a half-dozen like the menu offers) is compounded by the fact that, once you learn that you have to choose from their options, you have to walk over to the other side of the L-shaped counter to look through the fogged-up sneeze guard and try to read what the small stickers on the tamales say. The second issue with just this menu alone is that it's on the side wall, which means that you're constantly turning your head to read it before turning back to place your order to the woman behind the counter. Moreover, the font isn't very big from where you're standing, so it can be hard to read or to even locate the items you'd had in mind. Frankly, these first two things feel like accessibility issues already. The third issue with my experience was that the person behind the counter made no attempt to hide her disdain. Again, it's cafeteria-style, and I had already tempered my expectations around service, but I do expect that staff will always try to at least attempt to hide their impatience and hostility, especially for someone who had never been to the restaurant and was learning of certain (and UNWRITTEN) conditions for the first time. I can empathize with her in that I'd be frustrated as well if I had to take orders from a customer who kept stumbling onto problems with their order (as a result, again from UNWRITTEN CONDITIONS), but I would hope that in the moment, I'd realize that being rude and trying to hurry them along might only exacerbate the problem. The fourth thing is that they didn't even get my order right and may have overcharged me. When they brought the food over, I was already so shut down from my experience that I didn't even bother to tell them. And when I went to the cash register to pay, I don't think they even know that they'd both mixed up my order and forgotten to bring me certain items, but I just wanted to get out of there and didn't bother bringing any of it up. I felt so demoralized during the whole experience and don't know if I'll ever be able to muster up the courage to try...

There are tons of amazing taquerias in Pilsen. Sadly, this is not one of them.

A friend and I were walking around the neighborhood and decided to drop in for a quick meal, since we had never been to this place before. I love La Casa Del Pueblo the grocery store and do all my grocery shopping there, so I had high hopes for the taqueria.

I ordered two tacos (pescado and pollo y mole) and a horchata. My roommate ordered two al pastor tacos. We sat at a table and the lady brought our drinks and a bowl of chips with a small dipping sauce-sized cup of salsa that she warned was very spicy.

Everything tasted off. The horchata and chips were not very good, and the salsa was very runny and not very spicy at all. The cup of salsa was also very small for two people to share.

After a fairly long wait, we received our tacos. My pollo taco was literally a chicken leg - bone and all - in a taco shell. It was mediocre in flavor, but the presentation was terrible. The fish taco was far better, but still very plain - a fried piece of fish with tartar sauce, shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes in a tortilla. It wasn't at all what I had expected. My friend seemed to like her Al Pastor tacos.

I'm happy to have tried this place out so that I know what their food is like, but at the end of the day eating here felt like a waste of money and calories. It wasn't terrible, but when you're in a neighborhood with an amazing taco scene, mediocre just doesn't cut it and tastes bad in comparison. I have no idea how this place has over 4 stars.

I won't be going back, and suggest anyone looking for tacos in Pilsen to go anywhere else but here (El Milagro is right down the street and 10x better than...

-Food: 100⭐! -Serice: 5⭐ Atmosphere: 5⭐(no-frills) Value: 5⭐ -Bathroom: Zero

For 20+ years I heard about La Casa del Pueblo and its neighboring restaurant Nuevo Leon ( now extinct due fire).

My friends from Mexico, Asia and Europe wouldn't stop talking about this place so one day I decided to give it a try and I was instantly converted !!!😃

La Casa del Pueblo offers the most authentic Mexican home made style food anywhere on this side of the border (Real abuelita and Tia style), I know so, I used to live in El Paso Tx, Arizona; L.A. and Oakland in California.

Variety is unbelievable too. Probably 50 freshly cooked dishes daily.

They have their base every day menu with the most popular items of the Mexican comfort food cuisine (beans, rice, chicken soup, beef stew, menudo etc etc etc) then thier specials that rotate by the day ( Mole, frijoles charros, fish, pancita, haba soup etc) and then the seasonal menu for Lent or summer or Navidad !!

Only a place with tons of volume and expertise can offered such a Fresh and Delicious variety of items to select from. I can't get enough of them !!!

Service is another delightful experience at this place. Many attentive older ladies are prompt to handle your requests, happily and with old style gratitude you don't find anymore.

Really really great place. Extremely recommended for casual eating while alone, group of workers or family gathering.

*I wish they put more attention to the restrooms😖.

*As amazing as this place is, the owner is kinda a jerk. I've seen how he treats...