Ixtapa Mexican Grill & Cantina — Restaurant in Woburn

Ixtapa is a Mexican restaurant that has great Mexican food. For the past three years my fiance and I have either eaten at the restaurant, or ordered in from the restaurant two or three times a month. We enjoy their food, and in the past have enjoyed their service. However, over the course of the past few months, the service at the restaurant has gone downhill.

Three weeks ago we went in to eat at the restaurant with my fiance's parents and brother. When we arrived, they insisted on seating our group of five adults in a booth, then sat another group of two at a table for eight. When asked if we could be moved to a larger table, we were refused twice, while smaller groups were seated at the larger tables. This was not only inconvenient for us, but also for the staff as they had to squeeze around the fifth person in our group who was seated in a chair at the end of the booth. Despite that frustration and lack of logic, we didn't even think about not going back, as it is one of our favorite restaurants.

Two weeks ago we ordered out from the restaurant for a large group, ordering 9 dinner meals. They missed one of the meals completely, despite the hostess reading the order back to me three times in order to ensure the order was correct. We didn't discover the missing meal until we got back home and were distributing the food. We ran back to the restaurant to pick up the food, only to be charged for the meal despite the fact that the missing meal was a mistake on their part - their hostess had read it back to me that she had included it in our order. Again, since it is a favorite restaurant of ours, we decided not to worry about it.

Tonight, we ordered in again with a friend. We ordered a pretty simple order - two orders of steak fajitas, and an order of three bean and cheese enchiladas. The hostess didn't quite seem to understand what we were ordering, so I made sure to confirm each item with her at the end of the order. My fiance went to pick up the food. When he got home and we opened the food we realized that the order was messed up again - only two enchiladas were included, one with beef, and one with cheese. We were also missing the tortillas for the fajitas. I called the restaurant, and the hostess seemed baffled by the fact that the order was incorrect, and had a hard time understanding that we only wanted bean and cheese on the enchiladas. She said that she would have them re-make the order, and that we wouldn't be charged for it... When my fiance arrived at the restaurant (10 minutes later), they hadn't yet started making the food. The hostess asked him yet again what he wanted, and when he explained that it was supposed to be bean and cheese enchiladas, she went back and relayed it to the kitchen. They brought the food out a few minutes later, and the order was yet again wrong. When he told them it was supposed to be ONLY beans and cheese, no meat, and that he had ordered three enchiladas, not two, he was told that he was going to have to pay extra for these changes. As far as I understand, it is common practice in a restaurant that when a customer places an order, and the restaurant makes it incorrectly, the restaurant replaces it on their dime, no questions asked. When you consider the fact that they had already skipped giving us two orders of tortillas that came with our other meals, it really shouldn't have been an issue for them to provide him with one additional enchilada, especially after he had already driven to the restaurant twice for this order.

We have spent the last three years talking up this restaurant as one of our favorites to friends and family. We have been loyal customers, eating at this establishment 2-3 times a month. We love their food, and until the past month have really loved the services. However, after tonight, we will no longer frequent this restaurant, nor will we recommend it to anyone. It's very unfortunate that the service at this restaurant has recently...

I live in Downtown Woburn and had yet to venture out to any of the cute nearby restaurants. I biked up the street to Horn Pond Recreation Area as the sun was setting and decided to take myself out to dinner at Ixtapa. I had driven past there several times and wanted to support a small local business.

Usually, a deal breaker for me for latin restaurants is whether or not there are platanos dulce (sweet plantains) on the menu. Ixtapa did not have them, so my second choice was to get pho around the corner. Little did I know, since it was Monday the pho spot is closed that day. I acquiesced and went back to Ixtapa.

Since it was early September and summer was coming to a close I sat on the patio to take advantage of season ending weather.

My server was beautiful and friendly and helped me decide what I wanted to eat as there were still several good options despite platanos dulce being absent. I settled on the shrimp fajitas for my entree.

For not being much of a drinker, I find myself being attracted to the fruity flavors of their cocktails. I settled on a frozen pomegranate margarita which was super cute, but made in traditional Mexican fashion and was very tequila heavy. I took a few sips, but had to send it back knowing I would end up not drinking and only paying for it. I still tipped my waitress as though it was on the bill because she did a great job nonetheless.

I didn't pay for the chips and salsa though as those were complimentary. The chips were warm and lightly salted and the salsa was mild and room temperature, which is great for my sensitive teeth. I finished them before my fajitas arrived and people watched as I enjoyed the late summer night.

The fajitas were huge. It came in 3 plates: one with yellow rice, refried beans and salad, the other was a hot griddle with the shrimp, peppers and onions and the last plate held the flour tortillas, soft and warm inside a container. Aside from lacking a little salt and pepper, everything was lovely. I was starving and ate more than half of the food that was brought out to me and took the rest home as leftovers.

If you want a good bang for your buck and free chips and salsa in Downtown Woburn, Ixtapa is definitely...

I recently discovered this place this year, when I first went there with my boyfriend, that night it was okay, not the best I’ve had but not the worst. Biggest complaint is that the food was cold. Since then I’ve decided to give it another chance with takeout, it has been good when I’ve gotten the Carne Asada, every time I’ve gone it at take out I’ve gotten it with beans and rice as well. The chicken wings are also very good there, especially if you add hot sauce. Probably gotten take out there less then 10 times this year. Last night I got the same exact order Carne Asada medium rare & chicken wings. The woman checking me out it was very nice, when I got home though and opened it up, for some reason there was double of rice instead of rice and beans. A little disappointed because I wanted the beans lol, but was OK because the rice is still good. NOT good when it’s STONE cold, i’ve never had a takeout here be this cold before. The steak was also absolutely raw. If you can do a medium rare steak correct, its the best thing you’ll ever have. I even microwaved it twice, still couldn’t even eat it unfortunately. The chicken wings portions/meat on bone just get smaller and smaller each order I get. Don’t know what happened here with this order. Gonna give this place a break though, hopefully isn’t their downfall. Will give them another chance...