El Tapatio Restaurant - Mexican restaurant in Porterville - 134 E Orange Ave, USA

My first time here. Nice big portions. Its one of the more expensive mexican places ive eaten at so im glad i got to take half my food home for tomorrows lunch.

Can't say enough good things about this place! Stopped by on a whim passing through on way home from camping. Food was excellent with large portions. Came to table piping hot! Sauce was sweetly unique on the enchiladas. Service was outstanding. Waitress kept our iced tea full and even gave us to go cups. What we didn't finish was packed nicely to bring home. Place had plenty of seating and was very clean. Doesn't look like much from the outside, but go inside and you'll be pleasantly surprised. Again can't say enough about the attentive service! Will be stopping by again next time we pass through. Keep up the good work guys!!!

We hadn't been in a while but we were looking forward to what used to be some of our favorite Mexican food in town. The waitress was sweet and prompt and seemed to genuinely care about offering good service. The food wasn't as good as we remembered but the mixed drinks were good. Our main reason for less stars was that my son spotted a cockroach walking on our table top, under our plates! We caught it and quickly showed another waitress who didn't apologize but instead asked us "where it came from?", as if we carried it in. (It was my husband, my son and I. I did not have a purse/handbag with me)We never expected our food be comped but we also never received an apology or anything. They acted like it never happened. Needless to say we didn't feel like finishing our food and boxed it up. It's still in the fridge (almost 24hours later) untouched. As we left, the waitress we showed the live bug to, approached who we believe to be an owner/manager, looked at me straight in the eye and pursued to tell him about the incident while pointing to our table. We will not be returning.

By far has been the worst experience ever. We waited 2.5 hours to get our food. But that wasn't the worst part, our food tasted disgusting. Our crunchy tacos were soggy, our sope crust wasn't toasty or cooked all the way and the chicken was super hard and overly salty. I went to the front to speak with a manager but waited over 6 minutes before someone finally addressed me. Once I explained that we were not happy with our food, the manager pretty much was short with me and said that it was because they were swamped and couldn't keep up with the orders. But I explained that we never had this problem at this restaurant before and we've came on other holidays. He just told us food was comped, so we were preparing to leave a tip for the waitress since it wasn't her fault the food wasn't up to par, but THEN the owner came out and rudely said, if we didn't like the service to never come back again. Which wasn't what we were complaining about. We said it wasn't the waitress fault, it was the cook who messed up our food. We were willing to pay for part of food since it wasn't all bad, but once the owner came out and made super rude comments, we just left AND WILL NEVER GO BACK FOR ANY OCCASION.

Since their red sauce is disgustingly sweet we always opt to omit it or just order green sauce. The “chicken enchiladas” were so dry and incredibly salty, it was inedible. When I called to bring this to the managers attention, I was yelled at by Veronica. I have never in my life dealt with someone so irate towards customers. She was a bully!!! She said that she thought I was someone else, they don’t give money back and her excuse was that their green sauce dries up fast! That’s not an excuse for horrible quality food that they put out. I will never dine here again. Save your money! Go somewhere where they actually care about the quality of food and customers they serve, this place doesn’t!

This place is disgusting !!!! Sweet enchilada sauce looks like throw up!!! Everything was a mess! Tasted like straight up marinara sauce , so much for them having it 43 yrs , gross especially when the lady was rude and wasn’t able too to fix anything ! Nor my moms food or any ! Nothing was possible to fix! She ruined my moms Mother’s Day and our day ! Thanks never going back to the Americanized Mexican food

Prices have gone way up. They charge extra for refills (read fine print hidden on the back of menus. This place is not like it used to be. Warning: If you want authentic real Mexican food try the original El Tapatio restaurant (2405 S Main St, Porterville, Teapot Dome),

The waitress acted like it was a chore serving us. No personality whatsoever. Salsa sucked. My wife took 3 bites of her taco salad and was done. I ate one of my two Carne asada tacos. The steak was gross. Never in my 68 years have I not been able to finish a steak taco until now. It was like eating in a school cafeteria. Insult to injury we were overcharged. Don't recommend.