On the Border Mexican Cafe

WAKE UP, management!
I have always loved this place, and have looked forward to going there.
But after being there four times, I see there are huge inconsistencies in service and quality.
The fish tacos are absolutely horrible. Smells fishy, and tastes fishy, and are pasty and not crispy.
Take a look at the amount of alcohol poured in the shot glass. Pathetic!

Decent place. Good place for a late night snacking joint. Service was good. Was surprisingly empty for a Friday night.
Pretty quite place.

Normally pretty decent but disappointing today.
I ordered the chicken fajitas tonight, instead of my usual three sauce fajita burrito. The plate came out with no sizzle. The peppers and onions were under cooked and the cheese platter looked old and soggy. There were no tortillas when I received my fajitas… they came 4 min later. The waiter was nice, but he was never around. We asked for multiple items and they never came. We had to ask the manager for the items we needed. The appetizer came out after our meal. The manager was real nice and apologized-​she comped us the appetizer. All in, the food was not what it should be and the service was mediocre.
Very sad, because we like this place.

I’ve gone to On the Border 2 times in my life. First was the location in Tustin, and the second was in Aliso Viejo this last Tuesday for Taco Tuesday.
We came here around 6pm on Tuesday for Taco Tuesday. The patio area is first come first serve, and we were able to snag a table around the corner. Our server was an older woman– the service was good. You could tell she had been a server for awhile because she was not for the fake-​customer-​service-​how-​can-​i-​help-​you attitude. It was more like If you know what you want, I can get that for you! I can’t complain with the no gimmicks attitude.
My MAJOR complaint about the patio area is that there was an older couple at the table next to us who were chain smoking cigarettes. I’ve been around people who smoke cigarettes, and ecigs, but their smoke was wallowing into our table. It was pretty disgusting, and I’m surprised the restaurant allows that?
A huge noticeable difference from my previous experience from Taco Tuesday at On The Border is that they changed the ratio on their tacos– and changed for the better! Our tacos were full with meat, lettuce, cheese, and salsa. It was awesome. We ordered the chicken, beef, brisket, and grilled fish tacos. Pretty tasty for the price!
I also ordered on the Happy Hour special for 2 chimichangas. Do not order them. They are basically bring out 2 small rolls that are about an 1″ long with a side of queso. I wasn’t impressed with the quality, and to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were previously frozen and then dumped in the fryer.
The margaritas are OK– I would stick with the $ 10 pitcher of beer, though. Less sugar, and probably more bang for your buck!

When I walked in I was greeted promptly and friendly by the hostess I think her name was Rachel. Our server seem to be very slow. Once we received our meal the food was good and hot.
I really think this place would be good if the service was a little bit more prompt or they had more servers. It didn’t seem as though they had enough servers for the amount of people that were there.
Overall, I would go back again if the service was a little bit quicker.

I honestly like On the Border, the shrimp fajitas are great I usually never order anything else. I was going to write a bad review today because the waitress messed up our order and was impolite about it. i changed my mind and gave them 4 stars because I was surprised to see so many bad reviews.
Overall I give them a Thumbs up,
Linda

8 out of 10 times, slow service. Okay food, but there are way better Mexican food places around this are. On The Border is just a convenient location.
However, I do love their cheese dip. It’s excellent! They have a good happy hour in the bar area. I like that they have a lot of variety on their menu. Again, it’s okay food and service in a great location. If you’re in the area, try it, if you don’t mind driving a few miles down the road there are better Mexican places a few cities over.

Went here today with my husband for lunch. He ordered the Mango Chicken Salad. He said it tasted good but NO MANGO.
It’s a mango salad, how can it not have mango on it. So I politely told our server and she did absolutely Nothing. She didn’t even offer anything!!! (No problem solving skills)
For around ~$ 10 – 11 dollars you’re obviously paying for mango!
My husband though said it did taste good so that’s where the 3 stars comes in and my appetizer quesadilla was good too.
I’m just tired of having to pay good money and not getting what I ordered.

The food was disgusting…
The food was delivered at different times and looked and tasted very much like canned microwaved food.
The sad part is they took over an hour to get the food out to us. Probably because they had to drive to the .99 cents store to get the canned food.
The beans were bland, the enchiladas were just plain with a very tomato paste sauce and the food was served luck warmed.
The waitress never kept us informed to food status and couldn’t explain why the food was coming out at different times.
After the last plate was served she never came back. We had to hunt her down for our check.
I do have 1 positive thing… The chips and salsa was good.
Banquet Microwave TV dinners tasted more gourmet…

We were there a few days ago (6 of us) for a co-worker’s birthday. We sat on the patio at around 11:45; we didn’t get our food until AN HOUR LATER. I was so hungry that I was going to start eating a protein bar right then and there (and we thought about leaving).
In the meantime, the waitress was less than friendly and, to be honest, did not act like she wanted to be there. She informed us of the following: a) they no longer had limes because prices went up (thus no limes for our water, etc.) (no limes at a Mexican restaurant! seriously! there were images of coronas with limes everywhere); b) about 20 minutes after we order our food, she came back and told us they were out of the brisket for the dish; c) when asked if we can substitute spinach for the romaine in the salad, she came back and told us they didn’t’ have enough spinach for en entire salad. Let me add a few more things: it took about 10 minutes to get our menus; 15 or so to get our drinks (nothing fancy); and, the waitress at the table next to ours didn’t know how much margaritas cost (she estimated between $ 5 – 6 but did not offer to find out). Anyhow, terrible experience, food was ehhh… save your money.

Jessari makes the best guacamole.
Taco Tuesday is awesome, service is great with cool ambiance.
I recommend & will be back

So we came here after having a horrible experience at Hunters Steak House. Do not ever go there! After leaving Hunters all 8 in our party were starving as we never got our food. So we called On the Border to see if they could seat us on a busy Saturday night. We placed our name with them over the phone and when we got there they had our table setup.
We were sat right away, received waters and was told our waitress would be right with us. All right!!! What a change from what we just came from! Our waitress came around about 5 minutes later and said sorry about the wait I will have ordered you guys some appetizers on the house… What? Its only been 5 minutes. Wow what great customer service.
The whole experience was a pleasure.
I will be eating here again and again… Everything turned out wonderful. They even brought my Mother some ice cream and sang to her for her Birthday.
:)

I don’t know why we keep torturing ourselves by coming here, but it is so convenient. You can’t go wrong with their taco tuesday on the patio (just come early to get a table) and it is always a cheap meal when you have the right coupons/​discounts. We usually eat here before going to see a movie in the town center. The kids are always full from the bottomless chips.

Enjoyed my lunch here!
Super reasonable prices and portions and the service my friend and I received was great.
The food is good — I’m normally not into Mexican food, but the fajitas are delicious as well as the sides that come with your meal.
Would return.

The waiter I had here was kinda creepy… his first words to us were «oh I see you are checking in on foursquare, I’m the mayor!» Okay cool dude… thanks for letting me know. Once I check in I take a look at his picture… definitely not appropriate. It’s a pic of him topless in his bathroom mirror flexing and just not something I wanted to see before I ate. (he wasn’t attractive)
Anyway…the margaritas tasted like veryyyy sweet juice and I don’t think there was any tequila in them. The food was very bland and the taco shells tasted store-​bought. For what I paid, I pretty disappointed and won’t be going back anytime soon. No wonder it wasn’t busy.

Our office recently moved to Aliso Viejo so it’s very exciting to try all these «new» restaurants that wasn’t around at our last location. For our first office catered lunch, I got On the Border and I was the office hero that day. I said it, Hero.
I got their lunch combo fajitas special for $ 10.99 per person and boy, you sure get bang for your buck. Well, in my case, my company’s buck. It comes with everything you would want, plus a lifetime supply of chips. I exaggerate on the chips, but there was an abundance.
We got the chicken and beef fajitas. Both were very good! I especially enjoyed their guac, their huge containers of guac with chunky avocado so you could tell someone stood there this morning and made our guac with care.
I’m telling you, office hero.

We finally decided to try On the Border last week. We got seated immediately upon arrival. Took a while for our waiter to take our order. Looked like the waiters have several duties aside from serving. I actually felt bad for the guy because he was doing everything but cooking. Perhaps it’s not bad service, it’s bad management.
My husband liked his avocado tacos. I ordered Ultimate Fajita plate which ended up being 4 meals over couple of days. The food was tasty and fresh.
I think I will order food to go in the future.

I forgot to do a review on this a month ago so I’m going to do it now.
A month ago some b-​itch got fired (FINALLY) and 2 of my co-​workers and I went out to go grab a drink in celebration.
The waiter didn’t ID us and when he got our drinks we fooled around and said «since you didn’t ID us do we get free ice cream?» He got embarrassed cause it could mean his job by not checking ID’s.
We ordered this large appetizer plate while we drank. I got a beer that was actually a great medium. The girls got cocktails and said they were good and strong.
It was the appetizer that was … eh. Greasy and bland. Wasn’t expecting it to be grand or anything, but I certainly have experienced better.
Would I go back… not really…

On the Border is literally within walking distance of my soon to be place, so my boyfriend and I stopped here for a late lunch/​early dinner (around 3:30pm) on a Saturday. We mainly wanted to see how long it’d take us to walk from the new place to the shopping center — verdict: 10 minute walk — and I was craving Mexican food!
I ordered the enchilada and taco place. The taco reminded me of something I could order from a fast food joint. It was just OK and not worth what I paid for it. The enchilada was bordering on nasty, though. Disappointment! The dish came with standard rice and beans, which were actually decent but nothing to brag home about! The only redeeming quality of the whole meal was the standard chips and salsa. They were so good, we ate two baskets of them.
I noticed this place has Happy Hour every day, which I may have to take advantage of one of these days (how can you miss out on $ 3 beers?!) just to see if alcohol can make the meal taste better. Other than the HH deals, I doubt I’ll be back here for a regular priced meal. On the Border is majorly lacking in the tastiness factor. Plus side, though, was service was spot on! Pat on the back for that!
Cheers!

Came here for lunch with my boss, the place was pretty empty considering it was noon but we were seated quickly and brought our drinks in a swiftly manner. Our waitress was decent, not the nicest and wasn’t very helpful in explaining the menu but who knows, it wasn’t a huge deal.
The food was mediocre, I got the lunch burrito, the burrito was a lot smaller than what I would have expected but I did get more beans and rice on the side than I expected. Definitely not enough meat in the burrito, it was mostly tortilla which was a bit disappointing. especially for $ 10.
After we paid the bill the waitress stopped coming by to refill our drinks which was a bit irritating since we were chatting so some refills would have been nice.
Overall not the best or worst place I’ve been to, but probably would be more likely to not come back for their regular lunch menu, I do plan on trying their taco Tuesday deal next week though!