Catalina Cantina

Food is not good! Just wanted you to see this review. The only foods that tasted good were the guacamole, salsa, & chips. I ordered the fish tacos. Way too much batter and it was kind of doughy. Boyfriend ordered the buffalo burger that was smaller than the buns. It was not that flavorful. We ended up getting sick to our stomach. Don’t recommend at all.

The bartender Marissa was amazing! Great food, great service. We have been there twice this vacation and every time we were amazed. Try the Buffalo milk cocktail, it’s our favorite.

We stopped in here for Mexican food and $ 4 happy hour margaritas.
We were seated very quickly and given menus, but after that we rarely saw the waitress. Probably the biggest drawback to this place is the slow and inattentive service. I do believe the place was a bit under staffed for the long NYE weekend, but it wasn’t overly crowded either compared to a warm Saturday when a cruise ship is docked.
Food was a bit higher priced compared to some of the other nearby Mexican places (on a side street). However, prices are still not that bad when you compare them to Nantucket or Martha’s Vineyard (islands back east).
Food and beverages were tasty though. The restaurant does have a scenic view of the water and it is a good place to people watch from.
If the service was better, I would definitely give this place at least 4 stars.
We will likely give this place one more try on a future trip, but not again on this voyage.

We were in Catalina for a basketball tournament and decided to try this place. It was a pleasant surprise. The food was Delicious and our service was amazing. Our waitress Lana, not only gave exceptional service but she also took a picture with our team. The girls loved Lana and you will too.

Gross! Everything tastes stale and straight out of the package. Their salsa and guacamole is pretty sad. We ended up not eating most of our food.

Food is amazing! Staff is amazing ! Let me charge my iPhone !!! Yay!!! Good popcorn shrimp:)

I order the buffalo burger and iced tea. I got no refills on the tea, and the burger was bite sized. It was slow, and the service was slower. All the food on the island is probably the same since you are stuck there and have no choice but to take what they serve you.

This is kind of a divey, cheap, quick Mexican/​bar food type place. The food is decent if not cheap, and the service was great. It’s definitely a good place to relax and check out the sites, but it’s not first class dining by any stretch (and doesn’t try to be!). Overall, a decent place to get some bar food and drinks.

Today at 4:30pm, I was so hungry after the concert and decided to grab a fish taco at this place. Bad choice… service was horrible, the fish on the taco was very dry and unfresh. its open air which was nice but the Flys were on attack mode and I had to shoo Flys while eating. I received no service after food left at table had to walk to cash register to get check.

Sail boats in the harbor.
Cadillac Maragritas with mini bottles of Grand Marnier… what more could you ask for on a weekend trip to Catalina

After a very frustrating and irritating attempt to buy drinks at Maggie’s Blue Rose, our group of four ended up at Catalina Cantina, a cleverly named bar along the pedestrian walkway.
Our bartender was attentive and we were thirsty. After several Happy Hour margaritas ($ 3), some beers and assorted whiskeys, we pronounced ourselves ready for the boat ride home.
It was a fun time, and Catalina Cantina will be our Go-​To spot next time we are visit Catalina Island. I noticed most of the negative reviews below were for the food, of which we had none.

Robin= super sweet and attentive!
Had one too many Pacificos and tortilla chips with ceviche= delicious.
Overall cute little spot and was very pleased with the service. Thanks Robin!

Wish I could give it ZERO stars… Gave it a second chance. The place was only half full so should be fast. Our waitress was Robin. If you get her, get up and walk out. We had 5 adults ordering, and 3 of them were not correct. One drink wasn’t even served, though it was not charged. When the food was brought, one order was wrong and the Robin’s response was that, «our kitchen can’t handle this many people.» She said that, «You can take one for the team and take it, or I can bring it back, but it will take a while because we are really busy.» Half of the booths in the front, and all of the tables in the middle row were empty. So were the two large group tables in the back. There was no apology for the mistake, or urgency to correct it at all. I will never go here again. Good luck getting any decent service where the food is barely mediocre.

Honestly don’t even know where to start. After we sat, it took about 15 – 20 minutes to put even our drink order in (We ordered the entire meal at that time because we had 2 kids with us and sitting around for another 20 to put a food order in just isn’t an option). Another 20 minutes to receive said drinks, and another 10 after that for what is arguably some of the worst looking and tasting food I’ve subjected myself to in a very long time. I should probably mention that the place was practically empty! 4 groups of diners came in and left during our meal because they had been given ZERO acknowledgement since sitting down. There were 2 waitresses and I counted 7 (out of a possible like 25) tables of people, mostly couples. As a former waitress I could easily handle that by myself, and this place had 2 servers and a creepy looking manager roaming about, eyes wide like he just took a hit of something in the alley. The entire staff looked and acted like they were tweaking. They were darting around aimlessly, jot making eye contact with anyone, and accomplishing ecactly norhinf. It took like a solid 25 minutes just to get our check, which this waitress had printed and walked by our table with it like 10 times before finally handing it to us so we could get the heck out of there. I mean, we had two children, you’d think they would at least consider when we say we want the check, that we might have to get going before one of them freaks out. We were already on borrowed time with them, having to wait so long, but thankfully they’re good kids and were about as patient as humanly possible.
Also please note everything in the restaurant is dirty, dusty, and/​or sticky. I would absolutely never ever go back here, would never recommend to anyone, and am only giving one star because our cocktails were suprisingly tolerable; also because I cannot give less than one star: P

Arrived late on a Friday night, went to the first place we saw that was open. What a mistake.
Worst fish tacos ever. Absolutely flavorless. Completely dry. Batter falling off. Parts of the batter were burned in spots (at least I hope those were burn marks and not some mysterious black fried crispy bit).
The waitress was nice enough — and she offered us chips and salsa — but they never came.
The highlight of the evening was the delicious bottle of crystal geyser water.
It’s a tourist island, past 10:30. I guess I shouldn’t have expected more.

HORRIBLE!
Waited 20 minutes to be seated during a not so busy hour.
Waiters/​waitresses and a man who I assumed was the manager made constant eye contact with us but never bothered to help.
After a white family came in the waiter behind the bar finally came to assist THEM. The family told him that my boyfriend and I had been there first and the waiter replied with «oh. You guys can sit here I guess. I’ll come back with a menus.» (Which he never did.)
Took 30 minutes to order and an hour to get the food. (Which was about a ³⁄₁₀). But 5 minutes for everything for the white customers.
Racists don’t belong in customer service. You’d think since they serve Mexican food they’d cater to their Mexican customers. Never coming here again!

Loved that this Cantina had outdoor seating which gives you the ability to see the ocean as you eat which is one of the main reasons we stopped by here.
Service was less than impressive. We wanted to sit outside on the patio and requested this when checking in. There were plenty of tables available, they were just all dirty and needed to be bused. We waited a good 20 minutes before being seated even though they weren’t busy.
We ordered the nachos with shrimp because they looked absolutely delicious on the surrounding tables. The shrimp was a little sad. They were small and flavorless. Perhaps the nachos would’ve tasted better with meat. We also got the jalapeño poppers which were tasty but what isn’t fried?
Overall
It’s an option but there has to be better places to dine in Catalina.

The service was great! That was the only saving grace here, Robin was super sweet and very attentive.
The food was all frozen or pre-​made and I could barely choke down a couple votes of chicken and a couple lettuce leaves (see picture).
The drinks were mediocre and seem to mimic a local brand in Southern California that also has a shark, makes me think!

Made a mistake. Trying to remove this review. Wrong friggin place.
Until I can delete I will do a in the middle 3 star.

It’s alright. I think if I came back to the island, I would go somewhere else for Mexican food. Unfortunately, we did not research before arriving on the island and we were in a bit of a hurry to get to one of our tours.
The prices were a bit high for what you get in terms of quality… a bit disappointed.