El Charro

I have been to this place a few times since moving to Champaign, and it has yet to disappoint. Their steak tacos are savory and the salsa tastes like the one my grandmother makes in Mexico. Their horchata is also delicious, and a regular craving for me on a hot summer day. Every time I have been to this establishment, there is always a place to sit and I am comfortable while I eat. Highly recommend this place!

Delicious. In town for a day. Had carnitas tacos. More than worth it. Wow. Salsa also great and friendly staff.

I recently found this place and have been back multiple times. Specifically on Wednesday when they have their dollar tacos special. The beef, chicken and pastor tacos are each a dollar every Wednesday. I recommend calling ahead to order so you don’t need to wait, also I highly recommend the pastor tacos. They are extremely flavorful. The beef tacos aren’t bad either, but I prefer the pastor tacos. The chicken tacos were pretty mediocre in taste in my opinion.

This place is great. The food is awesome, the atmosphere is wonderful and the people are so nice. It is a little weird coming in at first, as they seem understaffed and a little dirty at times. Also the food is cheap! I highly recommend El Charro, steak tacos are great.

The cook and waiters are nice. The prices are good. Every time I eat here I order carne asada tacos & chips and salsa. They’re understaffed though.

I had my suspicions when I was the only person at the restaurant when I got there. But it’s between semesters so perhaps that was why it was slow, I thought. I had a margarita and a Mexican shrimp cocktail. The Margarita was so disgusting I had to add eight packets of sugar just to make it palatable. When the shrimp cocktail arrived I noticed the sauce had a sour/​bitter taste that it’s not supposed to have… It seemed almost fermented like it was expired. The shrimp had a funny skin on it that I’ve never seen on shrimp before. May have been the result of freezer burn but it also tasted funny. Against my better judgment I ate my shrimp cocktail … but my worst fears were confirmed later in the evening when I developed food poisoning! Avoid!

VERY underrated place! Just driving by or walking past it looks like kinda dumpy or not so inviting if you will. Saw a deal on hooked for 95 cent tacos so I thought I’d give it a shot. Got 2 chicken tacos… AMAZING! The chips and salsa that was brought out was also phenomenal! Sure, maize is good but this place stands right next to it and holds its own!

I came in on a quiet Sunday evening to grab a $ 5.50 burrito and fries Hooked deal that El Charro has sometimes. It’s located only down the street from my place so it was a quick walk there and back.
I ordered a steak burrito and it was ready in a little less than 10 minutes, the guy at the counter was nice.
The burrito was kind of sloppily rolled and seemed to be pretty loose and not quite filled up all the way. This made it a little difficult to eat because the insides kept falling out. The steak was like finely chopped up and at times resembled ground beef. The burrito had like a pico de gallo and lettuce and cheese but not much else, I found myself constantly putting the included green salsa on. It was also quite greasy.
The French fries actually didn’t look like I expected, these were dark and actually looked pretty good. Unfortunately though, they were dripping with grease, tasted a little old, and were very soggy.
Overall everything was pretty greasy and kind of your stereotypical low-​cost Mexican fare, similar to Burrito King down the street. I don’t think half as good as Chipotle or even Maize, which halfway through my food, I kind of wished I would have gotten instead, even though they’re more expensive.

Slowest service I’ve ever had. Not crowded (total of 3 tables – 1 with only 1 person) but still took over 30 minutes to get our lunch delivered. Waitress also did not know anything about menu items.

Came here with my boyfriend for dinner today, we wanted to see how it compared to Maize across the street. Let me say, I strongly regret this decision. Their water machine was «out» so I ordered a sprite to drink, which was flat and tasted like straight up syrup. The food was alright, but I wouldn’t come back, and the flies wouldn’t leave us alone. On top of that, the waitress was rude and had a very negative attitude. Not a good experience. Spend the extra few dollars and go to Maize.

Great food and authentic ambiance. Felt like we were in Mexico. Scrambled eggs with chorizo was the bomb!

It’s a small grocery store & eatery. The tacos always hit the spot. Pozole (pork & hominy soup) on the weekends is a special treat. I like mine with plenty of lime & cilantro. Horchatas are huge & there are refills. The storefront & the interior are small and not necessarily clean looking. But the food is fantastic & Alejandro is super nice. There are a few tables/​chairs if you want to eat in. The tv is usually on quite loud. I’ve come here many times with friends & had many fond memories over shared meals.

Once a grocery that served food, now a restaurant that still has some grocery items. There is a good reason that the restaurant portion of the place has been growing ever since they’ve opened. It is good, simple Mexican food. The menu is basic but everything is freshly made and everything we’ve tried has been very good. We often get takeout tacos de lengua on dollar taco Wednesdays. The owner and chef are run ragged on Wednesdays as this is right in an area full of student apartments, but the quality is always good.
We’ve also tried their burritos over time, and the ones we’ve had (vegetarian, tongue, and al pastor) have all been large and tasty. They make their own tortillas and you can tell. They are always soft and fresh. My personal favorite, however, is the pozole. Personally, I think it is among the best in town.
The restaurant itself looks to be a hole in the wall, which I think hurts its business a bit. Plus, it is across the street from El Maize, one of the gourmet Mexican places. But, El Charro is as good as El Maize for any of the usual suspects– tacos, burritos, hurraches, gorditas, birria, etc. Plus, they have the advantages of lots of tables, they have parking, and the wait is fairly short. Almost anything is made with your choice of meats: carnitas, tripas, chorizo, lengua, pollo, bistec, or barbacoa (and maybe one or two other options), so you can see that this is definitely not competing with Taco Bell. This place is good.
You usually get chips and salsa even in take out orders. If you eat there the chips come quickly and have always been hot and fresh: lightly salted and not too greasy, The salsa is always «mild» although it is freshly made in house and «mild» can have some variance. There is a choice of hot sauces on the table if the salsa is too mild, and I have a hunch you can ask for something spicier. If you order queso with the chips they ask how hot you want it; after all, everything is custom cooked here.
All in all we like El Charro a lot. Authentic and tasty, but with a sub-​par location and across the street from one of the hottest Mexican places (not to mention, Fiesta Café is just a block away), El Charro often gets overlooked. But with easy parking (behind the building, so you have to look for it), great food, and very pleasant owner and staff (who are happy to chat if they aren’t busy), we like it a lot. I don’t think it’s reputation will improve unless there is a serious upgrade to the appearance of the exterior, with its cheap paint job, hand painted sign, and largely unadorned windows. But, some of the best Mexican food I’ve ever had has been in «dives,» many worse appearing than this (I remember one place in LA that had dirt floors and merely whitewashed walls, but great food).
It is family owned and operated, and they are always there and usually working hard.

Came here for the first time last week for a hooked deal (2 tacos + rice/​beans for $ 5) and was pleasantly surprised by the tacos. The tortillas are delicious but when I asked where they get it from, the waitress said she did not know and walked away.
Pros:
1. Tortillas/​tacos are delicious! ⁴⁄₅
2. Salsa and chips are really good. on the spicy side. ⁴⁄₅
3. $ 1 taco Wednesdays
4. Sauces that come with the tacos.
5. Reminds me of King Taco in Los Angeles.
Cons:
1. The ground beef tasted a bit off last time I was here.
2. Chicken was dry and adding salsa did not help.
3. Service can be slow. First time my friend and I went, we were the only ones there and was still slow. Takes some time getting things such as water, straw, fork, etc. Or maybe I’m just a needy customer.
4. Ambiance/​music — an ant was crawling on me while eating. Mexican music can get loud.

The good: tortilla chips, salsa and flavor of meats. The bad: portions and service. The service took so long and the portions felt a bit of a rip off. I was given a few spoonfuls (maybe 2 or 3) of the rice for $ 1.50. Rice is not that expensive and I started to think of Maize and how I should have bought rice there! They give you a more generous portion. When I brought this to the attention of waitress she just mentioned that’s how it is. She was nice but wasn’t too helpful with questions. Service was a bit slow and waters did not get refilled. I don’t think I’ll be heading back here. Last time flavor was good but I’m toggling between the service and other options in area. I’ll just go to the other options.

I like El Charro a lot actually. They were understaffed when I went so it was messy but the customer service was still great and so were the tacos. Maize is a little better but the SALSA at El Charro is bomb. The tortilla chips are better here too.

Slow service, overpriced tacos (yes they have $ 1 taco specials but those things are AS small as possible), and they don’t clean their tables. Tacky decorations, tacky store at the front, awkward register blocking the door. I’m shocked that they have 4 stars.

Restaurant review:
I can see why some people in Champaign don’t «buy in» with the Unilocal reviews. This is by far a significant drop from Maize which is just around the corner. Based on the reviews I was excited to try this as an alternative because there was actually seats and I could eat the food fresh from the kitchen. When you walk in you will notice that this place is sort of a hole in the wall place. I had to even ask if they accepted credit cards, yes they do! Everything in the restaurant was sticky from the menu to table to the floor. Usually that may mean good traditional food. Unfortunately this was not the case. I ordered a carne asada and enjoyed my mexican coke eating complimentary chips with salsa. The chips are straight from a bag and the salsa was quite bland. I was hungry so I enjoyed my chips still and ate the whole basket. When my carne asada came it was not what I expected. The meat was hidden in a pile of chopped up onion, peppers, and large chunks of green onion stems. Why would you put giant pieces of green onion in with the carne asada. These were not pleasant and bitter tasting. The carne asada is usually very tender the way it was prepared. This was again not the case. Very thinly sliced meat that was very chewy. The problem is that it was thinly sliced so it was quite over cooked. The refried beans was a soupy mess, but the mexican rice was passable. All and all this does not come even close to maize in the term of quality and flavor. Did I mention that there was so much oil in the dish… Finally when I paid I did not get an itemized receipt but as I saw him adding the price of the entrée I believe I was overcharged as the menu list 8.99 for the carne asada, but I was charged 9.50. Seriously…
Pro: None…
Cons: The restaurant is not clean, the quality of the meat is poor, bland salsa, very greasy carne asada
Hidden gem:
1 dollar tacos on Wednesday

The owner of this place is really friendly and he makes an effort to get to know his customers. The employees are definitely juggling a lot of tasks at once, which makes them not be able to provide the best customer service. This business had grown a lot in the past three years but because of that, they resort to skimping out on food in tacos. The food is really good and based off of the taste of food I would recommend coming here but don’t expect the three tables to be clean. I would also recommend coming here during the weekends because their specialty food is good. If you want a authentic food this is definitely the place to try.

I went here with a friend for lunch and I will be honest before starting this review… I’m regretting not going to Maize which is about twelve feet away! DANG IT!
It’s shady, authentic (not in a good way), and hot! It was about a million degrees when I arrived for lunch on this terrible Tuesday. I was informed by the owner/​cook/​janitor/​employee, Alejandro, that tomorrow was dollar taco night. I will not be back.
The menu is confusing, jumbled, and all over the place. It is a blend of a grocery store and restaurant. The reason I say it was «authentic» was because of the dirty floor. I am giving this place two stars because of the dirtiness of it. Crums on the floor, a cockroach greeting me as I walk in, and a bumbling drunk (not Alejandro’s fault) going around the restaurant. He apologized because he was cooking a lot in back… so that’s why it was hot. Oh well, I wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t comfortable.
I decided to go with steak fajitas and my friend went with tacos de pollo. She said I should never take a girl out on a first date to a Mexican place because it is messy! My fajitas were not as spicy as I would like and to be honest, quite flavorless.
It came with the tortillas (okay), refried beans (from a can), and Spanish rice (from the box).
I wouldn’t go back her to be honest. I had a 10% off coupon via Unilocal.I ended up not having to pay. I am glad. I should have gone to Maize!!! If the owner wasn’t so nice, I would have given one star.
I can’t wait to have Maize again.