Zapata’s Cantina Mexican Restaurant

I had an early Friday dinner here. The strawberry frozen margarita was strong and that’s how I like it (* wink *). The servers and the hostesses were nice. The view of the boardwalk is relaxing to sit by and listen to the music they have playing there. The food was delicious. I had grilled chicken street tacos and the black beans came in a tortilla chip bowl, which is something I’ve never seen before. They serve you medium and hot salsa from the get go. Waitstaff was attentive and great to have a conversation with, they definitely know how to connect and relax a customer.

I’m just going to say Fantastic flavors and Fabulous flavors!!!
We totally walked by this place last night, sort of dismissing it from consideration. Tonight we checked it out and THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! Do NOT pass pass this place by!

Lovely. Great service and the food was amazingly fresh and delicious! Very impressed. Thank you for the great afternoon! PS: How can I forget… THE MARGARITAS WERE OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!

How or where should i start?, Well my friends and i was there on sunday evening. We was a party of six and i understand every restaurants do get busy but it wasn’t too busy. I tried to get the server attention total of four time. Ours water was empty and in need of hot sauce but the server was no where to be seen. I saw how others table was being treated was nicer than they treated us. I will not be going there no more.

SO DISSAPOINTED (AS ARE NEIGHBORS OF OURS). The quality of the food has gone way downhill as has the service. Our neighbors used to go there every Friday night but recently told us the service and food were becoming unacceptable, and they were looking for a new Friday night spot. Strangely, we had just eaten «take out» the night before and it tasted much different and lacked the quality we were accustomed to. We had a Living Social to them so decided to give them another shot. YIKES! Worse than ever, and the girl who took our order missed one of the meals, so my husband sat for a half hour without even being offered a beverage on the house. The enchiladas were poorly made and for the most part tasteless. Anyone have any suggestions for GOOD Mexican food in the Ballantyne/​Pineville area? We’re done with this poor excuse for a Mexican restaurant.

First time here, visited Carowinds so on the way home we wanted Mexican food and came across this restaurant. Friendly waitress and food and salsa tasted fresh

5÷7÷16− Waited for 10 minutes and finally got someone to grab us margaritas. Waited to order food… Never received service after waiting for 36 minutes, never received a bill.
Found a manager to inform that we never received service or a bill. Manager took our menus that we brought him then said goodnight. No bill no nothing. Manager then chased us saying that we didn’t pay for the items that we’d just told him about, to create a dramatic affect.
I didn’t appreciate the dramatics after he’d just brushed me off as if service was important. Not to mention, the waitress then made it a point that we could just enter a tip on our bill!
To say this place is a joke is an understatement. It’s sad that I have to leave one star!

This was a great Mexican restaurant. The burrito’s were great! I’m guessing it’s the best Mexican food in Charlotte but it’s the only restaurant I have been to in Charlotte.

Our favorite Mexican restaurant in Charlotte! Love the fajitas, fresh guac, and chorizo tacos. Their salsa is great. Pina Coladas are awesome. We have never had a bad meal here.

Seriously good food and drink. But and I hate this but, the music was so loud I downloaded a decibel reader. 97 decibels folks. And this wasn’t for the loudest piece of music. My eardrums are still tingling. Seriously good food though. I had the pork carnitas which were perfect. Husband’s tacos were very good. My Organic Skinny Margarita was not too sweet and a decent size. Such a shame about the noise level.

This place gives you generous portions at a reasonable price. Tasty food and nice service. Five *****, my highest ratings!!!

I’ve been coming here for over 10 years so should write a review I reckon. I’ve never had anything here that wasn’t good. Also features great priced lunch specials as well as great service and a great environment. After you eat enjoy a nice walk around the lake and feed the geese.

It’s okay but I’ve had better the salsa is very mild no kick. Food lacked a lot of seasoning. But it came out hot and and fresh

good service, good selection, good portion, average taste

We have been going to Zapatas for over 12 years and have never had a bad experience. The food is consistent — we get the same thing every time — enchiladas suizas and chicken fajitas. Frozen margaritas are delish! Chips are nicely seasoned and salsa is fabulous. We usually get a bowl of queso too — perfect texture. I’m not sure we’ve had a bad experience with service here over all these years, always friendly and accommodating. Will be back again this weekend.

Good Mexican food for a fair price. I love the pork carnitas and the guacamole. I think their service is good too and so is the take-​out. There are better Mexican food places in town for creative food but I like this one for consistently delicious carnitas! The drink specials are also good.

I came for the great Diablo Wings of old and got wings drenched in Texas Pete (new recipe) instead. The manager came out and brought me a new order which was supposed to then have the Diablo sauce on them. Yet, he comes back with extra Texas Pete drenched on my wings. The server then asked if I was happy with the wings but of course I was not. My daughter loves Mexican food while I’m not a huge fan. But once again, I loved their Diablo wings. Welp, if you want wings drenched in Texas Pete hot sauce then this place is for you.
P.S
My family really loves this place. My family gives it 3 stars. Food is not terrible but not something that they’re dying to get back to.

Should be 3 stars as I’ve had my fair share of bombtastic Mexican food but the service we received earned this review an extra star.
We came here for lunch over the weekend craving some Mexican food. We walked in at 3:05p but our server let us order off of the lunch menu, very cool. Lunch menu items are basically half price. They also serve complimentary chips and salsa too! The chips are seasoned and crunchy. I wasn’t a fan of the salsa since I like chucks spicy salsa. El torito is better in this sense.
He also let us sub Mexican rice and refried beans as sides, a second score. We ended up ordering a chicken chimichanga and spinach quesadilla which came out to $ 15 before tip., pretty sweet deal considering the amount of food. My boyfriend like the chimichanga though there should have been more cheese inside of it. My spinach quesadilla was good too, but not the best light option. It was a little too heavy for me as the spinach filling is pretty creamy and greasy. This would be a good drunk munchies food especially on the $ 4 margarita college days.
We will be back especially for lunch. They also have a punch card too! Get 10 lunches and get the next free! Hopefully they have some salad on the menu too lol

After fine tuning my ordering process, zapata’s gets upgraded to 4 stars. If you ask for spicy cheese dip, it will come out slightly green (from puréed jalapeños, I think) and delicious! Also the green salsa is better than the others.
Goat cheese stuffed jalapeño peppers wrapped in bacon is the most interesting appetizer I’ve seen on a Mexican menu in a while. Definitely worth a try.
Vegetarian chimichanga is fried hard and stuffed with various veggies. Enough to split.

Torn between 3 – 4 stars, but have to give this place a 4.
Located right in front of our hotel, it’s convenient. We were seated right away, and given 2 large baskets of tortilla chips for our party of 5. I really like how they give us our own bowl of salsa per person, double dipping time! The restaurant wasn’t too crowded, so service was fairly good. I had just landed from SFO, so wanted to unwind with my jack and coke. Others ordered the huge frozen margaritas that were very tasty! Very addicting!
We ordered guacamole, which came in a huge molcajete, those stone looking bowls. Lots of guac but a bit bland for my taste, had to add salt to my portion.
Flipped through their book of a menu, and everything is fairly cheap! I wanted variety so went for the chicken tamale, ground pork enchilada, and chile releno with refried beans and mexican rice. All this for $ 10! And the plate was huge!!! The enchilada was bleh, tamale was decent, but was blown away that their chile releno was so tasty. It’s really hard to find a good one, but this chile not only had a kick to it, but lots of cheese.
Coworkers also all enjoyed their dishes for the most part. The food is good, but not out of this world. Towards the end of dinner, service was… gone. I waited 10 minutes for another jack and coke, and he totally forgot so had to ask another guy. It basically came as my dessert as we were all done. They do give a mini dessert to all, fried crispers with whipped cream on top and a bunch of cinnamon.
Decent tasting food and huge portions for a very low price.