El Mariachi

I love their food here! The portions are large and prices are reasonable. The atmosphere is outdated and very small but I feel that it adds to the experience, if you want new and large go to the one at 3700 N Broadway.
The same little Mexican lady always serves us and remembers our orders. She has even hugged me when I come in! I swear she works all of the time, I don’t know how she does it. I definitely recommend this place for their food but the margarita could be better. My heaven Mexican restaurant would be Cesar’s margaritas with mariachis food.

Fell in love with this place! Tiny hole in the wall but very cozy atmosphere. Very welcoming wait staff who seemed to know everyone in the restaurant. Good was AMAZING. I got a combo meal with a taco, chimichanga, and an enchilada. Would 100% come back again whenever I’m back.

After years and years of walking by this teeny weeny Mexican joint, I finally tried it out after an early evening of extended happy hour indulgence.
Chips were super crispy, and the guac was just right and creamy. The chicken mole was excellent. Pounded flat, very tender and juicy, with a savory sweet and rich mole. Exceptional flavor.
Service was great!

Amazing tacos! Great for dine in or carry out. They even give you chips when you carry out free of charge. Amazing nice service and awesome in the summer with the window open

Cheap, delicious, and fast. Plus the options to smother your burrito in cheese?! Their chips and salsa make the meal even better. I will always chose here for a quick bite.

I know I’ve posted just three stars but let’s start with the good… Its a cute place in a great location with indoor seating and open windows that are perfect on a warm Midwest night. This location is small. You would not want to bring more than one or two friends here for dinner. Table tops are 2 – 3 and cannot be «pulled together».
The food is good… not exceptional but good… not great… the margaritas are not hand made. Its a premade mix heavy with sour mix. Ask for limes to cut it bit. The chips and salsas are the real winners. Very, very tasty.
The service also wins and likely keeps locals coming back.
Highlight was the fried ice cream. It’s not the best I’ve had BUT it’s in the top 5.
Cute place, good location, friendly service.

I’ve been a few times over the years and truthfully there is nothing special about this place. Overall the food is average with the exception of the clumpy rice (see uploaded pic) and the drinks while acceptably strong are also heavy on the mixer (very sweet). Tip, don’t order shrimp. The GF always wants shrimp but is disappointed when she only gets 6 or 7 tiny little ones. Usually a mix of shrimp and steak will do the trick but these guys have an up charge for that I believe. The place has a nice atmosphere in the summer with the open doors and cozy interior. I would not describe this place as «A-​OK» but 3 stars will have to do.

Stopped here late one night with my boyfriend after craving some Mexican food. We both loved the atmosphere: open air restaurant, cute lights and deco, and mellow music. Very intimate and small.
Loved how quickly we got our water and chips and salsa (which was delicious). I ordered the skirt steak tacos and my boyfriend ordered skirt steak enchiladas. I thought the steak could use more seasoning or marinade, it was a bit bland.
Overall, cute atmosphere and friendly staff. Coming back for the margaritas!

Service was fast.
Salsa and homemade chips delivered right away.
We split a pitcher of sangria, a little too sweet for me and there wasn’t any fruit in it boooo
I ordered the Mexican convo which included a chicken taco, mini beef chimichanga, and cheese enchilada. .all delicious. Definitely couldn’t finish everything, worth the price you pay.

Love love love ! So happy I discovered this little gem… Amazing service and delicious food !

I have been here about 4 or 5 times over my decade in Chicago: very small hole-​in-​the –wall space that functions as a sit-​down restaurant. Very cozy atmosphere, best in the warmer months where they can open the entire front wall and be an outdoor porch all at once! Friendly and efficient (unless full, in which case resources are strained), minimal staff but always nice and attentive. The chicken mole I had today was quite good though the chicken was slightly overcooked and tough, but it really hit the spot as I was starting. Great chips (fried crispy tortillas) and salsa are brought right out. They have a pretty standard menu for a Mexican place, maybe a little more expensive than what the food is worth in quality, but this goes towards the dining experience.

Meh is quite possibly the best way to describe this restaurant. We found this place on Thrillist and were so excited to try it, but seriously what a disappointment.
Let’s start off by saying to me customer service means a lot and reflects the restaurant and its management in so many ways. With that said the customer service was awful. When we walked in we noticed that there was a handful of tables open, which included the one we would later find to be used for interviews during brunch time (like really this is what a table is being used for during your peak time?). They told us that the wait would be about 30 – 35 mins, which really baffled me since there were so many tables open. As we stood around waiting we saw openings at the bar where we sat and waiting a good 15 mins to receive any acknowledgement from the bartender, mind you that the bar sits about 10 people so there was no real reason for the bartender to ignore us.
After the long agonizing wait we were finally sat down at a table that had been open since the moment we walked in. Then the waiting game proceeded. We knew exactly what we wanted to order yet waited some more for the waitress to come and take our order. When we finally got the food it is needless to say it was not worth the wait. The food can only be described as bland and uninspired. I mean I guess this is purely an opinion and as I am entitled to it so is everyone else. An example of the mediocre food was the Queso Fundido, which forgive me if I’m wrong, is intended to be served hot or at the very least warm and is supposed to be melted instead a block of cheese.
To wrap things up the wait proceeded when we waited for the check. We actually had to hunt down the waitress for that one since she disappeared after our food came. The one thing that I will give them is that their salsa and chips were fresh and tasty but unless you are going purely for the chips and dip I wouldn’t recommend. I know I wouldn’t return.

Really solid Mexican place, but a bit forgettable and bland. Impressive in house made tortilla chips and salsa are a stunner. I didn’t order them, but in the future I’d love to try the guac or fundido with the chips. I had some mole, it was tastey but a bit too sweet and lacking balance. The tamales were a bit dry and lacked the typical corn sweetness I like. They should come with a sauce. I think this place has potential, maybe I just ordered the wrong entrees. I’ll try again in the future but can’t give a strong recommendation.

Small, authentic Mexican restaurant. Intimate vibe, great chips and salsa and the staff is great too. I ordered flautas and they were just too dry for me.

I absolutely love this restaurant for authentic Mexican good. There are a variety of traditional Mexican dishes and the Margaritas are very tasty. The restaurant has a very quaint feel, but there is limited seating so you may have to wait for a table or call ahead and try to make a reservation if you so desire.

This is another place that I walk past several times a week but have never gone inside.
Until this week. And, damn if I haven’t been missing out.
El Mariachi is a tiny restaurant – it may seat 20 people in its cramped dining room – but the service is excellent, the portions generous, and the food quite good. Word has gotten around in the years that I’ve been missing out. Nearly every seat was full by the time we left.
Let’s start off with an easy one: Queso Fundido. A big glob of melted cheese with optional chorizo tossed in. Excellent. The serving was ginormous – they must have sapped the udders of 20 cows to get enough milk for that portion. You’re going to need a couple of extra tortillas for this one.
For dinner? Fajitas. Chicken for me, shrimp for the other half. Both were excellent, if maybe a little heavy on the veggies. Again, we both had to ask for a fourth tortilla to finish the serving.
Service was prompt, cordial, and helpful throughout.
See, now we’re mad at ourselves for passing by this place so many times. Won’t be making that mistake again.

I just went here and had met some friends for drinks and snacks. We were sitting by the window and it was pretty cold inside. Staff was really friendly and attentive, great service. Drinks were pretty good, but the guacamole, which was $ 8, was not only the most expensive gauc I’ve ever had, but it was terrible. I wasn’t even able to finish it. Please step up your gauc game.

It’s surprising how one outstanding feature of a restaurant can turn me into a regular, even if the rest of it is average.
At El Mariachi, they have two of these things. One is their complimentary chips and salsa. Rather, just the chips. They are warm, greasy and crisp — what turns out to be the ideal combination. Whatever else I get for dinner, keep those chips coming!
The other is their servers, who are friendly (without trying to be your fake friend for the night — see my Fish Bar review) and attentive.
The Tex-​Mex menu is a bit above average and we’ve liked everything we’ve had there. The mole is particularly robust.
This El Mariachi is a small, welcoming, neighborhood place, which is nice considering that most Lakeview restaurants are just for screaming, vomiting, crying and posing.

I thought the food was ok, but the service was really good. My boyfriend and I visited El Mariachi on a whim. Basically, we were going for a walk down Broadway when we got hungry. We decided the first place we saw that we hadn’t already tried would be the place we ate at, and we ended up here!
The restaurant is very small and has big open windows in the front. It feels like you’re eating outside while you’re here (a plus in my opinion). This place is also so small, that you can see the entire restaurant from the outside. It makes the atmosphere good for a casual date – somewhat intimate, but very welcoming and easy going at the same time.
My boyfriend and I both got Horchatas. They are very heavy handed with the cinnamon here, so be aware of that when you order one. It wasn’t unpleasant, but was a little overpowering compared to what I am used to. I wouldn’t order it again knowing that. I wasn’t in the mood for any dish in particular and ordered the appetizer platter. This comes with flautas, tamales, nachos, and maybe tacos? I took a bit out of everything. I liked the flautas ok, they were chicken, crispy and had nice seasoning on them. Everything else tasted really bland and the nachos were probably the most disappointing (not many toppings, and also very flavorless toppings). I ended up covering the rest with sour cream and guacamole, because everything tastes good covered in sour cream guacamole. Everything (except the horchata) ended up feeling pretty expensive for what it was.
Normally, when I decide to stop eating after only a bite of each of the things I’ve tried, it’s a sign I don’t want to go back. However, the service was so nice and the restaurant so pleasant to sit and eat it, I want to go back just to be in there. The chips and dip we got at the beginning were great, I thought. I hear the margaritas are good, too. I don’t think I would make this a destination spot for food, but I definitely want to come back just to hang out.

This is a straight-​up hole in the wall.
A delicious hole.
That came out wrong.
My lady and I strolled up to El Mariachi on the 4^th of July. It was one of the few restaurants open on Broadway.
It’s a very small restaurant. Maybe a dozen tables.
You begin, appropriately, with chips and salsa. The chips were freshly made. You could feel the hot oil still coating them. Awesome.
We ordered a pitcher of their frozen mango margaritas. Tasty, but not very strong.
For dinner, I went with the steak enchiladas. They were great. Really hit the spot. I do wish the pieces of steak were bigger. They’re really tiny. But I was happy with the flavor.
El Mariachi offers several different salsas, so you can choose the one that matches your heat preference.
Our server was great. She kept calling us «amigos.» I never once had to refill my own margarita glass. She was on top of it.
Five years ago, I dropped a 2-​star review on El Mariachi and called it «bland.» I’m happy to report things have drastically improved.