El Ranchito

My husband had steak fajitas, very little steak, no onions or green peppers, I hav the fish tacos, they must have used one fish stick and then rolled it up in the taco shell like a super skinny burrito. Horrible and not worth the $ 12.00 for the fish taco. Web got there at about 630 pm and there were very few people there, in fact the waiters were in competition over customers. We should have left,! We cannot recommend this restaurant. Also I ordered a glass of Chardonney and it was at room temp., not chilled. We will never go there again. This restaurant needs a new owner, manager and cook.

Good people, great margaritas, and really good food. Deluxe Burrito with Picadillo (shredded beef) is way better than chipotle. Best of all, the waiter offered me their house made salsa verde, which was the best I’ve ever had. Great heat and flavor. This is a neighborhood gem.

Very good authentic, home cooked Mexican food. We eat here all the time. And sometimrs we pick up food to take home. The service id usyally excellent. And the priced are reasonable.

My wife and I when here today for lunch today, for the first time. The service was good as was the food. We will be going back.

You either love Mexican food or you don’t. This is a classic establishment full of Mexican dishes that Americans love to eat. If someone asked, I’d go there again. They had great deals on margaritas and the flan knocked it out of the park. Get the El Ranchito burrito with flan. No regrets there.

Great service. My partner asked for an entrée not on the menu and was pleasentlly accomadated. The salsa had a kick to it the maragaritas seriously were worth trying. This will be our go to non chain mexican resturant.

We love it here. Food is great & the service is fast & friendly!
Those Buffalo Wings are better than BW3!

El Ranchito has the most authentic Mexican food I have found in Southwest Ohio. I moved to Ohio from San Diego, CA several years ago. I couldn’t find a Mexican restaurant anywhere. Eventually, they started to appear. I think I have tried most of them and always return to El Ranchito. The food is indicative of Baja California with a nod to seafood and they even have Machaca. I know of only one other restaurant in Dayton serving Machaca! The frijoles are great and that is the real test.

One word sick. If you want to go keep to. Light lunch or dinner go here because after this entire experience we walked out and couldn’t eat our entrees. Flies everywhere you take a bite and 3 more flies are sitting on your plate of already disgusting rubbery hard beef jerky like chicken. The wait staff never came to ask how our food was and shrugged at the complaint of 15 flies swarming our lunch, we had to walk up to the bar to get someone to check us out. Never again will we revisit this establishment. I’m sick thinking I even tried to eat the food they served us.

This was a while ago… but I found 2 dead moths in their salsa… Just saying. Never Again.

My wife and I eat here at least once a month. This is our favorite mexican place in town. The margaritas are top notch and the serving sizes are overbearing.

Yeah, so I’ve been there a few times. The food is not that great. Mind you, it’s not terrible, just not that great. Getting left at the altar is what gets this review dropped down a couple pegs. After I was just left sitting at the bar at El Rancho Grande (Beechmont Levee) for over 20 minutes without being acknowledged, I came to El Ranchito. There was a sign inside the door that said «Please wait to be seated» so I stood there for 4 – 5 minutes while various employees swirled about. Finally a girl asked me if I needed something, and I pointed at the sign and said, «I’m waiting.» and she said, «Oh, Ok, I didn’t know.». And there I awkwardly stood for another 4 – 5 minutes until I just walked out. All I needed was a spot at the bar and a burrito. Apparently that’s a tall order tonight. 2 places couldn’t provide this bare minimum for me, and here are your reviews. ¡Feliz Navidad!

A family favorite. Great service from friendly staff. Food is always good and plentiful.

El Ranchito has a few things going for it. Our waiter service was super-​fast. The bar area looks quite large, with both ample bar space and lots of tables in the middle. I want to come back some time to sit at the bar with friends. El Ranchito had a few things I really didn’t like. The salsa is runny and lacked any real punch to it. The cushioning in my booth seat seemed like it had made a run for the border.
I can’t really say much about the food. It was just average. I had some cheese enchiladas that were not the star of the dish. They didn’t leave a lasting impression or create an urge in me to go back and have more. The refried beans were also a disappointment. I’ve had better at many other Mexican restaurants. I did like the rice. So if you want a plate full of rice for dinner, El Ranchito is the place for you!

This place is a mainstay in our roster if eating out. They’re fast, have good drinks, and great guacamole. Food isn’t gourmet, but definitely tasty, and the atmosphere is social, fun, and kid-​friendly.
(For the folks that say it’s bland – you can order their food spiced any way you’d like… They keep low key so that it can appeal to the masses – I just use the plethora of sauces they have at the table to spice the flavor up!)

Searching, searching, searching… I have 3 Mexican restaurants near my home and I just can’t make any of them work for me. One has fine food but is too loud (kitchen noise). The second has a fine space but the food is sub par/​boring /​over processed. The third serves flies on the side (seems dirty). I have been rotating between the 3 trying to make it work out. Frustrating!
Great News/​Headline: My Search Has Ended. I found El Ranchito in Anderson. The space was large with high ceilings. The atmosphere felt festive without ANY abrasive kitchen noise. We were seated at a CLEAN booth topped with hot crisp chips and standard salsa (no flies). I ordered mole enchiladas. They were filled with savory chicken that was plentiful, tender, and seemed like a mom might have shredded the chicken by hand (not processed). I loved the sweet mole sauce served with a side of rice and re-​fried beans (naturally). YUM. Large soft drink cups and attentive table service made our lunch exactly so. So, so good. I have found a spot to satisfy my cravings for good straight up Mexican (ish) food. Finally!

I was a little weary of going here because of the iffy reviews I read, but I had an awesome coupon so I gave it a shot.
I actually quite enjoyed it. The salsa was a little runny, but still really good, just spicy enough, and it being offered in a little jar with 2 bowls meant the b/​f could make his portion even spicier. I thought the food in general was great, too. I had what was essentially a seafood chimichanga and b/​f had a beef burrito, the portions were pretty fair, his burrito was huge. It’s def not a traditional mexican fare restaurant, very TexMex setting. I had a frozen Midnight Margarita to top of the dinner, which was delicious.
The server we had made sure our soda and water was always refilled and was pretty attentive. The only thing I had an issue with was when we first walked into the restaurant, we didn’t know which way to go, and the hostess and another waiter just sat there staring at us, we had to approach them and say «Hello,» to get some type of help with seating.

I’m dropping the «One Star Hammer» on El Ranchito for several reasons. I can put up with slow service if the food is good, mediocre food if it’s cheap, and cheap food if it’s fast.
What the four of us got last night was garbage food and garbage service at expensive prices.
Burrito — no flavor
Fajita — bland
Chile Colorado — Is this chile? Is this ketchup? Nope. I think it’s corn starch with Red food dye.
Huevos Rancheros — raw egg
Service? Whenever they were good and ready. It took 40 minutes to get our food last night. We got the bill promptly. It was wrong, but prompt!
I didn’t suffer any food poisoning, which is the only plus.
There isn’t a chance I’ll return here. Any of the other five Mexican restaurants in the area have to be better. I’d actually take Taco Bell over El Ranchito.
Taco Bell: the cheap and fast option.

Several years ago there was yet another terrible TV commercial for one of those interchangeable diet-​beer spritzers, maybe Miller Lite. The product was contrasted with imaginary diet-​beer spritzers, whose drinkers exclaimed, «I can’t taste my beer!!» Those misguided drinkers were advised to switch to the flavor-​packed diet beer being advertised.
Well, at El Ranchito, «I can’t taste my food!!»
After two visits to this place, the blandness is quite noteworthy. I’m talking about my-​tastebuds-​seem-​like-​they-​just-​stopped-​working bland. The salsa that comes with the chips? It tastes like canned crushed tomatoes with a pittance of onion and cilantro thrown in. The rancho beans? Seems like beans out of a can with no seasoning. The chile verde? It takes quite a feat of cooking to make pork taste this dull. And on and on…
The frustrating thing is that the food actually looks pretty good when it’s placed in front of you.
And we sampled some beef fajitas. The strips of beef were so overcooked and tough that I believe we could have fashioned a plate of them into a nice strong rope. I exaggerate only marginally.
El Ranchito isn’t inexpensive enough to get away with such blandness. Many of the entrees clock in at 11 or 12 dollars.
The positives:
–As at most local Mexican joints, certain giant draft beers are offered at really cheap prices.
–The portions are massive.
–The chips were actually crispy and good.
–The colorful and cheery décor is more enticing than the local Mexican average.
–The service has been competent.
But El Ranchito brings up the question again: Why are so many of the Mexican restaurants in the Cincinnati area so mediocre?

The hardest part about eating at a lot of places and writing reviews for them is writing reviews for the most mediocre of them. Like, for example, El Ranchito.
What can you say about a Mexican restaurant that is perfectly average? My wife and I used to go here when we first moved to Cincinnati because it was one of the closest Mexican restaurants around that wasn’t named Taco Bell.
I’ve tried a number of menu items, and I can absolutely say it all tastes like Mexican fare (or should I say «fair?» Hahahahahohohohhehehe… sigh).
The ambiance is «restaurant.» The service is up and down… which is a little unusual because most Mexican restaurants I have been to excel in this category. But nothing I tried on the menu really ever struck a chord the way some of the food at other Mexican restaurants have (say El Rancho Grande or Cazadores).
My advice would be, if you live nearby it’s probably «good enough» if you don’t want to have to drive an extra 10−15−20 minutes to someplace you consider «great.»