Los Rancheros Panaderia Taqueria

So, we were going to Martinez for a taco truck and when we wanted to do one last trip, I realized wait… they have an actual store here in Concord. We then slapped our heads and felt dumb. Los Rancheros is adjacent to their market which is nice cause you bet they’re using their own groceries to make their food. I got a taco which was pretty cheap in comparison to a nearby taco spot that’s more popular, but then again their meat isn’t as plentiful. It wasn’t too bad. Parking is plentiful in the lot.

Since moving to Concord about two years ago from Fresno (lots of Mexican options there!) this has become our favorite Mexican restaurant! We even live off Ygnacio and Clayton near another Mexican restaurant, and we would rather drive a little further to come here. Not that the other place is necessarily bad, we just prefer Los Rancheros. They season their asada incredibly well. Love it! Everything is authentic here.
The best thing we’ve come to love is the roasted corn they have during the summer months on the weekends outside. Elotes and esquites. Spicy and sweet corn at the same time is like an explosion of flavors in every bite. Just the best!
Ignore the bad comments here. I’m not sure if they are used to authentic Mexican restaurants. If you want watered down flavors and higher prices, go to the places in downtown Walnut Creek. You’re paying for the atmosphere there.

HIGHLY recommend! Visited this place for the first time over the weekend. The menudo is AMAZING (and amazingly authentic!) They have aguas frescas that are so delicious and freshly made as well. I had the green agua fresca. Definitely give this place a try! You won’t leave disappointed!

Important note: Many other reviewers have called this place «ghetto» and have said that their menu is a disaster, neither statement is true. The restaurant and outside taco truck area were full of friendly looking customers and families with young kids. Perhaps if you have never been to a working class area and only frequent more affluent areas of the bay area you would call this area ghetto. The only reason being that it is not full of white people.
This place is great! They make the extra effort to make their dishes look presentable. I ordered the fried tilapia, which is accompanied with rice, salad, and handmade tortillas. I did not want rice so they made my salad larger. It included several slices of fresh avocado, escabeche carrots, lettuce, and radishes. The presentation was nice, and I appreciated the extra effort. The tilapia was nice and crispy and seasoned well. I would definitely order it again.
My boyfriend ordered two carne asada grande tacos (not sure if that is their menu name) which are made with hand made tortillas. Again, the cooks at Los Rancheros go the extra mile. The tacos were topped with queso fresco, slices of avocado, salsa, onions, and cilantro. The carne asada was cut into nice thick slices and it was well seasoned. This plate also included some escabeche carrots.
I highly recommend this place as they provide delicious food, a clean atmosphere, affordable prices, and friendly service!

There are times I crave a full blown Mexican Desayuno (breakfast) on the weekends and for some reason, this is tough to find in the East Bay. It is a good thing Los Rancheros comes to my rescue. Breakfast is perfect. My go-​to is the huevos rancheros with 3 perfectly cooked eggs with sauce on top, great beans and rice, a side of crispy bacon and home made corn tortillas all fluffy and delicious. My better half gets the Mexican Breakfast which is DELICIOUS grilled steak, peppers and onions and fried eggs with beans and rice, crema and guacamole. We get this with juices — squeezed to order — the both of us eat like royalty and bring food home and it is under $ 20 for the both of us. One of the best breakfasts ever. EVER. I also like their lunch plates, etc. Tortas (sandwiches) are very good too. THey also have seafood cocktails I must try. The grocery store next door that is connected has a great carniceria (meat market) where they are very nice and helpful and their panaderia (bakery) carries fresh and delicious pan dulce (sweet bread) in a good variety. It is a MUST GO when I am on Monument.

We just had these guys cater a taco bar party for about 60 people last night. They did a GREAT job! They were so friendly and professional, came on time, we’re great with all of our friends, cleaned up. It was very easy. The food though, was delicious! They came with four types of tacos, carnitas, el pastor, chicken and Carne asada. Each one was great, but the el pastor was my favorite. It was so flavorful, moist and rich. They brought along everything including rice and beans, cilantro, onions, spicy carrots, several types of salsa, horchata and fruit drinks, and a desert. Everyone was raving about the food. It really added to the evening. At the end of the night, they let the extra food so we lots more for the next few days. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone.

I ordered the chicken burrito worth fresh jalapeños. The ingredients were fresh as was the presentation. This place is no joke it is the best tacqueria i have eaten in the east bay. the jalapeños were finely diced and evenly distributed, fresh onions, fresh cilantro… amazing. will be telling my friends about this place for sure.

Fui un par de veces a este lugar, y tardan mucho para entregar las ordenes, y su personal no da buen servicio, solo por que son muy populares en concord los rancheros pero dejan mucho que decear en sus servicios, lo pensare para bolver.

Tacos are great it comes with grilled chile verde, radish grilled onion. They have great flavor if u don’t want to eat in the restaurant you can order fast through the taco truck.

We have been back at least twice more. Still a fan, but it doesn’t seem quite as good as I remember. They may have also raised their prices because they no longer seem like such a good deal to me. Like most Mexican places, not very vegetarian friendly. Not vegan friendly at all.
Still good food though.

Excellent Mexican food. About the best handmade tortillas you’ll find. Fast and friendly. I particularly enjoy the chorizo breakfast plate. For meals other than breakfast, I stick with their asada tacos. They do have a truck here after the restaurant closes. It’s usually pretty busy, so count on a wait. But the food is worth the wait.

My wife and I stumbled into this place by accident as the Korean BBQ across the way didn’t offer a lunch menu on the week-​end. I ordered the shrimp burrito and she had the two taco meal. Without a doubt, it was some of the best Mexican food i’ve ever had in the Bay Area and I’ve lived here 20 years. Highly recommended and can’t wait to try it again in the future.

Pros:
Good Prices
Not over crowded (Atleast when I went)
Portion size is good (I took a Supreme Burrito, and it was Supreme)
Cons:
The place was not crowded, still my Burrito was not hot as per my taste. It was To Go and 5 mins drive to my office, and Burrito was cold, as if made few hours back.
Taste. Nothing bad, but nothing great too. I have had better tasting burritos… this was an average.

Catering service is fantastic! Nicholas helped answer all my questions and he also worked at the event.
Price was a good value for what you get. All our guests loved the food and wanted to know where we got it from!
Highly recommend and would definitely use them again.

During summer of 2014, went here often.
Usually ordered the juice called Passion Fruit.
The menu board states clearly that 3 fruits are included.
But finally realized that the charge for this drink was for 3 fruits BUT ONLY TWO WERE BEING USED.
This is called BAIT AND SWITCH AND ILLEGAL.
One is charged for a product that is not what is on the menu board.
Sadly, this place is charging very hard working latinos for something the shop never delivers.
This is fraud.

This place has great service and amazing food! Very authentic mexican food. I love their soups! They also have a taco truck in the evening!

#1 rule of authenticity: When you and the people you’re with are the only people not from the country of where the food is from. So yeah, I’m thinking this place is pretty legit.
Came in for some tacos. Ordered the Seasoned Pork, and Cheek Meat. The Cheek Meat Taco was on point. Its like Lengua, but better. Highly recommended. I’m definitely coming back to try other items on the menu. Menudo sounds like a good idea.

Oh dear. We stopped in for breakfast, and it was a bad idea. It was crowded, everyone besides us was eating menudo, and we had to wait forever for our huevos rancheros. Unfortunately, when they arrived, the plates were stone cold, as was our food. Since they were so swamped and we were so hungry, we ended up eating it anyway, but decided not to come for breakfast again. This is our first time there not having a fantastic meal, but what can you do?
I still love you, Los Rancheros.

Okay, one of the best carne asada burritos ever. What do I look for? Quality cuts of meat, not grisly, not tough, great flavor and tender, check right on. Great ingredients, properly prepared rice and beans not loaded with a lot of heavy fatty flavor, but a freshness and taste of the natural ingredients, absolutely and this one came with a generous amount of beautiful perfectly ripe avocados ! Not to mention their salsa was wholesome, fresh, flavorful and excellent ! Great kick, great flavor. What’s up with the photo? Well I unwrapped the bad boy burrito and then took a bite to photo the insides, problem was I could not stop eating it. Resulting photo, the evaporating burrito !

YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY!
So my favorite Mexican dish is… The Taco.
Now when eating tacos I have come to find that I like certain things more than others. Usually I am not that picky about the meat but there is one key ingredient that is a must have for me.
SOUR CREAM!!!
I would probably eat sour cream on everything if I always carried it with me, but since I don’t I usually have to remember to ask for them to put it on or ask for it on the side. Now this sometimes causes a problem with wallet as most places seem to charge an extra 75 cents for a small thing of sour cream.
Well not at Los Rancheros I asked for a side of sour cream and to my surprise they didn’t charge me for it! Now thats what I’m talking about.
Some other things that I have come to learn, that I really enjoy is when I order Carnitas I like it crispy. So for some reason I try and find the places that serve it crispy, but right before I was ordering my food at Los Rancheros I thought to myself why don’t I ask if they can make it crispy for me. Well they can and it was amazing!!!
I ended up ordering 3 Carnitas Tacos with a side of sour cream and I was in taco cielo. When I ordered they asked if I wanted hot or mild salsa on them which is always great for a place to ask before putting either one on. I asked for the mild and my wife got the hot.
Before the food arrived, we were given some chips and there was a small salsa bar. When I say small it wasn’t really a bar. It was sitting on a bar I will give it that but there were only two choices and that was hot or mild. There was also no salsa verde which happens to be mi favorito. This is the only reason I gave them 4 stars instead of 5. Everything else was great.
The service was good, and the girl behind the counter had a smile the whole time which is always great to see. The food was prompt and hot when it came out and it really was delicious.
They also have a fountain machine which is always a bonus for me since I love my sodas, and if I’m not feeling the fountain soda there is a good selection of drinks in their refrigerator.
So what did I learn today: From now on always ask for my carnitas extra crispy or well done.
Thanks Los Rancheros, for making my day!

DELICIOUS DISORDER
Our most recent taco stop was at Los Rancheros after it received Review Of The Day.
I ordered one carnitas and two chicken tacos (one grilled, one marinated). Husband ordered three tacos with sour cream. I confirmed at the register that grilled jalapenos came with that, as I’d seen in other Unilocal pictures. Yes, yes they do.
We had a rather long wait for the food — it seemed long given how many people were in there (not many) but finally it arrived and they’d forgotten our jalapenos and his sour cream.
The tacos were really, really good though! The two salsas were located next to the register and the hot one was actually very warm! The mild was also very tasty. We enjoyed eating the chips and salsa immensely! The tortillas were super fresh. I’ve probably never had a fresher tortilla. the girl working brought me a plate of jalapenos to make up for the forgotten ones, but it was mostly pickled, not grilled. Oh well.
We’ll be back soon for sure.

We had a carnitas super burrito, menudo con patas, fresh squeezed tropical juice. Loved our lunch. The menudo was the best I’ve had in years. Superb