Front Street Cantina

Ordered from here for the first time the other night and was not disappointed! I took my order to go, but the workers I interacted with at the restaurant were extremely pleasant and rather prompt, which definitely deserve kudos! The inside of the restaurant is very clean, well lit, and very spacious. I am looking forward to having some more time so we can sit down and enjoy a meal there.
I ordered the ground beef enchiladas with rice and refried beans. The enchiladas were awesome, filled with meat, lots of cheese, and the flavor was delicious. The rice and beans were «eh», but the main dish was more important to me! My other half ordered the nachos grande, and the portion was huge! He is a picky eater but loved their nachos. The guacamole it came with was super fresh and tasty. Much to our surprise we also received free chips and salsa with our order, so good! All in all, we will definitely be back.

First time here we brought our dog and sat on the patio. halfway through the meal it started to rain the waiter said we normally don’t let dogs inside but considering the situation will let you in. Service is great and the food was amazing

I usually go to the Wheaton location but was in Geneva so decided to try this one, not even close to as good of an experience. The food was not it’s usual amazingness, it didn’t taste freshly made. The service was ok, the waiter had to ask if I wanted more water before the food had arrived, it seems obvious to me i’d like something to drink with my meal. If you want a great Front Street meal go to Wheaton!

Been frequenting this place for years, but the service seems lacking of late. Still a good place, but more of a «2.5−3», because they kinda phone it in. Good, just not great.

Great casual Mexican food. Family friendly and convenient. Fairly priced and located near the train station on Geneva’s 3^rd street. Great location and accessible parking.

Terrible service. We come here about once a week and tonight had maybe 3 people in the whole place… that being said… we wont be back anymore. The food was sub par, service was terrible, no refills, no checking on food status. Its sadas we have bern loyal customers weekly for years.

Nothing special here. This is a corporate bar chain that sells some pretty bad food and is barely above Taco Bell. The service here is terrible as well and not sure if all the suburban front street cantinas are as bad as this bartender happened to be. There are not many other bar choices near metro stop of Geneva and this could account why there is an service here.

Front Street Cantina is a great place to go. We mostly go there on lazy Sundays… I can catch the Football games with my buds or I can take my family and sit outside on the patio and watch the trains go by. And what makes it even better is that on Sundays I can get a tall glass of beer for $ 3…And it is good craft beer and they mix up the craft beer selection quite often which makes Front Street a new adventure every time.
We’ve had a few food items there and have been please with all of them. Ideally, my family of 4 likes to get the biggest order of beef nachos we can get and share that… and watch the trains. Wow, after writing this review, I wish it was Sunday at the Front Street Cantina now.

Nice place to grab food and several drinks after all the Metra delays.

Our favorite casual Mexican restaurant around. The salsa is addictive! We typically order steak fajitas and chimichangas. Love that we can put through special request not on the menu. Fun atmosphere and very consistently delicious.

The Midwest hasn’t caught on to cheese dip yet, apparently, but Front Street has! We drive 40 minutes to Front Street because it’s the ONLY Mexican restaurant we like! Their beef chimichanga is amazing, my husband loves their taco salad, and we always order the chile con queso (without the peppers) as an appetizer. We’re from VA where every Mexican restaurant offers cheese dip, so we were shocked when we moved here. This place is worth the drive!

Queso was the best thing i had here everything else is just decent but not great.

We’ve been eating at the Front Street Cantina in Naperville and Wheaton for years, so I was thrilled to see one open in Geneva a few years ago. The food is the same as the Naperville and Wheaton locations, and we’ve always had a good experience here. It’s leaps and bounds better than the other similarly-​priced Mexican place a few blocks away.
I’m a bit confused by the so-​so reviews on this site, as everything we’ve ever ordered has been great. The salsa is fresh, and not too mild, and the chips are really good with plenty of salt. I like the tacos campos, with onion and cilantro, and the chicken chimichanga is the best I’ve ever had. My husband always gets chicken tacos, and they’re very good and always overflowing. The house lime margaritas are my favorites. I’ve been here with people who know «real» Mexican food and they’ve always enjoyed the food, too.
The bar area is definitely larger than the Naperville location, so I guess I could see that being a turn-​off if you don’t want to see the tvs while you eat, but you could easily ask for a table away from the bar.

Great beer selection and some terrific appatizers. I LOVE the queso and chorizo and the steak
night is 2.50 mexican bottles. Go there and quit living life under a sombrero.

I stopped in here for lunch one afternoon after looking around at an art fair in Geneva. The primary reason I stopped here was because of its location– It’s on the corner of 3^rd Street and Crescent Place, steps from the Geneva Metra train station and next to a parking structure where I had parked. And for those who don’t know, 3^rd Street in Geneva in this section of town has lots of shops and options for window shoppers, as well as several other restaurants which tend to be more pricey.
I ordered chicken tacos with rice and beans. Prices were average, but definitely lower than what one would typically find along 3^rd Street in Geneva. That said, the quality and flavor of food was just okay– nothing to write home about. They weren’t too busy the day I stopped by, but I don’t recall being offered a refill on my ice tea the entire time. Took awhile to get my check too.
Front Street Cantina has a bar area as you walk in to the place with wide screen TV’s broadcasting sporting events, obviously giving a «sports bar» feel to the place. The rear of the restaurant was set up with tables and booths for dining without the TV influences.
So the primary reasons for dining here would be for convenience, cost and location or for catching a brew in the bar area while waiting for a train or after shopping on 3^rd Street.

I wish I could give it a better review, but, I have to leave it as it is. I probably should have complained more at the time — but after the first bite of chips and the service I just knew I wasn’t going to be back. I should have taken the ‘empty’ vibe as a cue to ‘not eat here’ but it was a gorgeous night and we wanted to sit outside and it was the only place available w/​out a wait. On a beautiful Friday night that should be a tip off — the place was quite empty inside — while the ‘few’ and rather uncomfortable outdoor seats were mostly filled up. I love mexican food. really I do, so I was ok trying something that billed itself as ‘authentic’ mexican — it surely was not.
We were greeted and adressed fairly quickly — though it took a long time from drink order to served drinks. Our ‘free’ first basic of chips was tiny — and cleaned out quickly — hardly even enough for the salsa and OVERLY salted. After a fairly long wait we ordered. My daughter and I ordered starters which took quite a long time to come. My daughter ordered the Queso, and, she had to request ‘chips’ for it — that was strange — they should have come out w/​the queso. and I think we were charged for them as well. I ordered Tortilla soup — which was ‘warm’ however, it was not bad and if had been heated more I would have enjoyed it. It took quite a long time for it to come out and then being luke warm made no sense.
My drink sat empty for quite sometime as well and service was no where to be found. Our food arrived and our ‘used’ plates were not removed and our food just plopped on what little space we had. My youngest ordered a Hot Dog off the kids menu — it came with Curly fries and was actually pretty good and she liked it. I ordered ‘Sole’ tacos as part of the Taco’s on the Beach dinner — which arrived quite sometime after my family was served? When they did come — the food again was luke warm, there was almost no fish on the taco — the whole thing was bland. The rice was ‘stale’ tasting — however the black beans were just ok. I honestly would have prefered Taco Bell ‘Al Fresco’ menu to this. really, I felt like I had a glob of cheese and lettuce w/​some fish flavor —
My other daughter ordered the Fajitas. These were the best option we had. I tasted hers and it was a decent portion, chicken was well cooked, veggies crisp yet cooked. however, it lacked any real flavor and the sour cream and guac were served atop on another which wasn’t pleasing at all — same rice and beans as the rest of ours and the tortilla’s pretty standard. One plus is these didn’t seem overly greasy .
Husbands Quesadilla was just barely ok. soggy and uninspired…
Best part of the place is location — Service is medicore and spotty at best. Food same. Price is good for what you get, well, if you like it that is. Won’t be back — much better options closer to home.

Just not impressed by Front Street Cantina in Geneva.
Walked in for lunch on a Sunday and the first impression was an awkward smell in the dining room: like a mildew smell covered up by a lot of chlorine. Based on that decided to sit in the patio area since it was a gorgeous spring day.
Service was fine, best summarized by effective.
The downer was really the quality of the food served. Ok it’s a relatively cheap Mexican fare but really the dishes are poorly executed and in one word: tasteless.
My taste buds simply expected a better experience.

Absolutely don’t know much about what others experienced because my experience was nothing negative to speak of and I have been there 5 times. I can’t get enough of the Beer Battered Cod Tacos as is what I order every time (so my review is really really limited or is mainly just trying to persuade people to go back and try that option on the menu). As for the other things, the rice that comes with the meal is cooked well with a lot of flavor. The beans, oh my god, I love the beans and could just get the beans with some chihuahua cheese and the rice and be so happy. And they have Lagunitas Beer, which if you haven’t tried please for me try it.
I like watching the train roll on by and I have had decent service. I guess that is the ONE thing that holds me back from a 4 star review. I went on a night it was actually pretty dead and all the servers were huddled around a table while we were just staring at them to get them to come over because it was 10 minutes or being ready to order and didn’t order. Now that I think about it that really pissed me off.
Anyways, it didn’t make me mad enough to never go back there, in fact writing this makes me really want to go there right now and get another Beer Battered Cod Taco.

I go to front street often for the lively atmosphere and good food– I can honestly say that it’s an Americanized Mexican meal, but delicious nonetheless. The price is much cheaper than a restaurant like Friday’s, too. I give it three stars because although it’s not that busy, I always feel like people are being rushed out. There are also more authentic places around.

If you don’t know anything about authentic Mexican food you will probably like Front Street Cantina. The food is average at best and nothing on the menu sets this place apart from every other «Americanized» Mexican restaurant.
If you ever traveled into the heart of Mexico you know that things like «Pico de Gallo», re-​fried beans, and Nachos don’t exist down there. Real Mexican food isn’t fried!
Service is average and it gets really noisy when it’s crowded. The bar is open and airy with a good overall selection.
Front Street is a decent place to meet up with friends over a beer or two. But I really can’t recommend this place to anyone looking for above average Mexican.