El Jaripeo

One of our favorites! Fastest service in town. By the time you start into the chips and salsa, your meal is coming. Salsa is always great and I haven’t had a bad meal yet. I try something different each time and have not been disappointed. Prices are reasonable as well. Get over there and try it!

I have to start by admitting that I have not had anywhere near all of El Jaripeo’s offerings. Great atmosphere and good service. The chips and salsa that are brought out upon sitting down are always freshly made, warm and the salsa is fresh and addictive. Most of the dishes I have had included enchiladas, burritos, and tamales. I’ve never been a big tamale guy. I don’t care for them here, but I’m not sure I like them anywhere. The main thing I take it away from my two or three dining experiences are that the finely ground beef is too bland. The ground beef just kind of never integrates with The dish. It’s like this generic component of so many of their dishes, and there’s nothing special about it. I guess I could mix some hot sauce and some cheese and some salsa in with it, but I wish that their ground beef stood more on its own. If I was making the ground beef at this restaurant, I would mix more flavors into it, and I would thicken it with a spicy sauce, something to make it stand out on it’s own. I’m sure all of the El Rodeos and El Jaripeos do their ground beef the same way, so it’s nothing against this particular restaurant, which, as I said, is very well run and managed. I just think they should try to make it special instead of generic.

Not too shabby for an americanized-​mexican experience. I had the Tacos de Carne Asada. the meat was a little dry and less flavorful than I am accustomed to getting at a truly authentic place. But overall, I’d still say it was a good experience. The server went above and beyond to communicate with my girlfriend and find her a beer that she liked. They finally settled on the Modelo Especial, which she loved.

The waitstaff was super helpful and assisted me in finding the perfect beer for my meal. The burro la roqueta was delicious. Good prices on lunch specials. It’s awfully dark in the restaurant in the early afternoon but overall it was a good American-​Mexican joint.

El Jaripeo is located right next to the Kroger on Washington street. It may be hard to miss because of the gas station traffic. Walking in, you definitely get a western feel about it. Brown furniture, rustic decorations, and the Mexican music really make this place interesting. The menu has a wide variety of meals. I had the camarones a la diabla, which were super spicy! They came with rice, beans, and pico de gallo. Their chips and salsa were also good. The salsa has a zest to it. Service was good. My server never gave me his name but he was attentive and friendly.

Please do not order the tamale! The masa is so dry. Please DO order the pitcher of top shelf margaritas. So yummy! We like to hang out at the bar to watch TV in Spanish. We have the complimentary chips and salsa with a side of refried beans and queso. Ya hay!

That was just plain delicious. Great flavor I dont get at every Mexican restaurant. Our server was sweet and oir food arrived in less than 10 minutes. Ordered chicken enchiladas and rice. Hubby ordered taco. Both were great. Im a margarita snob. This was one of the best. Lots of room, easy to converse. Will definitely do again.

El Jariepo is pretty standard Midwestern Mexican, but I love this place. They have such an interesting fountain! Everyone is friendly! For my birthday they sang, including a guitar player, and gave me a shot of tequila, complete in wine glass! I love their cheese dip-​perfectly cheesy and mildly spicy, all at once. The salsa they bring to the table is also spicy, not the mild stuff you get in other places! They have daily specials through the week.

Good food great service clean bathrooms definitely a second visit in the future.. .. .. ..

I had steak fajitas for lunch. They were awesome! Tasted great, huge portion and decent price. The remaining onions were so good, I took them to go and cooked up more steak at home with them to make a great steak sandwich. The chips and salsa were really good. Service was good. Maybe a wee bit pricey… but worth it. I’ll be back.

Oh gosh, it was a long day.
I was with a friend after we took a ridiculous drive to the east side so we can go to Disc Replay and try to find animal crossing for the Wii and run into Goodwill for some last minute shopping.
Also, I was feeling a bit down in the dumps and just wanted to eat my feelings away. That’s when my friend and I looked across the street and saw El Jaripeo just staring at us.
So we travel across the road and get greeted by a super nice waiter and he sat us down pretty quickly. However, we were just looking around at all the décor and it is super beautiful. There’s a tranquil waterfall that changes colors in the middle and beautiful hanging lights. It has a bit of a tropical ranch theme to it.
I ordered the taco salad with a side of cheese sauce and my friend got arroz con pollo with cheese sauce. It didn’t seem that far long after we ordered it, it was already done and ready.
The food was pretty decent portion. It was filling, but there wasn’t too much and you didn’t really have to box it up and take it with you. At first when it comes out, you look at it and immediately think «why is it so small,» but once you start digging into it, you will be surprised.
The place is a little bit pricey for most authentic Mexican restaurants, but I definitely think it’s a place worth going.

I was sick for 2 days after eating there. Bad salsa? Never had a problem before. I called them and the offered me a gift certificate not a refund. Won’t be returning!

This was one of the best dining experiences we have had. The menu and the wine pairings is original when choosing Mexican. This is not your corner Mexican joint… this is Mexican as «haute cuisine.» Just amazing!

This place is pretty good nothing really special about it as you can get the same Mexican food from other places and the prices are in line with those places also

One of my best friends [hailing from the east side] loves this place. I was hoping I could say the same after dining in, midday/​post lunchtime on a Saturday. My burrito wasn’t anything special, nor was service.
For being sparsely busy while we dined, service was fairly bad. We got drinks after about 15 minutes of trying to flag down someone, then had to wait what seemed like forever for chips & salsa & queso [and chip refills]. The chips and queso & salsa were amazing though, as well as my friend’s usual [a steak burrito with some sides added in]. Once we got our main food our server really played a good disappearing act. It took two other servers’ attentions to get him to return to us with checks. Decent food, but if I have to come back here I’m getting takeout.

The food is generally good. Some things not as much as others… you never know 100% what it’s going to be like that day. But like I said, it’s decent and almost always yummy. The service can be terrible though. There’s a young guy working that’s always a fantastic waiter, but we’ve had some pretty awful experiences with the rest of the staff. If you’re craving Mexican though, definitely give it a try!

Really good Mexican cuisine! They offer a a good beer selection and show all of the Colts games too. The salsa is fresh and spicy!

Delicious, authentic, flavorful, spacious, friendly — an overall great place. The last two times we went the service was slow but it was the same guy both times so I assume just a bad apple among the bunch. This place is clean and has really cool décor. The food comes out fast and make sure to get a margarita — no frills or flavored, just on the rocks. One of the best rita’s on the east side!

We don’t get to the east side that often, but our schedule had us there last night and we found ourselves needing a quick and delicious dinner. We had been to El Jaripeo at their old location across the street several years ago and just loved it — so we decided to visit them at the new locale. Wow. Just… wow. It seems that everything has gone down hill. Oh, sure… the new digs are nice and picturesque and spacious compared to the other location, but at what cost? The food was «Americanized Authentic» at best. And the service… well…so much for a quick dinner.
When we go out for Mexican we always go to an authentic, non-​chain restaurant because that’s what we enjoy. But our food was FAR from authentic. The robust heat of a good salsa was not realized here. It was bland, tasted as if it came out of a jar, and… I agree with another person’s previous review: it was closer to cocktail sauce than salsa — way too salty and not refrigerated (which, again, lines up with being from a jar versus freshly made). The entrees were underwhelming. I feel like we could have gotten the same dishes at a non-​Mexican establishment. Very Americanized. We split a dessert, and it too lacked flavor. This was just an all-​around disappointing trip in the food department.
Now…let’s talk about the service. We were there during the late afternoon — between lunch and dinner. When we walked in we probably ended up being one of maybe six tables in the whole establishment. What should have easily been a 30 minute dining trip ended up being an hour and fifteen minutes. Our server was pleasant, yet under-​attentive. He asked what we wanted/​needed but didn’t deliver in a reasonable amount of time. He even apologized for the delays… yet ended up continuing to be slow.
I don’t think we’ll be back. On our way back to the interstate, we were already scoping out other Mexican restaurants on East Washington Street that we could have tried instead.

Very spacious Mexican restaurant on the far east side. The servers are much friendlier than at many similar Mexican places, with some actually being conversational. There are nice murals painted on the walls and ample space between you and the other diners.
I had Carne Asada soft tacos and the meat didn’t have a lot of flavor, but was passable. My companion had Pork Carnitas and it was great! Moist, tasty cubes of pork. Refried beans and rice were tasty (I know they’re «automatic» but at some places they’re pretty gross). Our water glasses stayed full, and I liked that when the server brought our check he asked if we needed anything else, then let us know we could pay up front whenever we were ready.
Also, if you like to recycle, there are bins in the SAME parking lot! The bins are on the west side of the Kroger lot and El Jaripeo is on the east side. You can make your trip super efficient by doing 2 things: eating and recycling.