Los Vaqueros Grill & Bar

The food was good, I had the lamb, and beef skewers. I thought ‘filet’ was fish! It was beef, but it was really filet mignon. I also ordered the chicken rellano, which was a pepper with the stuffed chicken and mixed veggies with cheese and sauce all over. It wasn’t bad, pretty good and almost seemed healthy. The sides I ordered was the jicama coleslaw (OMG the best ever because they do not use mayo), and the avacado mango salad, nice touch. The skewers also came with salad which was delicious!
The chips were ok, and the salsa was a bit watery, but ok to drink like V8. I think the price was fair, because the burrito was HUGE! With all these entrees, it came out to be about $ 40.
The only reason why I didn’t give all stars was because they didn’t have a huge menu selection, and they ran out of a bunch of food. They ran out of yucca fries, sweet potato fries, cod, and some other stuff. Would I come back? Probably, but I know I can find something else too.

the bacon shrimp appetizer is so good!!! :) ughh
margarita was so so. but the last time my bf and i went there, they had changed their menu. there was a lot less to choose from like their unique tacos they had before, and we weren’t as impressed as we were the previous time we went :(
but all in all good food! def beats the hell out of chevys is you wanna trade the normal bomb taqueria for a mexican restaurant. very cute on the inside very comfy and awesome outdoor seating. this place is a go-​to for me for sure. jus wish they hadnt changed their menuu

If you are bored with traditional Mexican fare where everything comes with rice and beans try Los Vaqueros. Entreés come with your choice of two sides. Sides might be a mango avocado salad, bourbon creamed corn and jicama coleslaw, to name a few. The bourbon creamed corn and the mango avocado salad, with a nectarine substitution, were excellent. The jicama coleslaw was nicely prepared and was less watery than a typical coleslaw.
The Tilapia tacos were nicely prepared and flavorful.
Leaving Mexico and traveling to the Caribbean islands you should try the coconut shrimp skewers. The absent traditional Caribbean dipping sauce wasn’t missed because the shrimps were so flavorful.
The Chocolate brownie flan special was very different. When I think of flan, I think of a creamy delight made by Jorge, one of our friends. The flan was only marginally more of a pudding than the brownie. The flan sat on top of the chocolate brownie. The desert was good but I would have rather had an excellent Mexican flan.
Before you leave, make certain you check out the various rooms. They have a nicely decorated cabana, outside seating, the main dining room and the lounge. All rooms have a different feel and one should really tickle your fancy. If you like green, you can even request a lounge table that is sitting under green lights to give everything a green tint which might be the perfect setting for their Saturday half off margaritas.
We recommend you try Los Vaqueros Grill and Bar.

This is an update review – they’re still there, as of August, 2011, and have an updated new menu! Hopefully means they’re around awhile more. The food seemed to taste better than ever; reinvigorated? Anyway, we took the kids and they also were impressed. The garden area was lovely and cool. They added among other things a ground lamb skewer; not too spicy, tender and flavorful.
Appreciate them as long we can, and if worried, call first!

I’ve been to different Mexican restaurants all over the country. From local PA favorites to a really good one in Indianapolis. So, when I came out west on a business trip, I expected to find a superb Mexican place.
Well, I was disappointed. It isn’t that Los Vaqueros is a bad place to eat. It isn’t. In fact, it is a decent enough spot. It was a nice place to go after work and grab some decent Mexican food.
The food and menu was creative enough. The service was good. I got my meal in decent enough time. It was started off with chips, of course. The sauce was good as were the homemade chips.
I ordered BBQ Carne Asada Tacos. They weren’t bad. They weren’t great. The Yucca fries were really good. The refried beans were average.
The highlight of the meal was definitely the beer. I ordered a Pacifico as I have never had one before. It was excellent. I liked the atmosphere and the setup here. The menu was creative but it just seemed to lack that extra oomph I see in some of the better Mexican places.
Maybe some better décor or something might help. It almost seemed like a Mexican restaurant that wants to be a sports bar. If I wanted to go to a sports bar, there are many in the area that are just that. I wanted a Mexican sit down. I got it but they could do better in this regard.

Well this place closes in June and either they are really ready to close or things are really slacking in the kitchen. I was really excited to try this place out again after a great first experience but it would prove out to be a huge disappointment.
My tacos were completely cold and the tortillas were stale!
The nachos were sloppy and very trashy!
The enchiladas were completely made wrong then we were told this is how they are served!
Well I think it’s a good thing they are closing so know I don’t need to explain to people not to go here anymore.

Sad, sad day… I have to drop one of all time faves… to *not so much*
We went for lunch and it was a total disaster. The service was very slow… to the point we went to the counter to pay. There is no excuse… the pace was empty.
The food sucked… I got a shrimp Chili Rellanos… where do I start? maybe that it was not stuffed as advertised? maybe that the sauce tasted like tomato soup? maybe the chili was raw? maybe there was no cheese to speak of? 4 shrimp did not make up for this hot mess. Epic fail.
Hubby got the Tacos de Dave… which I have had many times in the past… pretty skimpy and bad too.
Apparently they are leaving their quaint location in June… and I do not think we will follow. SAD!

Place has decent (run-​o-​the-​mill) average Mexican fare but for the small quantity of food the prices are high. My $ 8 Mango Avocado salad that 4 tbl spoons of lettuces, two slivers of avocado and 3 tiny slices of mango in a side (6 in) plate.
Margarita was $ 8 also!
The soft tacos were better but the soft shell was uncooked and cold!
Not worth a trip. Visit nearby taqueria for a whole lot better experience.

Bacon-​wrapped, cheese-​stuffed prawns. I could very well end the review with that alone. But I won’t, simply because there are FAR too many pros about this place. Regardless that they have an amazing chorizo-​stuffed quesadilla (amazing and ginormous)… regardless that they start your meal with some of the yummiest chips and salsa I’ve ever had in a restaurant… no, no, my friends, all of this is trumped by their Saturday deal: half-​off margaritas. BOOM!
Go. Enjoy. You’re welcome.

Unique menu. Good prices. Daily specials. (including 20% off for Livermore residents on Sundays!!)
The menu here is awesome. It is the most varied Mexican menu I have ever seen, and is more some kind of fusion or California fare. They have things on there like yucca fries, chipotle onion rings, kobe beef flat iron steak salad, tandoori chicken tacos, thai chile tilapia tacos, grilled chicken and squash chile rellenos, etc etc, the list goes on. Even the carne asada burritos are made with kobe beef, at ridiculously cheap prices for it. They had a wide variety of margaritas too, including tamarind! It took a while to decide what to eat because I wanted to try EVERYTHING.
I ended up with a grill special– Blood Orange Salmon Tacos! $ 15 for «salmon marinated with blood orange, ghost chile and cilantro, sauteed and placed in two soft flour tortillas filled with a tomatillo and tomato New Mexico Chile roasted salsa, pico de gallo, sour cream, guacamole, and topped with queso fresco, served with black rice and honey chipotle purple sweet potatoes.» Just about everything on the menu sounded that amazing.
The chips came out quick, and they were fresh and crispy, and they gave us three bowls of salsa for our party of three. Thumbs up right there.
The rest of our food took a while to get to us, but it was worth the wait. The salmon was cooked well with the perfect amount of firmness, but the heat I would have expected from ghost chile wasn’t there. For some reason, I only got heat on my very last bite of the tacos, and that bite was the best. The black rice was a bit on the salty side, but paired with the purple sweet potatoes the salt was balanced out, they tasted great together.
I’m kinda sad that I never ate at this place while I lived in Livermore, but I’m glad that it stuck around long enough for me to try it out. I can’t wait to go back to try more dishes, and hope that they have the other grill special I didn’t get to try this time around (Ancho chile kobe beef stew, slow simmered beef with russet potatoes, purple potatoes, turnips, carrots, celery, leeks, garlic and onions, seasoned with chile powder, cloves, and cinnamon, $ 12/​bowl). I’m getting hungry again just re-​reading it. Definitely going back.

We love this place. The food is really good and the service exceptional. This is where you go when you want to take your time and enjoy your evening!
This is my favorite casual dining restuarant in Livermore, hands down.

I’ve been meaning to eat here for some time. I’m glad that I finally did!
The food here is delicious and innovative. Not your usual Mexican joint. In a good way…
The house margarita on the rocks is delicious. But to be sure, I had two. Yep… delicious!

Totally in agreeing with Amir A about Endless Enchiladas Wednesday. All you can eat enchiladas for ten bucks, plus you get the two sides. This happens every Wednesday, and they usually have a sign out front or something in the menu, but I have been there when there’s neither (I assume they forgot or I just didn’t notice), so make sure to ask the server about it if you don’t see anything.
For the non-​enchilada fans, I definitely recommend the quesedillas, they are absolutely massive and stuffed with a lot of food– they don’t really look quite like traditional quesedillas (they’re SUPER thick) but so so so delicious.

Define: Savory
(adjective) see Los Vaqueros Grill’s bacon wrapped shrimp…
Also, Livermore residents receive a 20% discount on Sunday’s.

First off, this place is NOT a Mexican restaurant! The food is horrible and a poor attempt at trying to make Mexican food. Mexican food is probably one of my favorite foods out there and I’ve been to tons of places in the Bay Area. I went here for a birthday dinner and as soon as I heard it was in Livermore, I had a bad feeling about it. But I’m always about giving things a try once and boy was I right!
1^st bad sign: We walked in with a party of about 15 people and the place was totally empty on a Tuesday at 6:30PM. When I say empty, I mean EMPTY. We were the only people having dinner there with exception of one person drinking at the bar alone chatting away with the psuedo bartendar they had.
2^nd bad sign: The chips were already sitting on the table when we got to the place and yes they were cold and stale. On top of that only some of the tables had salsa and some didn’t.
3^rd bad sign: The salsa was a joke! The salsa was more like watered down tomato sauce with some green onions tossed in. Was not spicey AT ALL! My parents can’t handle spicey foods like I can and they even thought the salsa was way too mild!
Just from the salsa, chips, and the place being so empty, I should have left but I couldn’t since I was there for a birthday dinner so I tried to make the best of it, but that didn’t work.
I ordered two soft tacos with the sweet potato fries and a salad. We also ordered a full order of Nacho’s with chicken and steak on top. The torillas for my tacos were both stales, cold and hard even though I ordered soft tacos. The nachos were horrible also because the chips were stale, they came out cold and really soggy. My friend ordered some black beans as a side dish… so bland! The sweet potato fries were cold and tasted like they had been sitting out for a long time.
The only thing decent about this place was the service but thats probably because they had no one else to serve that night. This place was literally empty.
Last and certainly not least, my aunt got sick from their food. She had the runs and a stomach ache all day the next day. Not cool! I would give this place 0 stars if I could. Don’t waste your money at this place. If you want real good quality Mexican food, go somewhere else like La Piñata or Mexico Lindo in the East Bay!

Word of warning… this is NOT authentic Mexican food!!!
This place serves al pastor chicken… yes…this is not a typo… al pastor chicken, never heard of such a thing? neither had we… and when we called to order our take out food we asked if they served al pastor, the answer was yes, so we ordered the Tacos de Dave and specifically asked for al pastor (and said we don’t want chicken tacos) and carne asda tacos with no sour cream or guacamole. When we got home and opened our food we had chicken tacos with sour cream and guacamole all over them. FYI, the chicken wasn’t even bbq.
We also ordered Chipolte onion rings that were supposed to be spiced with Tabasco sauce… yup…just plain old onion rings with no spice added, apparently they forgot, but they gave us katsup on the side, gee thanks.
this was all accompanied by delicious salsa from a can, canned re-​fried beans with authentic yellow American shredded cheese melted on the top of the tacos and the beans… hmmmmm…can we say white washed!!!
The two stars are for the yucca fries and the drunken pinto beans. The tortilla soup wasn’t bad either, but again, it was a twisted, white washed version of a usually delicious soup.
We had also order red rice, but that did not make it in our bag either.
I also want to point out that the al pastor burrito looked so unlike a traditional burrito that my husband if afraid to eat it. My husband traveled to Asia and has eaten some serious freak food and he refused to even try the burrito.
Needless to say, we were very disappointed in this restaurant. It would be helpful if restaurants were honest about the food they serve, Don’t call it Mexican food if it isn’t Mexican food. Then when we order it we won’t be disappointed. Call it new age, Latin inspired food, or something…
We called to complain and were told that our money would get refunded which would be nice since we dropped 35 bucks on a meal we weren’t going to eat. I will update when/​if we get our money back.

Los Vaqueros was a pleasant and delicious surprise as a Saturday night dinner choice.
First things first — Saturday night = ½ priced margarita night. That means $ 4 a margarita. And the margaritas are GOOD too!
Not that I need to add anything after that to convince your average rational person to head over here, but for the sake of complete reporting, there is an adorable indoor garden area you can request a table in and don’t worry about it being cold because I was there on a cold night, and it was still nice and toasty there. I had the special for dinner — a ginger margarita (nom nom nom) and the New Orleans slash Mardi Gras themed pork tacos, which were amazingly different and really tender and delicious.

This is a terrible Mexican restaurant. Staff was friendly, fairly prompt service, but the food is just terrible. We should have walked out when got the chips and salsa. Any bottled brand salsa is much better than what they have, watered down and bland. We had the Tilapia tacos and quesedilla de chorizo picadillo. The tilapia tacos tasted like it is just slapped together. Sure the fish was cooked correctly, but the other ingredients did not blend/​harmonize with each other. Chorizo is a strong flavored meat, I did not get that either.
The bar may be popping at night, but I’m sure I won’t be coming here for the food.

Upgrade: They have enough daily specials and coupons to offset their non-​participation with
.
My buddy and I went today for a late lunch and got ½ price margaritas ($ 4 and yummy) and BOGO entrees.
I was able to make my Carnitas Burrito even fattier by getting Onion Rings and Sweet Potato Fries on the side (it’s really cool and bizarre to be able to choose your sides at a Mexican restaurant).
My entrée was $ 12 as was my friend’s Chicken Salad. She thought it was too pricey, and while my burrito was a bit much, it came with good chips and friendly service.
My husband is still mad at me for not taking him here, so expect another review!

Best Mexican food in Livermore. After going to Casa Orozco and Anita’s Taqueria for years, I’m so glad I found this place. I love the humble location and décor. Great food and service.
To all the people whining about
certificates, get over yourselves. That *&^! is a rip off for these restaurants. Good food shouldn’t come dirt cheap.