Paradise South of the Border

I’ve been hanging in out here for a while. Food is always 3 – 4 star. For the price, that’s great. If you want five star head south and be ready to drop a couple of bills. This review is actually about the bar. Jamie just made me the best mixed drink I’ve ever had, a skinny margarita.
Wow…
Don’t screw around, get over there and order one from him, you will not be disappointed.

There have been times when the food has underwhelmed. The taco Tuesday is spot on and delicious.

We were greeted with smiles and promptly seated at a clean table. Our waitress was friendly and the chips and salsa were brought out quickly. I took advantage of the $ 2 domestic drafts and had a Yuengling. I ordered the steak fajitas and my husband had a taco platter. The food was delicious for a good price.
I was surprised that our waitress didn’t know what the mole sauce was. That’s a bit disappointing since this is a Mexican restaurant, but I also expect the wait staff at a restaurant to know what each menu item is.

If you’re looking for good Mexican food and great service, this is not the place to go. My family and I ate here after church a few weeks ago. Like an earlier review, there were servers/​hosts standing around talking and ignoring the patrons. We actually had 1 female food server who took our order, and we never saw her again. Two other male food servers brought out our food, refilled our water glasses and inquired how our meal was. At first, I thought our food server had gotten sick or something, but then saw her walk right by us to chat with the hostess. My husband made a point to give a cash tip to the two male food servers who actually waited on us, and we stiffed the female food server. The food is OK, not anything that would bring me back there. ~ AT

I’ve been living here for a couple of years now and this place is just around the corner and always busy. You can tell it’s just a great family friendly casual spot for many of the local suburbanites to either park themselves at the bar or get some pretty decent Mexican fare.
Pretty much every dish I’ve had there delivers from the fish tacos to the enchiladas to the Cuban quesadilla (my favorite). The true measuring stick of a good Americanized Mexican place is the salsa. Their salsa here is fantastic as well as the chips. I’m telling you, that can make or break you in my eyes when comparing these types of places to one another.
Fast, friendly, casual and affordable… You can’t go wrong heading here if you live in the area or just passing through.

This is a pretty solid, neighborhood restaurant. We come here a lot after games, chorus concepts, plays, etc. it’s very popular with people in East Cobb.
Paradise South of the Border is the sister restaurant to Paradise Grille, which is right next door. You can order from either menu regardless of the restaurant. I’m partial to Mexican food, and this place has all the usuals: tacos, burritos, enchiladas, etc.
Portions here are huge. Even the kids menu has decent sizes. I highly recommend the Loaded Burrito and Fajitas.

I previously wrote a bad review about a particular experience I had but I will say the manager went above and beyond in making it right. That means a lot in my book.
We’ve been here a lot and the food is on point most of the time. The salsa is some of the best I’ve had in Atlanta. That says something because, as a Texan of Hispanic heritage, we base our views of Mexican restaurants on how good the salsa is. The only salsa I’d give the nod over theirs is Nuevo Laredo. But no one is touching that.
The Papa Grande nachos are a great appetizer. Unlike other restaurants, they pile the toppings on. Meat, chicken, lettuce, sour cream, jalapenos, salsa, and green onions. At the end I am having to add chips to eat the remaining toppings which is a nice change from places where I have a ton of dry nachos left at the bottom. It easily feeds four people.
They offer a lot of different meats but easily the best is the pork. I get either the supreme burrito or the chile relleno and the pork in both is outstanding.
My suggestion if you’re eating alone or as a couple is to eat in the bar/​high top area. This place is very family oriented and much of the rest of the restaurant will be noisy. There is also a patio area when the weather is nice. I would not recommend takeout. We’ve been hit or miss when it comes to takeout orders coming out properly.
Bar service is outstanding. The Texas or skinny margaritas are recommended. The lizard margarita at Tacos and Tequila is my favorite margarita in Atlanta but these will leave you satisfied.

This place is great! Love their food and the staff is very good. My family and I eat at Paradise pretty frequently.

While there was a hostess stand and 5 or 6 employees standing there… No one greeted us. We stated that we had a party of three. They just looked at each other… Eventually one of them grabbed three menus and walked to a table… We followed.
Seated we realized that the booths are just painted wood. Quite uncomfortable. The atmosphere is bland and boring and there was a tons of crumbs on the floor all over the dining room.
Our Fajitas came with semi-​stale tortillas. Cheap on vegetables, beans and rice. The Beans, rice and guacamole were all very bland. My daughter had soft beef tacos and I think they tried to toast them? The «soft» tortillas were hard and crunchy and the beef was greasy. The flavor wasn’t great either.
Service was slow overall. Our waitress was neglectful. She never gave us any refills or even checked in. We would have appreciated more water, a third set of silver, more tortilla chips and/​or salsa. We were short a set of silver the entire meal. We asked three times for a set… My wife and I gave up and shared a set so that our food didn’t get too cold.
Overall, less than mediocre food and the service was terrible.

Food was horrible, nothing authentic about it. You can make better Mexican food in your kitchen. Just order burgers and drinks and save your money.

Favorite part was the gringo selection on their menu… so much for being p.c.
My street tacos were excellent.
Smothered burrito was all rice no meat.
Crispy tacos for the kid… the ground meat was soft and mushy… yuck!!!
Think I was the only Mexican in there… That should have been my first sign:(

My family eats here at least once a week — sometimes 2 or 3 times! Great food and service! Best salsa around. Burritos are as big as your head. And believe it or not, they have the best chicken wings, hands down. Try the paradise style wings!

Met friends out and had a wonderful time. Plenty of outside seating. You can either order off the South of the Border menu or the Paradise Grill Menu.
I had the prime rib and cheddar sandwich which was very good and a couple of beers. My wife had the fish sandwich, side salad and 3 glasses of wine.
Service was very good as was the food. We enjoyed the evening and left very satisfied.
Normally we meet friends at South of the Border for wings and beers every other Monday so if you come into the bar and see a couple of table pushed together and middle aged people enjoying beer and wings then that would be us!

We went here for dinner tonight and we thought it was great! The servers were very friendly, the manager came over & welcomed us & even the teenager who brought chips to our table went out of his way to be friendly. The Fish tacos with mango salsa were really delicious and the beer was ice cold. Great experience! We’ll be back!

my wife, baby, and I went at about 2pm so we were not doing drinks and not during a rush hr time so that might change the service.
service–
Pros– Fast order to table time
Cons– Well for one the waiter kept calling me Papi. not in like a scarface «oye Papi» either it kind of creped me out. I asked about the taco’s size he responded by giving me an idea with his hands. ok cool. I said ok its a good size then cool. mind you im not a small guy but not huge either I am tatted up prior military/​Security dude with a high and tight. I put off a don’t touch me/​get away from me vibe. I don’t like people in my blind spots. he decided it was a good idea to pat my belly a couple of times and say yes its a good size for you while calling me Papi. Dude really?
Food
Pros– Brisket, chicken, rice and beans were ok.
Cons– poor food quality, didn’t taste the freshest
My wife ordered a beef enchilada. she took one bite and moved to her chicken tacos. after a few minutes I asked if everything was ok she said she had to let her food settle because the first bite she took of the beef was so greasy it made her stomach upset. I thought she was just having an upset stomach from being pregnant. I took a bite of it to check it. grease oozed out of the spot I just cut and pooled into the dish. Taco Bell Beef has less grease and more flavor. needless to say that wasn’t touched after that. I had Mole’ sauce added to my tacos. I’m not sure how they make their Mole’ but I’ve been eating Mole’ for 24 years… that was not it.
Over all
The atmosphere was ok. They still had up 5^th of May stuff. its September time to take it down. the feeling in the place seemed to be more of a bar with food items rather than a food place with a bar. the price was good if the food was eatable. I spent 26 bucks on 3 eatable items (rice and Bean being 2 of the 3). the place seems like something you would see on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. reminded me of the episode he told the owner to concentrate on Quality not Quantity this place has way to many options it doesn’t do well rather than having a few options it does extremely well at.
maybe I’m to much of a food critic since my dad has been running food places for 24 plus years but we Will NOT be returning. find some where else to eat for 30 bucks. if your set on «Mexican» go to Taco Bell its more authentic Jack-​in-​the-​box soy tacos pass of better «beef»

So good! I had a chicken chimichanga with their brown/​veggie rice and black beans. Very generous portions without being over the top. A lot of places like to smother everything in cheese and fry the crap out of the food, but everything was just right. The chimichanga was lightly fried, and there was a cheese sauce on it that was just out of this world.
My husband ordered a combination platter with three items, again very generous portions. They accidentally brought out the wrong item for one of his items and our waiter immediately brought out the correct item and let him keep the wrong one anyway. He also had two cocktail drinks which he said were great. We had a friend with us who got a giant mug of beer for what seemed like a pretty reasonable price too.
Service was superb, our waiter was super nice! He was obviously new and came back to our table once or twice to make sure we were getting what we wanted, for example he came back to verify whether we wanted a certain ingredient in a certain drink. This is the kind of thing that another waiter might have just assumed instead of taking two minutes to walk back to the table to ask.
The price is right, you can expect to pay what you’d expect to pay in a chain restaurant, but the quality of the food you’ll receive is way better.

Friend was in the mood for Mexican so we saw this place and stopped. It was 6pm on a Friday and already really busy, but no wait. It’s in the heart of the suburbs and there were a lot of families and children. Our service was pretty slow (i think because it was so busy) but nothing that made us too upset. We ordered the queso with jalapeños. It was delicious, but the smaller portion was just barely enough for two people. Then we finally got a drink menu and ordered skinny margaritas. Probably the worst margarita I’ve ever had. I didn’t even finish it. It seemed like it was just tequila and tonic or something, like they missed the lime juice. I ordered the taco salad which I thought was a small portion but no complaints about the taste. My friend ordered a combination meal that was huge and looked delicious.
By the time we were leaving, probably 7pm ish, there was a wait.

Been there twice now and thought it was definitely above average for mexican. Chips and salsa is a 7 out of 10 with a 5 being your normal mexican restaurant chips and salsa. It’s definitely not life changing but if you like mexican food… and most of us do… then this is a good place for better than normal mexican at prices and menu options you are familiar with.
Our service was good the first time and GREAT the 2^nd time… luck of the draw I suppose.
Atmosphere isnt anything too great but we like it well enough… its definitely got a pretty good energy to it.

My go to Mexican restaurant when I want nachos. The portion is large enough for 2 of us to share and the price can not be beat

Went for lunch and really shoulda noticed all the folks who had salads and sammiches instead of Mex fare. (They did have a dedicated lunch menu, but service wasn’t as fast the pared-​down plates should’ve been.)
Anyway, went ahead and ran the test — street tacos and fajitas. You’ll know everything by the time the food arrives.
Sure enough, no actual fajitas but Tex-​Mex stir fry. You can always tell when your meat is dwarfed by a bed of onions and peppers and the chicken is browned on all sides, indicating it was not cooked as an intact breast.
Three tortillas off a truck and cafeteria quality rice/​beans/​guac accompanied the stir fry. For $ 8 that is a fail. You could do much better at a Chipotle.
Street tacos were slightly better, showed a little pride. The chorizo topped with grilled spring onions was nice and the carne asada functional. But at $ 6 for two shoulda had a slice of avocado or two. The cafeteria rice added nothing. As it was I got $ 2 worth of food with $.50 worth of prep. Not a winner.
I see no reason to expect the rest of the Mex fare to be any better. On the up side, not as completely horrible as Chepe’s.