Pancho’s Mexican Buffet

We drive out from time to time to eat here. I’ve loved Pancho’s since I was a baby. It’s the same yummy food. The manager here is always very friendly and so are the waitresses. The prices are reasonable. I love the tamales and tacos. Hubby loves the enchiladas and tostadas. No, it’s not really authentic Mexican food. We used to live on the border of Mexico and yes the food down there is awesome, but Pancho’s is just Pancho’s. Can’t compare. I love to get the cheese sauce over the rice! Hot, fresh sopapillas are such a good way to finish the dinner. Kids love it. We’ve never had any complaints except they need to fix the rips in the some of the booths… that doesn’t feel good to sit on.

This place is a childhood treasure. I remember coming here early and often as a kid and now do the same with my own children.
I don’t get the hate from other reviewers. The Flautas are excellent, the chicken enchiladas are awesome and the tacos are so much better than any local taco joint.
Plus sopapillas! YUM!
My kids always beg to come here for the food and the ICE CREAM
Priced moderately.
Edited to add: We’ve been to every Panchos in the metroplex. The one in Mesquite is the only one that holds up to the old standards.

the worst dinner of my life, the AC was out and we eneded up leaving our food was it was so miserable in there, cooler outside in the 102 degrees, I talked to the manager and lll he said was they work working on it, if the restaurant doesn’t have AC in TEXAS THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE IT OPEN FOR BUSINESS, ALSO FLIES WERE ALL OVER THE RESTURANT, LANDING ON OUR FOOD, VERY DIS APPOINTED

The food was pretty good! What was not are the bathrooms. They were so dirty sticky unclean! Take care of your bathrooms, no one wants to pee over the commode in mid air.

This was my first time in Panchoes. Never been here not sure how it works. No greeter ok fair enough, no start here sign, follow the horde then. The place is cafeteria style buffet, grab a try point at food stuffs and walk to cashier. I had to ask her how it work you know more food. She said just raise the flag on the table. The flag I never used Because read below.
pro’s
Price is low Buffet was $ 7.99 plus drink and tax total of $ 11.00 not bad. The server I had was quick and courteous. Resturants was clean and have a larger variety of choices not over the top but enough to keep you going for a bit more
Con’s
I’m not an moron buffet first timer and all I had to go from memory to request more food from a line up I just looked at today.
Second, the enchiladas were just ok.
Third. Chiles rellenoes are great everywhere but here.
The rellenoes here are green chiles in a biscuit thing with some cheese.

My last Pancho’s experience, 2 years ago in Houston, was so bad I swore off forever. So it was with trepidation that I allowed the famous Pancho’s sign to flood my mind with memories of the Pancho’s of old and lure me back in. Today’s lunch? Pretty good! Thumbs up. Everything was hot and fresh and had that great taste.
Not the Pancho’s of the 60’s, or even the 80’s, but very tasty. I would come back to this location again if I was in the area.

Why do I torture my intestines? Is that some sort of cheese like product? Man, if they would actually serve food I imagine that people would actually come here.

Went there this weekend with the family, since my husband kept saying how he remembered his childhood n something with this place. Well it was aweful. The people there aee friendly, but the food is just
still sick my dad threw up and my husband was gassy all day. Whatever used to be is no longer there.

Just ate at the Mesquite location and it was like I remember it being as a kid. Came for the chili relleno’s. I was very pleased with the pleasant and tentative wait staff. The place was clean and the food was decent. Only downer is the price. Buffet with a drink is $ 10, which is a bit high for what you get. But left happy because they made sopapillas fresh to order, and they were quite delicious… topped with honey of course! Thanks Pancho’s for the many years of memories.

I let my hubby talk me into eating here this week. It was around 6:00 pm. I should’ve been worried when I noticed hardly anyone was there. There were only two people working the line. The girl at the front that asks what you want, loads your platter and then passes it down the line. The girl at the register was doing double duty of making the tacos /​tostados AND running the register. The first girl must’ve been new because she seemed lost. We asked for a Fajita taco salad and she had to go talk to 5 people about it. I asked for a couple of flautas with rice and beans and she put the flautas on a plate by themselves in which one rolled onto the counter. Ick. We got to our seats, finally. It was a very slow process being that there were only 3 of us in line. We waited for the taco salad. Finally the waitress asked what we wanted in it. We told her. She then brought back a beef (taco meat) salad. We reminded her that we ask for chicken fajita. She said no, we asked for beef. Uh, really? So, back she went and then came to tell us they were out of chicken fajita meat. We settled for something they called chicken instead. Not good at all. Two bites and done. Guacamole was bad. Even the ice cream was weird. I thought at least that had to be good. I was wrong. It was salty. Kind of weird. I didn’t eat them but my daughter said the sopapillas were good and my husband liked the chile Rellenos. Won’t be back. It was dirty and has really gone down hill. Too many other better places to get Mexican food at the same or better price.

Yuck! Like everyone else says, the 1980s Panchos is LONG gone.
The staff is friendly enough, and the décor is not that bad, but ALL THE FOOD IS AWEFUL. The new «hot plates» don’t make one bit of difference because the food is so terrible. I can’t recommend anything from this place. Even their ice cream machine was bad!
I can’t believe we paid $ 17 for 2 adult lunch buffets (with waters!) just because my boyfriend had a craving for floutas. Never again, dear, never again.

I guess it is not for me anymore. Growing up with this restaurant makes it kinda hard. But the detail to even the simple sizzling plate. Gone!.Food temp was wrong to begin with. Nothing was edible. All to say It May be a long time if ever I return to this location.

I have tried Pancho’s at least 6 times — hoping I’d just tried them on «off» days. Nope. Food is gross. You can get a lot of it — if you don’t mind tasteless food that looks better than it ever tastes. I’ll spend my $ 10 somewhere else.

The food was good. But the service was not. Got thru the buffet line with no problems. But trying to get the people’s attention when we needed something, was horrendous. If I could give zero stars I would. Our flag at the table was up for a while, no one came by to check on us. Won’t be back there again anytime soon.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been here, but today I went for another family get together (it’s kind of tradition. or used to be) and discovered that wow, Pancho’s has changed quite a bit since I was a kid.
Staff: A decent lot. You don’t really get to interact with them much except while they’re giving you your food and then stopping by to make sure you’re alright. So other than that, they’re great. A good staff. And why not, there really isn’t much to do — the place is pretty quiet for a Tex Mex place.
Food: Do you know those $ 2 microwave Tex Mex dinners they have at Walmart that you buy whenever your broke or out of your mind? Yeah, that’s pretty much the quality of food they have there. Okay, okay, it’s a step above that, but not by much. I’ve heard that it’s better when you get there first thing in the afternoon, before everything’s had a chance to settle and boil in sauce — but I highly doubt it. The meat’s grey (so soft it seems boiled) and everything’s so bland.
It’s edible, but makes you feel pretty ashamed for eating such crap food when you could have easily driven elsewhere. There are authentic Mexican restaurants in town now, run by good families — treat yourself.
Aesthetics: It’s… nice. It seems to be, much like a lot of Mesquite’s old places, to have been made to hold a lot more people than it does now. Maybe it gets more of a crowd on special nights or the weekends… but it just seems like a shadow of it’s former self. It’s very dark and just… yeah it’s kind of depressing. I don’t remember hearing any music playing and the low mutter of people was just… sad. I miss the old turn style exit where you paid for your meal and could buy gum and such or run over and play video games. They had blocked off the larger dining room where they, within the last few years, had arcade games. It really just feels like a lot is missing from it’s former glory. If they’re trying to keep with the times, I think they failed.
Oh old school Pancho’s, you will be missed. Gone is the charm, the good food, and the ‘hot spot’ quality of this once prominent Tex Mex restaurant. C’est la vie.

Yep… I did it. I went to Pancho’s in an effort to add some depth to the All I Can Eat buffet list. And depth is questionable. But the flag is a lot of fun. And it’s 2.5 stars because the food quality is not really there, but the all you can cram in your mouth quality is. Golden Corral is the 2 star measure. And Pancho’s is better than Golden Corral.
You can’t really call it Mexican food. You can’t call it Taco food (Taco Bell, Taco Cabana, etc.) It’s Poncho food. It compares to nothing else. And yes, once every six months I go eat Pancho food, because I lived in Mesquite while growing up, within walking distance of the one there.
I get a big plate of flautas, tacos and sour cream enchiladas. I might get a tostada. The other food is sorta eh. And it is okay if you get that taco/​flauta take out thing. Pretty good for a game or movie night.
When I was in college I have to admit that I loved Pancho’s. On a budget, all you can eat sorta Tex-​Mex is a beautiful thing. And I’m totally not knocking Pancho’s in any way. For what it is, it’s oky-​dok. And yes, I have the scarred memories of my parents taking me there for my birthday and having to wear the big velvet sombrero that sat on a million other sweaty heads while waiters sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish – which I didn’t understand.
The serious downside is looking around the place and noticing that 85% of the patrons belong to the 200 lb. club. This leads me to the following thought process. If I eat here I will look like that… eventually. Then I look at my big empty plate that used to be full of tacos. And then I say «what the hell» and raise the flag again. I do have regret later.