El Tucan

From the looks of the reviews on here, it seems this place has been around for a few years. Owensboro is my hometown, & while I moved away five years ago, I’m in town often. We were visiting some friends who suggested this place. They were fans so we have it a try.
We dined on a Saturday night around 6:30pm. The restaurant is located off Frederica, in a strip mall that doesn’t face Frederica, so it’s hard to see from the main thoroughfare. The parking lot a pretty packed, but it wasn’t too busy inside the restaurant. We were told to sit where ever, so we picked a booth. The place is pretty much two aisles with tables on both sides, a half wall dividing the aisles with different Tucan figurines.
The chips were brought to our table with the menus. The salsa was great, it was kind of runny, but had chunks of tomatoes, onions and cilantro. Some places will give you salsa that is like a runny version of ketchup, this isn’t one of those places. The chips are different from any Mexican place in Owensboro (well, Real Hacienda, that place on Parrish & that place in front of the old Walmart). The chips are thin, like cantina chips. They were warm & crisp. I loved the chips & salsa.
The menu has a bunch of options & everything looks like it’s priced pretty well. I was going to get the quesadilla with shrimp, but I asked the server if the shrimp had it’s tails on in the quesadilla and he said it did. I don’t like to work that much, so I picked the burrito California with grilled chicken for $ 7.99. I also ordered a regular, lime margarita, large for $ 7.99.
We got our food about ten minutes later. The presentation wasn’t much on the burrito. Just a large burrito on a plate. It was a nice size for the price of 8 bucks. The size of the margarita was good for 8 bucks also. Was it the best margarita ever? No. It was your average mix, sweet and sour. I liked the burrito, but the chicken in the burrito was overcooked it my opinion, it was overly chewy. Everyone else at the table seemed to enjoy their food. We were done and waited about 15 – 20 minutes for the check. We finally just got up from the table and went to the front counter. The hostess there was friendly and rang us up. Our server was very absent during dinner. This is the best Mexican place in Owensboro? No, but it’s not the worst (that would be El Terrible).

Thanks to Mason at Don Moore Toyota for telling us about El Tucan. The service was great, the food was spot on and the family-​run vibe was really nice.

I was SO happy to see they have Horchata & Jamaica (hibiscus tea, not the country) on the drink menu. Then we ordered. Carne Asada for me, carnitas for my husband. The food was delicious! We will definitely be back!

We LOVE EL Tucan… it’s the closest to real mexican food that we’ve found in Owensboro. The prices are decent and so are the portions.
I agree the Tilapia is phenomenal.
I would give this restaurant 5 stars, except that most of the servers here are perverts. They are constantly hitting on us, it’s a huge irritant.
I can’t seem to get anything Veggie the way I want it… that’s at most every mexican restaurant in town though. What’s so difficult about a Chimi w/​only beans, rice, onion & avocado? They all tell me no. lol
Anyway, they’ve just opened a new one a few blocks from my house. It doesn’t get much traffic because they don’t have their liquor license yet… works out GREAT for me! :) I’m not gonna lie… I’m eating there again this afternoon, for the 2^nd time this weekend, with my parents.
…lacking a bit of self control… so not attractive

Maybe we hit this place on an off-​night, but the staff was extremely rude. My husband and I are easy to get along with; we don’t ask for much, and we even let people step on us most of the time to avoid confrontation.
But the night we went, the manager tried to accuse my husband of ordering something he didn’t order. Then, he pulled out his little book and realized my husband was right, and he still didn’t bring out the right order (or anything at all). Their food was all right, but the pico de gallo was the saltiest crap I ever ate in my life.
Later, when we went to pay. we had one of those American Express gift cards that you can use pretty much anywhere and it covered our whole total except for like $ 3, so we pulled out our debit card to cover the rest, and the same jerk manager started complaining that we wanted to use a debit card. He said «I can’t take a debit card for 3 bucks, man» and my husband said «well, it’s better than nothing at all. not everybody carries cash these days.» The guy was extremely mad and kept arguing about it until we threatened to leave without paying the 3 bucks at all, then he reluctantly took the payment (and after tip, it was actually like a 7 dollar transaction). We shouldn’t have tipped the guy at all, but we just wanted to get the heck out of there and never come back.
I will say something nice though, their salsa that they bring you at the table is amazing.

Best Mexican food in town. The tilapia is really good and it may sound strange but the phili cheese steak is one of my favorite sandwiches in town just make sure you change the cheese to queso. The service is usually very good all the staff are friendly. Not a real fancy place, but everything on the menu is slightly better than the other Mexican places in town.