La Margarita Express

This restaurant is very close to my work and I love the pico de gallo but it gets very busy around lunch time. Although I probably should have ordered ahead I didn’t since I was ordering a chicken tamale and chips with salsa. Both things that are pre made so I figured it would be fine. I waited over 30 minutes after placing my order to get my lunch and was help by a not very friendly cashier. When I opened the tamale I saw they use dark green leaves instead of corn husks to wrap them in which gave the maize an odd flavor and they put chunks of potato with garbanzo beans inside my chicken tamale. Very odd to say the least. Disappointed.

Very yummy. Great homemade tortillas and salsa. Everything is tasty here. Service is always great… just remember you pay at the register. Food is out quickly. Great «little» place (looks small from the outside, but then it’s huge inside).

Here I go again, getting ethnic food in like, the whitest parts of America. But what can I say? I get homesick and want my foods. I was drawn in by the sign advertising pupusas, so I got two pupusas with cheese and loroco a la carte. They were good and the curtido was tasty too, though my critique is that the cabbage was too roughly chopped. I could only get through one (too rich) and had the other for breakfast the next morning.
I would probably have given this a three, but for Salem, OR, I’d say they’re pretty good.

Not a bad little place. Nice location with outdoor seating, which is a big plus to me always. I am one of the those people will sit outside in the rain cause I just love the fresh air and if I can’t get outside I want to be by the window so I can see stuff moving. The service is decent, not outstanding but not bad. They have a dual menu or Mexican and Salvadorean, I always oder the Salvadorian food because this is the only place in town that I know of that has it and I get Mexican food all the time wherever I got. The food is pretty decent but it is on the salty side. I do not like salty stuff but for someone who smokes cigarettes, they will probably like it, and I don’t say that to be funny. My dad would have loved this place. It’s definitely worth checking out especially if you have not tried Salvadorian food. Try everyting at least once!

Great and consistent Mexican food, especially at the price. The service is great (it can be hard to keep my soda glass full for some restaurants) and the portions are generous. It’s absolutely one of my favorite lunch stops.

I have been coming here for years, best downtown Mexican/​Salvadorian restaurant for sure. One of only three in the Salem/​Keizer area that I can say I really like. This is a family owned restaurant, Fredericko and his wife are not only good at hiring great cooks, and personality rich staff, but Fredericko himself is quite the people person. They have several things that allow me to make healthy choices and still eat out. So far, everything I have tried has been a success. Margaritas, homemade salsa, delicious entrees, customer service, and at a decent price…
Thanks guys, see you soon.

Love this place! Great stop after an afternoon in downtown Salem. Outdoor seating great for people watching during the warm weather. The staff is always nice. The pupusa are good, with many options for filling and only 2.75 per order. That and the complimentary chips and salsa (with a CoronaRita of course) make a perfect affordable afternoon lunch

Excellent food! Excellent service! Great salsa! Nice and spicy just how I like! Great margaritas! Great times! I’m actually very impressed with the Quality of the food. I’m a critic when it comes to food. The authenticity of the food from the chefs at La Margarita Express makes me drool when I think about eating there!

This review is specifically for the Salvadoran component of this restaurant that also serves Mexican food. Any number of people can talk about the more common cuisine from our friends immediately south of the border, but I want people to know about the tasty pupusas they serve at this place. A pupusa is a Salvadoran staple that’s basically a thick corn «tortilla» that’s about ¼– ½″ thick, heated on a flat pan and stuffed with different items of your choosing. I highly recommend the loroco (the edible flower of a vine that grows in El Salvador & Guatemala) and cheese and the pork and cheese pupusas. But really they’re all good! They come served with a spicy cabbage side salad called curtido. The fried yuca (root vegetable– similar in texture to a potato) here was delicious and shouldn’t be missed!
The service here was personable and efficient. They have a nice selection of alcohol for their mixed drinks– margaritas, tequila sunrises (1977 called and wanted their experience back, haha) and you should check out their drink specials. But I tried the Salvadoran beer, which is a very light and easy to drink lager.
The chips they serve are delicious and crisp but the highlight is really the tasty and nicely spiced salsa (yum!) and the refried bean dip.
Step away from your comfort zone and try the Salvadoran cuisine here… you won’t be disappointed!

Second best Mexican food in Salem. Plus, the have Salvadorian food! The salsa is amazing. My favorite is the Enchiladas Suiza!

Surprised to find a decent quality Mexican/​Salvadoran restaurant in Salem. They made a pretty decent margarita (no icky bottled marg. mix) and the food was pretty good. They make their own corn and flour tortillas, yum! Would consider giving this another try in the future.

Talk about accommodating. Walked in with a group of 14 for a board meeting for my Rotary group and they gave us the entire back room for two hours. While we should probably have asked them to come and take the orders a few minutes before we planned to start the meeting (she came in to take orders, just as we started so we had to take an immediate pause), the wait staff was on top of it with fourteen separate tickets and a to go meal.
With four tables worth of people, it would have been nice to have had more than two baskets of chips, but the portions of the entrees are more quite generous, so on second thought, maybe good that we weren’t all loaded up on chips and salsa. I’m certain that had we asked for additional baskets of chips they would have brought them too.
I always get the same thing when I eat here. The enchilada suizas a la carte. Muy bien!

Little expensive for lunch. They have a great chips and salsa, spicy. Good service. Food is tasty and fresh.

I work around the corner, less than a block away so when I need a quick bite for lunch this is one of my go-​to places. I’ve eaten here for years so they know me by name now. The margaritas are the best in town. I love the taco salad, chese enchiladas with cream sauce, nacho supremes, monteray camarones… you get my point. So many choices.

Bland food, which is unfortunate. They also serve Salvadoran food, but it is equally mediocre. Go to Dos Hermanos in Keizer instead.

Their Margarita was definitely an A+, but I also had a cheese quesadilla. Usually when you think of quesadillas, you think of flatter tortillas with the perfect amount of ingredients inside. However, there was so much cheese in between the tortillas, that I felt like I was chewing on a solid brick of cheese. By the time I finished about a quarter of it, the cheese had already started to become less gooey, and it was a little too cheesy for me. I never thought that could be possible.
The waitress I had was extremely nice, and the restaurant itself was completely void of customers. It had a nice atmosphere as far as I could tell, and it was better than fast food restaurants if you want a quick meal.

This is, by far, my favorite Mexican restaurant in Salem. The service is unparalleled and the food is (mostly) delicious. Yeah, I’ve had a couple dishes that missed the mark but most of the time they are amazing. The pollo nayarit and bistec salvadoreno are two of my favorites. Their salsa is consistently excellent. It really is the service that makes this 5 starts — very friendly, very on top of keeping beverages topped, and accomodating of requests. Gawd, I’m hungry just thinking about it.

The flavors are a little bland, and the food is a little overly gooey, but La Margarita Express is the only Jalisco style Mexican restaurant in Salem that I visit on a regular basis. La Margarita Express goes beyond the basic tacos and enchiladas; among other things, it features a full menu page of El Salvadoran lunch items. Even if the food isn’t fantastic by any means, there is always something interesting and new to try.
This was once an annex location for the La Margarita located around the corner from the Elsinore Theatre, but now it is its own separate entity. Don’t go looking for pupusas at the other La Margarita!