Lupe

Now I’m a gal who loves Mexican food. This lil spot hit my spot this past Friday night. The happy hour drinks made me more than happy I got the invite to stop by. $ 5 frozen swirl and steak quesadillas were on point. I’ll be back!

Now that I’ve visited Lupe a few times, I feel like I can adequately describe my experiences.
Lupe is a great happy hour destination. They do almost all the (Tex-​Mex) happy hour things right: they have decent service, cheap and tasty margaritas* and delightful salsa, queso and guacamole.
(* By cheap and tasty I mean cheap by DC standards and tasty if you go for regular lime margaritas on the rocks. The strawberry concoctions, both frozen and on the rocks, taste overly syrupy and synthetic. I also didn’t enjoy the frozen version of the lime margarita.)
I’ve tried a few different entrees on the dinner menu, and they’ve been quite average. That’s not to say Lupe isn’t worth a visit, but I think it’s a good idea to plan to get full on crispy, salty carbohydrates here — namely baskets and baskets of chips and your tomato-​y, cheesy or avocado-​y dip of choice — and fruity libations.
This is where my story takes a very strange turn. My most recent visit was certainly my oddest to date. My husband and I were finishing up dinner when all of a sudden a drummer and a parade of four headdress-​wearing women marched into the restaurant and started performing a dance. They wore Dos Equis armbands and went table to table offering Dos Equis beer samples to those who would taste worms or crickets from the bowl they were carrying. We declined, but were still offered the beer anyway. They also gave us each a lollipop with a cricket enclosed, amber fossil-​style. Stunningly, it appeared they somehow recruited a volunteer creepy crawler-​taster from every other table. Apparently this performance took place to celebrate the fact that Cinco de Mayo is coming up.
In short, Lupe is happy hour worthy, but it might be wise to wait to go until after May 5^th. But if worms and bugs tantalize your tastebuds, by all means get there soon!

Came for a friend’s birthday. The service was good but that’s about it. The salsa and fajitas lacked any flavor. and why do the fajitas not come w/​salsa, guac, or sour cream?! Also felt sick the rest of the night after eating here… hmmm…

Weeeeeee! Weeeeeee! Do you know what the sound was? The roller coaster of a ride that I felt when I entered this restaurant… down and then up.
Went on a Friday with co-​workers. We get seated because I wanted tacos (Friday: chicken and veggie tacos for $ 6). It got ugly fast. Service was slow, orders got mixed up, drinks were poorly made.
I asked for a margarita. And got a mojito. Cloooooose. Then the margarita I received was awful. I was about to throw in the towel, when the server who saw our distress (Alex) gave me a PITCHER of margarita and said «Sorry about that. Here is your margarita» Niiiiiiiiiiiiice.
Then our food arrived and I was happy. My friends were ambivalent, but for me… I was happy.

Came here for dinner last weekend and I had a couple of issues…
First, the staff is a little… off. I had made a reservation at 9 and came on time but some of our party was late, so we asked if we could push back the reservation, the hostess seemed very confused. It took me a while to try to explain it to her, but finally I just canceled the reservation and decided to just be a walk-​in once all my friends came. They did at 9:45 and we were promptly seated, which I REALLY appreciated!
So we ask the waiter if there are any specials and he tells us about an open bar, for 20 dollars from 9 – 11. So some of us take part in it, which requires us to go to the bar, and purchase a wrist band. Which makes zero sense (why couldn’t our waiter just charge us on the bill?) So we wait, 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins, and our drink doesn’t come (and we havn’t ordered yet). So we go to the bar and just get our own drinks, we ended up doing this three times, and ultimately our waiter only brought us one round himself. This whole ‘open bar’ thing just rubbed us the wrong way. The waiter seemed to be purposefully serving us slowly so we wouldn’t get our money’s worth.
The actual dinner… he never came to take our order, we had to get the bus boy’s attention, actually we had to do this like three times. That was very frustrating, the waiter didn’t care at all about us. Finally we got the food, which was okay. Nothing amazing. I liked that they served breakfast all day long, so that’s what I ordered, but it wasn’t amazing. And when the check came (we were a party of 5), tip was already included, which infuriated me because it hit me why the waiter neglected us all night!
Anyway I’m still giving this place a 3 because, we were still able to get 4 drinks for 20 dollars, even though it’s because we had to take the initiative to go to the bar, they gave us a table even though we were very late for our reservation and because the place is beautiful and fun. I don’t know if I’d ever eat here again but if a friend insisted on it I wouldn’t fight them on it.

This might have been the worst experience I have had in a restaurant in DC since getting here 7 years ago!!! BEWARE DO NOT BOTHER.
We arrived at 5:30pm on a Friday night (2÷11÷11, very recent) and there was not a single table seated, maybe 2 people at the bar. This should have been the first red flag. It was happy hour on a Friday in Dupont.
We tried to order Frozen Margaritas and were told they weren’t ready. We called earlier in the day to confirm they had them and did pitchers for happy hour. So we got on the rocks and mojitos instead. Both were awful and under-​poured, it was like drinking sugar water. Finally after 30min we were able to get a pitcher of Frozen Margaritas and when we went to order a second were told we could not and had to order by the glass (Obviously much more expensive). The queso and guac we were eating during, like others have said looked like it was scooped out of a 7 – 11 container.
This is where it turns bad, as if it wasn’t already. The general manager (Sean D) comes to the table with a attitude equivalent to «Why are you even here, and wasting my time». We explain to him how we would just like another pitcher and to order main courses. He starts yelling back about how they don’t do pitchers of Frozen Margaritas, even though we received on, they are on the menu, and the person who we spoke to on the phone said they did. He then went on to say how «people like us just spill them all over the table», still trying to figure out what he meant by that. We were 7 guys in our mid 20’s who are working professionals, not drunk in the slightest. Maybe since 5 of the 7 in our party were gay he was referencing that. No idea.
He spends 5min talking about how the different sizes in glasses and how by the glass is actually cheaper for us. He was obviously lying since he kept changing the sizes. He then started yelling even more about how this was Dupont circle and he could charge what he wanted, it was so bad after the manager left the waiter come over to apologize.
We needed to leave the restaurant and they presented us with a bill in which they overcharged for items and they refused to adjust the check. We paid and will never be back again and hope they don’t remain in business for much longer. BEWARE!

I went here to bring in the New Year with a few friends. I had already planned to pay $ 65 for their 3 course meal w/​open bar until I found an even better deal and it ended up being only $ 42, unbeatable for New Years in DC. It also included party favors, hats, crowns, and stick-​on mustaches. All they needed were sombreros.
So I’d been to Lupe two times prior and the atmosphere was cool, it’s never been too crowded and the service has been pretty good. The same was true for New Years.
While it was an open bar, it only inlcuded rail drinks which were the cheapest of the cheap. I had only 1 ½ margaritas before calling it quits (until the champagne toast at midnight) Me and cheap liquor don’t get along. The meal was tasty though. I ordered a salad, the skirt steak, and the tres leches. All of the options were very good and surprisingly each dish was huge.
All in all we had a great time. The DJ they had that evening was great and played all of the top 40 Rap, Hip-​Hop, Pop hits and even a little Salsa and Meringue so it had everyone dancing all night.
In general, Lupe is great for Happy Hour. They have a good white sangria and the complimentary chips & salsa are always a winner.

I seldom come to this part of town and time went by so quickly, before I knew it was 3 days before my living social coupon expired. I didnt expect a monday night to be crowded — it was not exactly packed but the limited seatings were filled and we were told there was a wait. The restaurant layout was poorly designed, it clearly had space they didnt optimize. We walked up to the bar area and decided to dine at the the long bench smacked right in the middle of the restaurant. The awkward wooden chairs were uncomfortable and the little back cushion dislodged itself several times. If we were pinball machines, we would have been the top scorers because almost every single person who walked past us hit our chairs, the slight jolt you almost had to get used to it. Ok it was horrible!
It was still Happy Hour so we probably ordered the watered down HH margarita — it tasted terrible and there was hardly any tequila. The salsa was good but I preferred thinner chips. The appetizers were the only items I enjoyed — the guacamole was freshly made with huge chunks of avocado, though lightly seasoned. The stewed mexican corn coated with a layer of mayonaise and some chile powder — ok that was really good. It was very tasty. After a long wait, the chicken mole was finally served. It was COLD. I hate cold entrees. The chicken breast was dry and the mole was just alright.
The restaurant seemd to be lacking management. The servers were disorganized and slow.

BEST Margarita and Daquiri EVER!
If you enjoy alcohol then go!
On a friday I went on a job interview and ended up getting hired on the spot and i was eager to celebrate.
Traffic was a nightmare so me, my brother and sister-​in-​law parked in the first open spot we saw. We walked by and we saw happy hour from 4 – 8 $ 5.00 drinks and tacos it was 6:45 the food smelled delicious and it was kinda cold so we walked in.
First let me say i’m a drinker. I’m very picky about sugery drinks (e.g. margaritas and daquiris) i often think they put less alcohol and therefore defeating the purpose of me having a cocktail.
So i ordered a strawberry daquiri… This lovely drink was huge and delicious. I can tell the bartender understands portion control while pouring alcoholic beverages. I drank 3! 2 daquiris and 1 margarita and all were delicious.
I figure the reviews were low because some people don’t enjoy alcohol or looking for ½ shot of alcohol in their drink while tasting more sugar. I infact think that if i should have 1 ½−2 shots
The food was fair i say about 3.5÷5 but after consuming some alcohol who cares??? I
I defintely recommend this place especially for happy hour. Its a great place to vent on a friday night after working all week. Nice décor, descent food and excellent drinks. Not sure why they got such low reviews but i give it a thumbs up.

My partner and I had dinner at Lupe’s Cantina and were pleasantly surprised — especially given some of the prior reviews.
The décor is nice and seating is spacious; not like some restaurants that pile the tables on top of each other. Our server was friendly and attentive.
We thought the salsa was some of the best we have had in the area. Our chili con queso was average. And we split on our entrees — he thought his chicken burrito was just OK and I thought my shrimp tacos were outstanding.
As for the margaritas — they ROCKED, and I found them no more expensive than any other area restaurant. In fact, because we arrived before 8 p.m., our server charged us the happy hour price.
We would have no problem returning.

Surprised, that for a city that doesn’t know good Mexican food, this place got bad reviews — probably because they don’t know good Mexican food when it’s staring them in the face. Warmed up with margaritas, warm soup, and of course nachos and salsa on an otherwise frigid east coast night. The entrees were pretty good — we ordered the salmon and the the chile relleno. The service was great, as was the margarita. Will definitely head back the next time I’m craving warm and spicy Mexican food in this cold town.

If your looking for a huge Nacho plate this is your place!
The food was about middle of the road otherwise.

«WHAT!!!»
I like trying new places, I love trying out new margarita places in DC. So, I figured that I couldn’t go wrong with a new Mexican place, right? Wrong… I guess I should have known that at some point I was going to be disappointed in a place.
First of all, the acoustics were all sors of wrong. Lupe Cantina is trying to be an upscale Mexican restaurant next to Public Bar in a small narrow space. Not going to work out. I literally had to shout «WHAT?» the entire evening because I could not hear what my friend was saying to me across the table.
The service was a little inattentive and even our server couldn’t hear our orders (WHAT??) We waited a good amount of time before our server even came up to ask what we would like to drink, not to mention food. Then he tried to give us guacamole which we didn’t order (we were nice and didn’t take it). The food was ok, nothing really special or knock my socks off to override the increasing uncomfortableness of the atmosphere.
But I will leave this review on a good note; the margaritas are decent. Get one, or a pitcher cuz you may need one to survive the night.

Dearest Lupe,
When you have an egg section of your menu, you should know better than the fact I’ll order the most interesting named item («The Divorced Eggs»).
I’m disappointed because those eggs were disgusting. If I wanted raw sunny-​side up eggs in the midst of green and red salsa, I could given myself salmonella poisoning (I didn’t really, but I was concerned considering how rare the eggs were!) for half the cost (I paid 8 dollars for the appetizer).
Sure, you had an interesting thing going for you for having an intriguing «egg only» section of the menu, but if you have the audacity to pull that stunt, please make sure you have the skills to back it up.
Sincerely,
Christine

I was definitely not blown away by this place. The atmosphere was alright, stripped down, somewhat mexican/​latin, but really just kind of warehouse sheik. The service was friendly, but not particularly attentive.
Their drink menu sounds interesting and inviting, but the two drinks we ordered for our table flopped. The first was the red sangria; it was just not that good at all… I have been drinking sangria since I was 16 or so (I grew up in Spain), so I am a bit of a snob about them, but I really thought this one was pretty terrible. As for what I ordered to drink (I think it included the word cactus and was certainly tequila based) it just didn’t have much flavor. It wasn’t bad, but there certainly wasn’t much to it.
For the food, we had guacamole for the table, and that was pretty good, though the portion was not large. The salsa, however, was bad. We both ordered tortilla soup and, though it was okay, it didn’t have much flavor and was essentially chicken stock with tortillas and avocado. A peppery taste (maybe some guajillo) would have been very nice and would have added flavor and texture to the soup.
I had shrimp tacos (I think it was shrimp, might have been lobster, though… struggling to remember). The tacos were decent, but, to be honest, were at about the same level as baja fresh. (I like baja fresh’s seafood tacos, so this was not a huge disappointment.)
My girlfriend had a salad and said it was okay, but not great and that the dressing tasted a little funny.
I didn’t hate this place, but I was underwhelmed. As I was on a groupon, its hard to be too upset, but I probably won’t go back.

I don’t know why I am still expecting to find a decent Mexican restaurant this far North. (I know a lot of you native DCers consider yourselves the South, but the South knows fried chicken and usually Mexican, and you know neither)
I went there on a Thursday night around 6pm with my new friend WS (no not the initials of my friend). The place was completely empty. Literally one other couple there. Now, if this hadn’t been WS’ choice, I would have said an empty restaurant in Dupont at Happy Hour… we need to turn around because there are places with lines on a Thursday evening. Anyway, the service was pretty good. The server was a little too chatty for my taste, he definitely infringed on some of my dinner talk time with WS… Anyway, The food was bland… I don’t know how you can take such rich and flavorful food and put it on a diet. I ordered fajitas, WS got the chicken enchilladas. We shared, nothing was great. Nothing was horrible… It was just bland. Did they lose the salt? Were the tomatoes not fresh? Were these organic chickens? I’m not sure… all I know is something needs to change.
On the plus side, if you like your Mexican to be VERY American this place might work for you. Me, I’m going to hold off and get my fill on my next trip back to glorious sunny Southern California.

As a girl who was born and lived 18 year of her life in New Mexico, I am a little picky on my Mexican food and have given up finding a true Mexican place in DC. I been taken to many good El Salvadoran places in DC, but they are not the same as Mexican. So when my tex mex friend told me he gave this place thumbs up I was a little apprehensive however since he had a stronger Mexican background (actually having family members living in Mexico) I thought I would give it a shot. And I have to say it was successful. The spices were true to the food and drinks were good. Only thing that was missing was the super spicy heat I get when I visit my New Mexican home.
I highly recommend this place for anyone looking for great Mexican food in DC. Also, they have salsa dancing and lessons on Tue nights.

I don’t think I could be more unimpressed. Me and about 9 coworkers headed here after work one night for happy hour. They sat us at a table and we instantly loved the décor, the table etc. But the service was the absolute worst. For a huge table of 10, they brought us a whopping two baskets of chips and salsa – gone in 30 seconds.
It took them over 20 minutes to come over and take our orders – everyone got margaritas. When we arrived there were only about 7 other people there – so it was empty so there’s no excuse. After our first round we ordered another round of margaritas – and they didint have any more margarita glasses. They brought us our drinks in small lowball glasses which held about one third less than the regular margarita glasses, yet they never acknowledged it or apologized and charged the same amount.
I didn’t even dare get anything off the menu because it all seemed so overpriced and the service was so terrible on something as basic as margaritas that it probably wouldnt have been worth it.
likely won’t be back for a while.

My friend and I were on our way to another restaurant, when we stopped here instead, mainly because we were starving and our feet hurt… we wished we hadn’t.
While the place is cute, we were 1 of 2 tables at 8pm on a Fri night. Weird. Our server didn’t understand our request for water in English, so I asked for it in Spanish. hmmm… We ordered guacamole and at $ 7 for 1 measured cup, 7 – 11 could have done it better.
The worst thing was that the entire waitstaff & bartenders were watching COPS on the bar’s TV– the episode highlighted 2 little boys getting arrested and all of them were laughing. Great tv to eat to. They were so mesmerized we couldn’t even get more water and there are only 5 customers in the entire place. Not going back… had to save my fellow Unilocalers a similar fate.

I was so hoping for this to be a delicious new option for dinner and drinks downtown… And maybe it will be after they figure out the kinks? But it definitely isn’t there yet.
It’s a cool space, and felt like a place that would be great to have a birthday dinner with a large group of friends. However, there were only two people working the front of the restaurant AND the bar as far as I could tell, which meant that we stood around awkwardly not knowing whether to seat ourselves or not, waited to order, waited to get our check and waited to pay… And it was not crowded.
There is no drink menu… Again, maybe one day? A girl can dream. We asked, «What kind of margaritas do you have?» Response: «You know, frozen… on the rocks… All top shelf.» «Ok, I’ll have a frozen margarita please.» «Ok, but we only have strawberry right now.» That type of exchange was just kind of typical of the experience.
I was really actually excited about the menu as it looked yummy. We ordered steak nachos, chicken taquitos and chicken soft tacos. The nachos and taquitos came out cold. The nachos had all the right ingredients to be delicious (and the steak was VERY good), but the cheese had already completely hardened. Tear. The taquitos literally seemed as if they had just come out of the refrigerator. Not even room temp.
My boyfriend announced halfway through the meal that he would never be coming back again. I didn’t feel that strongly about it — I could see the potential — but I’m definitely not going to race back again anytime soon.