Blue Cactus Bar and Grill

We’ve been coming to the Blue Cactus since the 90s and at the time it was one of the only places in the market you could get «Mexican» food, and we loved it.
Even though there’s so much more choice in Ottawa these days, we always seem to make a stop here for a quick bite. The tacos and fajitas are particularly good, with the pineapple and jalapeño sauce being a favorite.
The portions are good, the service is decent and the ambience is always lively. The perfect place to go after work for a few drinks and some nibbles with friends.

Tried the pulled pork pizza, it was really delicious. Slightly sweet barbecue sauce balanced with a bit of spicy sriracha made it a great choice. Service was great, the server even made an effort to serve us in French after hearing us speak French at the table. Overall great experience and would come here again!

I was invited back in here by the owner to try Blue Cactus again, and boy am I glad that we took him up on that! I brought my friend from the bachelorette party with me, and we had a fantastic meal with fantastic service! In my original review, the food was fine, it was the service that fell hard. However, on our journey back, our food and our service were both insanely awesome!
We both started with a glass of wine, had the calamari for an appetizer. We moved on to two steak salads; mine had a couple of modifications which went smoothly and our server was sooo nice and accommodating! It really made the experience so much nicer than our first one. She was very attentive and made sure our small table never felt cluttered with extra things!
All in all, I’m incredibly glad that I went back! My food was delicious, and the service was fantastic. I can’t wait to go again! Is it okay to want to go every day?!

I have been here many many times. Sometimes with a small group, one other or a party and always impressed. The menu is great and the food is good. The restaurant has a great vibe snd is always busy. Great place.

Went for lunch, midweek. The server was very friendly and helpful. The fish tacos were perhaps the best I’ve ever had.
They guacamole is served in a very small portion. The server explained that they had been throwing away so much that they now serve in small portions but you are welcome to have more as you want. That sounded sensible to me, it was good guacamole so we asked for more and got as much as we wanted.
It was a great lunch.

I ordered the Baja burger, and it was delicious! Mmm guacamole, is all I can say! Waiter was supper nice, the service was nice. The beer was on point! Stella was poured perfectly as and the tempature was on point!
Definitely a place I’m going back to ;)

My husband and I decided to give the food at the Blue Cactus a try because it had offered a Groupon. I’ve been there for drinks on several occasions and they’re always a hit. We went for dinner on a Sunday evening. We had a really great server who was attentive and made menu suggestions. He was really big on the tuna, but we were not feeling it. We ordered the quinoa salad appetizer and chicken and beef fajitas main. I had a Bailey’s banana colada, which was quite nice. The salad appetizer was good. The main was bland and the steak was very tough. The fajitas don’t come with salsa. You have to ask for a side if it. The food is also on the pricier side which really works against it as the quality really wasn’t there. I would recommend this place for its drinks, but not for the food.

My first time coming to the Byward Market, I was hungry and this place had Van Halen playing as I walked by so I thought… well, the music is good, maybe this place is good too? …Not so much.
It was nice inside, and we sat in the cocktail lounge so that we could people-​watch (even though it was bitterly cold). There were popcorn bowls on the tables and I think our bowl was the end of the bag, it was all kernels. But, I figured no big deal, I was not here for popcorn. I’m looking over the menu and had a really hard time figuring out what to order since it was kind of all over the place. I see the description here is Tex-Mex…but it definitely was not… I could only describe it as «indecisive».
We got the honey chipotle garlic wings to start and they were nice and crispy and flavourful, had a good bite to them. I also had some sort of banana/coconut/pineapple/bailey’s frozen cocktail that was VERY tasty, kinda reminded me of suntan lotion but in a good way.
I finally settled on the Baja burger that was supposed to have Monterey Jack, Lettuce, Guacomole, and chipotle mayo.(and pineapple salsa and jalapenos which I didn’t want). When I see guacomole on a burger, I get excited. When I got my order though, it was a burger with cheese, lettuce, tomato and mayo. !!! No guacomole, and the fries were sparse and cold. Seeing as we waited about an hour for our food and the place was empty, I was not keen on having to send my burger back but I did anyway. I wanted that damn guac! Once I got the burger back, the bun was rock hard and I was really no longer interested in eating it. Everything was just cold unappealing so all in all, pretty disappointing.
The service was very slow but the server was extremely pleasant. I probably won’t be coming back here but that is ok — I saw tons of other interesting places to eat in the area!

Tasty food. It was just fine. If your looking for a place to hang out with friends good choice here. If your looking for some special places don’t pick this one. Nothing special.

Went for drinks and was very disappointed. I ordered the Cucumber Moscow Mule and got a very unappealing looking drink. The cucumber was unevenly cut and left in chunks in the drink. The drink itself was not good. The flavours were not there, there was no ginger or taste whatsoever. My friend ordered the Raspberry Ginger Mojito, which was overly sweetened to the point that it was not even half done when we left.
The service was excellent however, especially on a busy Saturday night.

Situated in the heart of Byward Market, this is kind of two places in one. Early evening it is principally a cocktail bar, and a very good one. There’s an extensive menu with most of the things you’d expect, but any of the experienced and knowledgeable bartenders will knock you up pretty much anything you desire. If I had a quibble, it’s the glasses. Call me a bluff old traditionalist if you will, but I like my cocktails in cocktail glasses, rather than the standard tumbler style.
Come to evening, say around 1900, food seems to take precedence and there’s a fairly good menu to choose from. On my only eating visit, last week, I went for the seared tuna, which was delicious and a generous size.
Décor is very pleasant. The entire bar/​restaurant is open and airy, with tables catering from cosy à deux, to big, bad party sized. From previous, liquid only, visits, I know they are happy to close off areas, or even the whole place, for private thrashes.
Staff are uniformly excellent, from the greeters, waiters and waitresses to the bar staff. All in all, one of my «go to» places any time I’m in Ottawa.

Inattentive service, meh food, inflated prices
Flew in today and had lunch with an old friend. We had 11:30 reservations on a Sunday, so the place had few other customers. Our server seemed to be training a new waitperson, as he had a shadow, but although she served some of our food, we were never introduced. In fact, I don’t think we were given his name either, and neither cracked a smile the whole time we were there.
The service was painfully slow. The food was merely average at best. The prices are ridiculously high for the mediocre calibre of both food and menu.
When we were through, the check was brought without even an inquiry as to whether we wanted it split. Getting it fixed seemed to be an inconvenience.
All in all, we were rather annoyed. A much anticipated reunion was tarnished by a lousy experience. Everyone has off days but every single aspect of this meal was disappointing. I am usually a generous tipper; this is the first time I can remember tipping only the minimum 15%.
Would not recommend.

This place was located with other pubs and bars which is convenient. I had ordered the filet mignon and my boyfriend had ordered the bistro burger and was very satisfied. The filet was cooked well and the mashed potatoes with veggies went well with it. There is no patio from what I can remember but they do open up the windows to give it an outdoor feel.
Service was good, no complaints. The waitress was very attentive and personable.
Parking is easy to find, there is free parking nearby otherwise pay by the hour.

This place is a lot of fun! I love their drink menu and their food is always spot on! The prices are on point for the quality.

The atmosphere is good. The food is ok., except we had to wait a long time for the food to arrive. Service is great. Our server was very attentive and proactive. He kept on replenishing our water and told us he would go check on our food without us asking. After the food has arrived, he came by and asked how things were within a couple of minutes. That left a good impression for me as servers at many restaurants usually disappear after they served the food and if you need something, it takes forever to catch their attention. So I am glad this didn’t happen at Blue Cactus.

The Blue Cactus is actually one of the nicer casual places I’ve been to in the market area. It had a nice atmosphere, clean restaurant and friendly staff. The location is great, right in the market with all sorts of bars and pubs within a very short walking distance. If you are meeting up with friends or looking for good, standard restaurant fare, they seem to do the job.
The downside is being in the market, this place is pricey. The food tastes quite good however you definitely pay for it. We ordered a fajitas with a pound of steak which was about $ 35. By comparison, a similar amount of food for the same quality at Lone Star would be about $ 29, and at a normal restaurant probably $ 25.
I also found it a little weird that they wouldn’t leave a drinks menu on the table. They seemed to take it away very quickly after ordering drinks, and would only bring it back when asked. Their beer prices were pretty typical at $ 6.50 for a draft pint.
All in all, it is a nice restaurant with great service with good food, but you definitely pay that market premium.

Have been here many times. Food is average-​tasting and pricey but that is to be expected given the location. The real deal here is the $ 10 triples — great place to start a night out and hey, after a few rounds even average food tastes delicious. Service is generally quite good and many of the waitresses are quite attractive — so much so that my friend tipped our waitress 30%! This isn’t my first choice for a meal with so many other options nearby but it’s not a bad place to stop in for a couple rounds of $ 10 triples!

The birthday boy got free main plate… $ 32 steak. The waitress was perky but slow… I think she was still in training mode. She did ask to take a picture of the group and that makes me a happy camper :) She Recomended a beer called Prison Break. It was really good. I ordered the bison burger. It’s was fairly priced at 14 bucks. We came on Tuesday and the food was quite sloooww… but when it came it was like heaven had come down and made bison into a burger.

The smell of popcorn was in the air as I entered this well located restaurant and since I absolutely love popcorn I had high hopes! Except, we didn’t get popcorn…
Anyway, the staff were lovely, timely, friendly, and didn’t hover. My friend and I split a Caesar salad and the blue cactus pizza. The Caesar salad was pretty good actually – it had a bit of tang to it so it wasn’t too heavy, which was quite nice. The pizza had a thin and crispy crust. However, it didn’t amaze me, like it was good, but nothing particularly special. This was a bit disappointing because the pizza had chorizo on it and I love chorizo. That said, my friend and I both finished our plates, so that’s a good sign!
They have a great drink menu and I saw plenty of pretty drinks going around that I would have liked to try – maybe next time! Like other reviewers, I think this is a great place for drinks and get togethers.

I can’t imagine this place is packed for any reason other than the location. The location gets two stars. It it weren’t clean and nearby, it would get one star.
Mexican food should be cheap, but this place didn’t adhere to that. Plus, I’m not even sure it is Mexican food because the menu is completely confused. Above my chimichangas that I got was butternut squash ravioli??? Why?
When I got my chimichangas, there was such a tiny amount of guacamole and mango salsa (honestly, the mango salsa is what attracted me) on the side that my husband and I burst out laughing and took pictures. It was maybe enough for two bites of my food. I’ll attach a photo.
It just got worse when I cut into the chimichanga. Out poured this tomato cream sauce completely devoid of any flavor or Mexican spice — it seemed more like a cheap jarred sauce in the italian food aisle. Plus, it was supposed to be filled with onions and peppers and I, honest to god, got ONE green pepper in the whole thing.
On the side I got a Caesar salad (again… confused) that was so doused in dressing that I couldn’t eat it.
We came in here because it was a nice day, the patios nearby were too busy and I really wanted a margarita. Margaritas were pricey and were SO TART. I could tell it wasn’t an actual mixed drink, but some bottled margarita mix that was gross. I’d be happy paying $ 13 for a margarita if it was actually being mixed with high quality ingredients, but this sure as the sun came from a cheap bottle.
Service was fine, but it took about 20 minutes for someone to realize we were done eating and give us a bill. At that point I wanted to get out of there so bad that I almost chased down a waitress.
Will not come back here.